Posted by Jackie Hewett on Tue 10th July 2007 at 03:43 AM, Filed in Far East, August
If pyrotechnics are your thing you should put a visit to Tondabayashi City on 1st August on your ‘to do’ list. They claim to host the largest annual firework display with some 100,000 fireworks let off in just one hour – usually starting at about 19.45. The grand finale sees some 7000 fireworks launched simultaneously.
The event started in 1953 at the request of the founder of the PL religious group (or Church of Perfect Liberty) and is staged on the area known as the PL Hills. The Japanese word for firework is ‘Hanabi’, and they even have a hanabi ‘season’ – basically every summer lakes, rivers and even ski resorts all over Japan let off a barrage of explosions with up to 5,000 displays taking place throughout July and August. About 250 of these are large scale events and 50 are held around Tokyo. The Tondabayashi display is famed for its ‘Niagara’ which rises to some 50 meters and stretches nearly a kilometre across the sky to represent a waterfall.
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Heard about the burning man? Nope? Well this might just be the alternative trip for you.....
It’s a week long annual art festival held last August / early September (over America’s Labour Day) in the Black Rock Dessert that some 30,000 people attend. It started life on a San Francisco beach in the mid 80’s when Larry Harvey decided to burn a wooden ‘home-made’ statue of a man in allegiance to his father. The festival moved to its current location in 1990 when it had become so popular as to constitute a safety risk, and it became a more ‘formal’ gathering.
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