Boom boom boom
Liz, one of my friends at work, invited me last week to view fireworks over Tokyo Bay on Sunday along with her husband and their friends. I invited MXG, but since MXG's husband was also interested it meant she wasn't coming with me. I don't think I could endure another meeting with him--remind me to tell you about our one and only meeting, it's a doozy--so I told MXG where we were meeting (Kachidoki station, on the Toei Odeo Line--god knows where that is, I thought) in case her husband changed his mind and MXG wanted to join us.
I was running late, so I arrived at Kachidoki station--along with throngs of people--at 7:15. I went through the ticket gates and began looking around for Liz, and lo, there was MXG coming through the gate behind me (it's hard to miss a 5' 10" blonde gaijin, even in a crowd). She didn't see me, but I bugged out before she or her husband could spot me.
I joined the wave of people surging up the stairs to the street and joined Liz and her group.. By this time, the fireworks had begun, and I could hear the dull crump of the explosions in the distance. We joined the crowds headed for the viewing area.
Where Kachidoki station is (though I had to look it up on a map later to figure this out) is on an island reclaimed from Tokyo Bay, one of two spits of land off of Tsukiji, near the Ginza, upon which have been laid an (uncharacteristically regular) grid of streets and apartment blocks. We pushed along tens of thousands of people, along the wide throughfare over a bridge separating the two islands (the open space bringing a welcome cool breeze). The police, however, had erected plastic sheets to block the view and keep sightseers from congregrating on the bridge (though this was only partially successful, since people slowed down to look through the gaps in the sheet to see the colorful bursts over the bay.
We stopped at some sidewalk stand and bought some beer, and eventually managed to make our way down some wide road off of the thoroughfare, towards the southwest end of the island, though we only got as far as an open area by some warehouses with a partially obstructed view.
I had (of course) brought my new digital camera, and took this opportunity try it out and experiment with various (and to me, poorly understood) settings. I shot off my entire memory capacity (192 MB), trying various settings and trying not to twitch too much as I pressed the shutter switch.
The show lasted over an hour, with many novel (to me, at least) explosive patterns, including some that resembled weeping willow trees, and one that created a kind of halo effect resembling Saturn (see to the right). The patterns seemd more inventive to me than what I used to see at the 4th of July fireworks back in the Bay Area (and, of course, unobstructed by fog). Way cool.
Not so cool was fighting our way back to the subway station after the show at 9:30, as tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) or people made their way back along with us. The subway station, when we finally arrived, was so crowded that we pushed onto the next subway station a kilometer away. Which was also crowded, albeit not as much. By the time we threaded our way down the stairs and onto the platform, it had been about an hour since the show ended.
The group went off to Kinshicho for drinks, but as I had to get up early on Monday, I opted to go straight home. Nevertheless, it was after midnight by the time I dragged myself home, hot, sweaty, thirsty, and with aching legs. Oy, it was exhausting. But fun.
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