On my first day of Summer vacation, and also my last day before heading back to the US to visit family, I went to my first fireworks festival in two years at the Nagara river fireworks festival in Gifu, Japan (長良川花火大会).

This is one of the larger fireworks festivals in all of Japan, with thousands of fireworks and spectators. We took a JR train from Nagoya station 20 minutes to Gifu station, where we had to walk another 45 minutes to get to the spectating area for the fireworks area. Buses were also available, but there was a huge line and it didn’t seem to be worth the wait.

Rain was possible in the forecast all week, but apart from some extreme heat and humidity, there were no problems. We were deeply sweating by the time we reached the fireworks area, but we compensated for that by having some beers and eating some festival foods, including jaga-butter (じゃがバター), okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), and ika-yaki (いか焼き).