Off the boat and to the combini to buy fireworks. We bought Hello Kitty and an Anpanman sets full of sparklers and squealers and mice hanabi that spin in circles on the ground. Crap those things are packaged! You need 10 minutes of unpacking before you can set anything on fire.

But they do include the coolest thing - special effect glasses. Actually in Japanese they are “不思議メガネ” (fushigi megane) - mysterious or wonderous glasses. Put them on and アンパンマンの頭がいっぱいあるよ！(You can see a lot of anpanman’s head). Actually in our case it was Uncle Jam’s face that we could see when viewing bright light sources. These glasses are the coolest. Watch someone with a lit sparkle and it looks as though they are holding a magic wand spewing forth cascades of anpanman heads. Don’t worry - I will bring some back to Canada because they are that cool.

A very special kind of hanabi for the Japanese is “線香花火” (senkou hanabi). You light these small, thin hanabi from a candle included with the fireworks set. They are held pointing downwards and if you are lucky you will get a small, beautiful, humble display of fireworks. They are different from sparklers - not so quick and high energy. The flickers of light almost seem to be dripping from the end. They are very special for people in Japan, said to represent the emotion of summer. Some friends told me that they are a good finale to hanabi parties at the end of summer - being small but beautiful they are symbolic of that end of summer happy-melancholy feeling. Oh and Wikipedia tells me that they say you can get the best fireworks if you hold it at a 45 degree angle downwards.

We ended with senkouhanabi and cleaned up but I don’t think I am done with hanabi for the summer. I see a few more bright nights ahead of me.