Fabulous Fireworks! (神戸花火大会 2017)

Saturday turned out to be an absolutely wonderful day!! The morning/afternoon was spent soaking up the sunshine at the beach, and the evening was an awesome fireworks display!

Every year Kobe has a fireworks display (and it's one of the more famous ones in Kansai...incidentally I also found out it's always held on the same night as the big fireworks display in Osaka--you have to choose!) Since fireworks are extremely popular, I was expecting there to be an insane amount of people there. Even more so because it's Kobe's 150th year. I was not disappointed--it was packed!

This year I decided to go to the fireworks by myself. There were a number of reasons for that, but the main one was that I didn't want to get frustrated and disappointed like last year when I went together with a big group. Anything that happened this year was to be my own fault or my own problem. Not to mention it's much easier for a single person to find somewhere to sit.

The spot I chose had a nice view, although it was occasionally obstructed by people walking by through the pathway of people. (The people sitting next to me complained about it a lot!) Overall I was incredibly happy with the evening.

The fireworks themselves were amazing, and the colors were extremely vivid. I enjoyed them.

The display went on for an hour. They would do a set for maybe 10 minutes, then had a five minute break before the next one.  After the first set, it got better because they turned out all of the big lights in the park so it was easier to see and focus on the fireworks!

Here's a video (kind of long) with some clips of the fireworks throughout the evening:

If the video doesn't work, click here to watch it.

It was also really nice because the moon was also included (although occasionally obscured by smoke) in the backdrop of fireworks.

And an explosion of photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the display was finished, there was one more challenge. Get through the throng of people to get out. 

 

Let me say, I am so incredibly glad that it wasn't necessary for me to take a train to get home. It must have taken at least 20 minutes to get across to a road that would normally only take about 5 minutes. After that I did a lot of zigging and zagging down side streets to avoid the crowds. Of course there were many people on the side streets as well, but it was much easier to move. After the train station, there was much fewer people around, but I ended up getting back into some crowds as I unexpectedly ran into a festival at a local shrine.