Big Bang.

Suwa.
The perfect way to end Obon and celebrate Oli's birthday. Suwa. Fireworks. Festival. We took the night bus from Tokyo last night to Suwa and got here around 11. I passed out so hard on that bus ride. It seemed to last 20 minutes and not the three hours it really was. We got to Oli, hopped on our bikes and headed home. My feet felt like two baby elephants and I was exhausted.
We got home and I showered... and then everything else was a blur until I opened my eyes the next morning. This day was big. It was Oli's birthday (yataaaa!) AND her student offered to dress us in yukatas (casual summer kimonos) AND it was the highly anticipated Suwa Fireworks Festival (one of the biggest fireworks festival in Japan). This promised to be an awesome day.
We got on our bikes, got some breakfast and went to Mitsuko's house to get the day started. Breakfast was a mistake. We got to her house and she had cake, tempura, sushi, Japanese fried chicken, tea, coffee...the eating was unceasing, seriously. Mitsuko was super generous and really gracious. Her family was so kind. She took us to a temple very close to her house and the resident at the temple treated us so kindly. More eating, of course. He so took us through the temple and explained everything - in Japanese of course- and then he busted out the green tea and sweets and we sat in the temple with a beautiful Japanese garden as our backdrop.
Breathtaking experience.
Yukatas time! We walked back to the house to get dressed for the festival. Putting on a yukata is work. Not for the wearer, but for the poor person who has to do all that science with the tying and the obi and the bow and aaaah! Insane. 30 minutes later we were dressed and feeling beautiful.
Festival time! Another one of Oli's students gave her some super buck seats for the festival, I'm talking center stage, first row-buck!  So we walked through an intense crowd of people, passing hundreds of street vendors on the way and made our way to our seats. This was the most incredible display of fireworks I have ever seen I my life. 36 sets, each one bigger than the last. The finale was a 2km replica of Niagara Falls with all kinds of other craziness going on around it. I was floored. It was thorough. There were so many people here, it trumped a Tokyo crowd on it's busiest day.  I think we had a bossy day. A super bossy vacation and now it's back to life, back to reality. So here I am on the 6am bus headed back to Kanagawa. Dying inside. I feel like a kid at the end of summer vacation without the joy of back to school shopping. "It's over, it's over. But it's far from over."
Talk to you soon.

Love,
The Gypsy