On Saturday, we took the train to Yanai, South of us, to witness a greatly talked about Goldfish Lantern Festival. The main event is the parade. When we got there, it was about 4:00pm. The parade didn't start until 6:30pm so we had time to walk around, take in the sights, and make our own goldfish lanterns. It was another ridiculously hot day, even if the sun was not at it's peak. It stayed hot our entire duration and there wasn't a moment that I wasn't fanning myself or the kids. It was just that hard to cool down.
Even thought it was crowded, it was nothing like the traumatic experience days before. Plus, there were a ton of Americans from base there so we didn't feel quite so alone. After we figured out where things were, we found the craft area and painted some goldfish lanterns. Rylan decided he didn't want to paint one so I painted his. I really enjoyed it. We went from there straight to a spot on the side of the main street to hunker down and wait for the parade. Because we were at the end of the parade path, it took a while for it to reach us but was so neat! Each part of the parade really took a lot of time to do their thing. There was a traditional dance performed and then a class of drummers that stopped right in front of us and played for at least a half-hour. They even let the kids play on the drums when they took a break. Then they had their goldfish floats as the finale to the parade. After asking around a bit, we were told the best place to see the fireworks was from the bridge, so we headed that way to claim a spot (not tarps here). Did I mention it was really hot? To avoid carrying a bunch of weight, we decided to not bring water bottles and just get some from vending machines as we needed. The problem was because it was such a small town, they didn't have as many as we're used to seeing and the ones we did come across either didn't have water in it at all or was sold out. Chris sat with the kids while I went on a mission to find some. I was able to find a small shop front selling drinks from a plastic tub with ice and took all 5 of his remaining waters. Carrying 5 ice waters back to our spot was glorious, I was able to put my fan away for the entire walk back.
When the fireworks started, we learned the best spot was not from the bridge. A large building stood in front of where the fireworks were actually displayed...closer to the train station where we were standing originally for the parade. The tears started again- we were 0-2 on fireworks so far. Tired, overheated, and disappointed, we loaded the train back home and decided fireworks are overrated.
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