- TAMAYA!!!!!!! -

currently listening to - Gedo Senki Song Collection
mood - i'm on holiday, dudes (and dudettes)

went to the world's greatest (?) hanabi performance yesterday, 1st of August. the Kyoso Matsuri PL Hanabi Geijutsu (教祖祭PL花火芸術). don't ask me what the hell does that mean. ask google.

sometimes i question myself why are we so smart. an hour after the last class of spring semester ended (which was about 2pm), we took a bus to Senri Chuo station. had a one-hour-and-20-minutes train journey down to southern Osaka and tadaa, we're at Tondabayashi. another sunny day (probably it's more than 35 degrees). had no idea where was the celebration held, so we followed the yukata crowd out of the station, up the hill, down the slope, into some convenience shop, passing by lots and lots of food and games stalls.

since the good hanabi viewing place costed 1000 yen (which can be spent on food to fill my stomach for about 3 days), we decided to go behind the viewing place with most of the visitors and settled down. white fluffy clouds were floating lazily in the azure sky. cicada orchestras performing their all-time favourite music piece around us (which sounded something like HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

TTTTTTTTTTTTTT....) . yeah. throngs of people chatting on the road with okonomiyaki/ringo ame/yakisoba in their hands.

yes. we were sitting on a 2-laned road. it was so packed with homo sepians that even a single bicycle couldn't pass through without struggling.

and then we took a look at our watches. it was almost 5pm. when was hanabi supposed to start again? 8pm.

great.

scorching sun. squealing cicadas. no playing cards. no food. no drinks. we tried various methods to kill boredom. the most interesting one (during that desperate 3 hours) was memory game. a person says a type of food. then the next one continues by stating the food mentioned by the previous person, then his/her own food. and so on and so forth. it was so freaking "interesting" that i can still remember what we said till my friend before me gave up.

"モンブラン(Mont Blanc). 焼肉(roast meat). しゃぶしゃぶ(shabushabu). チーズケーキ(cheese cake). オムライス(omelette fried rice). パフェ(parfait). お好み焼き(okonomiyaki). もんじゃ焼き(monjayaki). アイスクリーム(ice-cream). 鉄板焼き(teppanyaki). スイカ(watermelon). チョコレート(chocolate). りんご飴(apple sweet). カレーライス(curry rice). ハヤシライス(hayashi rice). チャーハン(chinese fried rice). キムチ(kimchi). チヂミ(chidjimi). とんかつ(tonkatsu). ラーメン(ramen). ポッキー(pocky). うなぎ(unagi). 焼きそば(yakisoba). てんぷら(tenpura). お茶(ocha). ソフトクリーム(soft cream). チッキンカツ(chicken katsu). からあげ(fried chicken)."

and obviously, we caught everyone's attention. they'd probably be thinking 1.'what a weird bunch of gaijin', 2.'how can they speak japanese when they don't look japanese?', 3.' they must be PRs', 4.'they must be half-japanese brought up in foreign countries' (coz we spoke in different intonations). =p

argh, mentioning those names make my stomach rumble...

finally. after what seemed like a gazillion years.. beautiful hanabi began soaring through the dark sky at 8pm. they appeared in various formations and shapes and colours, capturing every audience's attention. it would've been more wonderful if there weren't any sakura trees in front of us (we had to strain our eyes through the leaves to watch the performance). but eventually, the hanabi were shot higher and higher into the sky, and by half past 8, we could enjoy the view comfortably (except that we had to bear the heat attacking our butts). the last moment was indeed very touching. pity that i didn't manage to take a picture of that. but i knew all 4 of us went "oh my goodness..." in our hearts.

the journey back to northern Osaka was interesting. but it wasn't fun. coz we're racing against time. made me feel like we're war refugees trying to get over to the other side of the country's boundary when Tondabayashi station was actually right in front of us. we had to squeeze through seas of people for almost 2 hours to reach the station. fortunately in the end, we managed to get onto the last bus from Senri Chuo to Aodanchi (a bus stop half-an-hour's walk away from our dorm).

all in all, it's a memorable day. spent only 600 yen on food for the entire day, but spent about 4 times the amount of money on transportation. oh yay. probably won't be going to this 120-thousand-shot hanabi performance for some years, especially if i shift out of Osaka next year.