Daisen City's Fireworks Competition

Hello everyone! Or should I say こんにちは, now that I (finally) made it to Japan... I had to go through Korea to get here. It wasn't a pleasant experience for me... I had an 8 hour flight (the time flew by on the plane), an 18 hour layover (I do not like Incheon Airport), then a 2 hour ride to Akita (seemed like 15 minutes). But I made it, and I'm loving Japan so much.

My first real event in Japan was the Daisen City annual fireworks competition. It's a prestigious competition that fireworks masters prepare the whole year for. It's when they get to show off their newest creations. It was really amazing. This year, there was estimated at over a million people attending the festival.
If you follow Japanese fireworks competitions, (which I doubt many of you do) you'd know that I'm actually posting late because the competition was on August 25. Sorry!

I'm friends with a girl from Tokyo, who actually has family that live in Daisen City. They were nice enough to pick us up from the train station and actually save spots for us (AND buy us yakisoba!). I felt so grateful. The show itself didn't start until around 6, but people were there since before 11 to claim the good seats.

When I was first planning to go to Akita, I was told that it was going to be in the rural country. When I think that, I don't picture cities at all... so I was actually really surprised when I arrived at Daisen City and actually saw a city, with tall building, etc.

This is my first festival, but from what I've seen they're all generally the same. There was great food selection, though it did get repetitive. I just loved the entire setup.

There were also games to play. Of course I played and lost...

The fireworks were gorgeous against the setting sun.

I had to contain myself and resist posting up all of my fireworks pictures! If you would like to see more, though, I'm planning to upload the raws to my flickr account. I'll get on that eventually, (when I run out of space on my memory card).

Overall, it was a good day and I'm glad I got to spend it with friends. It was a great start to my stay in Japan, and so far, Japan has not disappointed. 

And to end, I uploaded a video of the fireworks finale. (Though they called it the "finale," I don't think they understood what that meant, exactly, because they continued to shoot of fireworks for the twenty minutes we walked back to the train station...)
Enjoy!

Blue Man Group

I know I haven't blogged in a while and I'm sorry! I'd like to say hi to all my new followers first of all and thank you for following me!
Since my last post (which was during Spring Break) I haven't really done anything exciting, which is basically why I don't have any new posts... But I did go to see The Blue Man Group in New York City!

Started my day off right with a breakfast burrito and hash browns!

Where I live at school is right across the street from McDonald's, so my friends and I went there for breakfast before leaving for the show.  I eat way too much McDonald's for my own good (and this probably won't be the last time you'll see me mentioning it here!) but I just love their breakfast menu so much!

My school is about two hours up from the city, in "lovely" Poughkeepsie. What's one of the biggest perks is that they have Broadway trips about once a month, where they provide a ticket for the show and a bus taking you there and back for only $25! As you can see, those tickets would've cost me $76 if I had bought them on my own, and the train costs an extra $40 round trip! 

I had bad tickets for this show, but that's not always the case. I saw some of my classmates got seats in the splash zone (where you have to get ponchos because you can get splashed with paint) for this show! And when I went to see Wicked, my ticket cost almost $200! So you just have to be lucky...

I wanted to go to Momofuku Milk Bar while I was in the city and try their "Crack Pie" but I didn't know we were going to get dropped off in NoHo!  Oops...

Now before any real New Yorkers get on my case, I do know how to use the subway system! I just didn't want to pay and have to rush back to the theater... So instead, I went to Trader Joe's and got some snacks... Close enough I guess. 

The theater was so tiny! The line for the bathroom took me almost half an hour... 

Despite my unfortunate lack of planning, I still had a really good time at the show. It was a lot funnier than I thought it would be! I'd definitely see it again, especially because a lot of their show relies on impromptu acting and audience participation, so you're never going to have exactly the same show twice. I had a lot of fun and I hope to catch another Broadway show before the year is over. 

xoxo, morgin

Have any of you ever been to a Broadway show before?