This weekend I went to the first fireworks festival of Tokyo’s summer, the Adachi Fireworks Festival on the Asakawa river.

It was IN-CREDIBLE.

There were fireworks that looked like red hearts, umbrellas, smiley faces, stars-within-circles, Doraemon’s face. Think about that – somebody figured out how to make shapes made of fire in the sky. It lasted from 7:30 to 8:30 and I have honestly never seen anything like it.

Shapes in the sky:

About 15 minutes into the show:

The big finish:

If you’re in Tokyo and want to see more 花火大会 (fireworks festivals) this Summer, there’s a massive list of them at gotokyo.org.

Aside: “firework” in Japanese is 花火 (“hanabi“). 花 = flower and 火 = fire. So they’re fireflowers!