Thus a month before, I drew up a plan to visit the few fireworks festivals in the area. The first was Nagoya Port fireworks during the Marine Day, but I cancel the plan as I was pretty tired after the trip to Hiroshima.
The second one is to Gifu Nagara-kawa (Nagara river) Fireworks Festival. Heard this is Japan's top 3 fireworks festival with 30,000 fireworks to be released. This posting is about the Nagara-kawa Fireworks Festival. The third is to be in Nagoya Yada-river on the 2nd August. But I decide to skip it as the weather is just too hot and after seeing the best (Gifu Fireworks), the rest will be so-so.
This trip is somewhat special as I will be asking a few more colleagues to join me in the festival.
In the first photo we have Katayama-san, Fujisawa-san and Shin-san (from Korea).
And in the second photo we have me (from Singapore), Lin-chan (from Taiwan) and Park-san (from Korea).
We left our lodging at 4pm. We split into 3 groups, with one leaving from Tokadai, another leaving from Komaki and the third leaving from Ajioka. But I plan to meet everyone in the train. From Komaki-hara, the Tokadai group will be taking the 4.38pm train and we should arrive at our destination at 5.40pm. From Gifu train station, we took a bus to the Nagara-kawa fireworks area. There is a long queue of people going there, though it cost 200Yen per person. Notice a lot of people are dressed in Yukata.
When we arrived at our destination at 6.30pm, a large crowd has already gathered. Occasional fireworks were set off.
Here is one of the multi-coloured fireworks set off at 6.55pm. There are lots of stalls in the area selling food and drinks.
The first special fireworks went off at 6.55pm.
And it continue throughout the night till 8.45pm.
The following few photos are taken by lin-chan.
I have recorded a few videos of the fireworks for visitors to have a glimpse into it.
The Gifu fireworks festival have presenters from all over Japan - the different prefectures. It is different from the traditional fireworks we see in Singapore or the less popular fireworks festivals elsewhere in Japan, as the fireworks being released here follow a theme or pattern.
The variety is greater.
We start to leave around 8.30pm due to the huge crowd of people. An estimated 300,000 attended this festival. We got back to our rooms at 11.30pm.
