花火

There were fireworks last night. I don't really know why, and neither does my homestay brother Kenta. Have I mentioned Kenta? He's a wonderful guy, very Canadian in a lot of ways – he spends a lot of time swearing in English though. I guess that's a natural tendency for somebody learning a new language.

I actually picked up a Chinese swear-word the other day from a couple of the Chinese exchange students in Jesse's dorm. I think it means penis, and while I don't really know the characters for it, it's pronounced something like Sharpie, the pen company. I haven't had much opportunity to use it though, what with being in Japan and all.

The fireworks were nice though. It was probably an early-Halloween thing. Halloween isn't really big here, but everybody knows about it. Though I've been asked a couple times if it was a Christian thing (I answered it wasn't really, am I right?) I think its main source of infamy is the Gaijin Osaka Loop-line Halloween Party, which has happened every year since the turn of the millenium. Apparently the revelers shut down the line for about ten minutes last year, and most Japanese consider it to be a bit “dangerous.



Gaijin means foreigner, by the way. Here's the footage from the last couple of year's on Google's YouTube: 2005 Pt. I; 2005 Pt. II; 2004.

When I come back after graduation in a couple years I want to go. I'll be rowdy and dangerous and very, very foreign. The Japanese will flee my fiercesome countenance. The police will whistle at me.

The Japanese word for fireworks, 花火 hanabi breaks down into “fire” (on the right) and “flower” (on the left). It's a pretty word, for a pretty thing. The show was about fifteen minutes long, but I missed most of it because it was down by the water, and the intervening houses obscured most of it. I saw only those that soared the highest and shone the brightest. Them and Icarus, baby.

I still need to get a Halloween costume. Last-minute suggestions?