Mikuni Fireworks

Hello again everyone,

On Tuesday I took a train about 1 hour north of Sabae to a small seaside town called Mikuni for a day of beachside fun and fireworks in the evening. The beach was great, but unfortunately the waves were weak in comparison to anywhere in California, so there wasn't much opportunity for body surfing or anything of that sort. The area was packed with people all day in anticipation for the fireworks, and by nightfall there must've been about 10,000 there. Once the sun set it was time for the big fireworks show. I have to say that it was by far the best fireworks show I've ever seen in my life. The local crew really went all out with the display. To give you an idea of how it was done: the beach is moon shaped and only around 3 football fields long, with bars of land a few hundred meters long jutting out into the ocean on each side. One of the bars of land was completely sectioned off, and this is where they shot the fireworks off from. Not only did they shoot straight up into the air, but they somehow managed to shoot the mortars out horizontally only 25 or so feet over the water at times too. Most impressively though, they had two boats which sped around throwing lit mortars into the water. I've never seen or even heard of anything like this, and it was just as awesome as it sounds with dozens of mortars creating massive explosions on the water while the boats presumably fled as fast as they could. As if awesome fireworks wasn't enough, on the land bar workers were also lighting giant kanji (japanese word/pictures) aflame on the shore. Once those were done, they lit what had to be a 200-300 meter long rope which showered a 30ft high wall of flame down the entire landbar. Another part of the show included picture fireworks, such as a giant fish or shooting an arrow through a target. There were also a series of special fireworks which mostly consisted of extra-giant mortars individually designed to do crazy stuff. I think the best part of the whole show was the super excited announcer who would frantically describe every firework event as if he were introducing the '96 Chicago Bulls. Hearing something like, "(frantic Japanese, frantic Japanese) SUPAH EXPLOSIVE FIRE GRRAAAND FINALIEEEEEE!!!" only served to bump my firework watching experience from a 10 to an 11 on the awesomeness scale.

After the show was over, four of us decided to try and camp out on the beach. This was kind of an all-or-nothing experiment, as none of us had cars, and the last train home until morning was at 11pm. Besides a 2 person tent, passports, and wet swim trunks, we didn't have much, so we set our for the nearest konbini (24hr convenience store) guided by the GPS of a trusty iPhone. Unfortunately, the trusty iPhone actually ended up leading us in circles for about an hour. This being summer in Japan and it therefore being 80 degrees with ridiculous humidity, we didn't get to the konbini until we were all soaked with sweat and ready to pass out. Finally, after a daunting uphill trek, we spied the glorious flourescent lights of Circle K. We purchased our beer and snacks and scarfed them down out front. I'll tell you this: there is nothing quite like hanging out front of a konbini in the middle of nowhere in rural Japan at one in the morning. Strange things were afoot at the Circle K.

First a couple of drunk guys pulled up, and the one of them who was driving actually slammed into the automatic door while trying to enter the store. They bought some drunkie snack food, ate it in their car, and threw all the wrappers out the window. They took off and almost drove right over the two foot high curb before slamming on the brakes and correcting the mistake. As they swerved off, a cop appeared out of nowhere right on their tail... I would assume they got pulled over.

As the drunks left to meet their fate, we encountered the next fellow wanderer in the night: squatting girl. This girl looked to be about 16 and was squatting by herself at the edge of the parking lot. I should mention at this point that squatting flat footed is apparently very common and confortable for Japanese people, but physically impossible to most westerners from a flexibility standpoint. Anyways, this 90lb teenage girl was just hanging out by herself in the middle of nowhere at the edge of an unlit parking lot.

Unfortunately for her, after 10 minutes passed she encountered the third group of vagabonds: the roving scooter gang. This guys, about the same age as the girl, were weaving back and forth through the general vicinity with gangsta blue bandanas tied around their faces. The only thing killing their badass look was the 50cc yamaha putt-putt scooters they were riding. When they pulled up next to squatting girl, we naturally thought the worst, and I was forced to consider whether saving this damsel in distress by beating the gangsters over the head with their own 25lb scooters was feasible. We had forgotten one important detail though; this is Japan, not downtown LA, New York, or Chicago. The guys probably asked the girl where she got her Hello Kitty cell phone decorations or something, and were on their way.

Anyways, after the Circle K weirdness we made it back to the beach around 1:30am prepared to set up camp and enjoy the serenity of the ocean at night. Sadly, we had failed to take into account a few problems. First, there were dozens of people on the beach still! Most of them were roaming through the trash on the beach with flashlights, looking for forgotten treasure such as wallets, cell phones, etc. Also, of all the people on the beach, we were the only ones who seemed to be spending the night there. Our concern grew when we were approached by no less than seven police officers, asking for our passports and speaking way to much Japanese. We played the part of dumb foreigners to perfection, and the police left us alone most likely out of fear for the hassle kicking us off would entail them. Finally, we could burrow inside our tent and get a nice, peaceful nights rest.

Nope. As soon as the cops were out of sight, a motley band of evil Japanese high schooler hillbillies showed up... with fireworks. Since of course seeing the ultra-expensive multi thousand dollar display earlier in the night could only be improved by lighting off 2 cent effing firecrackers for the next two hours. I'm pretty sure at one point they were actually standing over our tent lighting these things off. Once these evil rebels decided they'd had all the fun they could stand, it was time for some nice shut eye... for about an hour. Then of course around 5:30am it was time for a full Normandy-style assault on Mikuni beach, for cleaning purposes. The troops, which consisted of hundreds of middle school students with teachers, as well as two loud ass diesel engine dunebuggy/golf cart/beach dragger hybrids, were a gentle, refreshing awakening after one whole hour of sleep. After packing up the tent, it was just one quick hour long train ride to my glorious 2 inch thick Japanese style futon pad bed and hours of make-up sleep along with it.

***I've uploaded some images which cannot hope to convey the epicness of the Mikuni fireworks display. The first photo is a shot of about half of the beach, taken early during the day but you can see how packed it is. You can also see a bit of one of the land bars that goes out into the water. This isn't the one they shot fireworks off of, but hopefully you get the picture. The other photo is of one of the boat-dropped mortars exploding on the water, and the video below is similar. The video isn't mine... I took my own but it had way to much cursing from all of us having our collective minds blown by the incredible fireworks :)***