♥怡: hanabi

And so, the countdown begins. As I'm nearing the day of my departure, I'm feeling increasingly anxious. There are still so many things to do, places to go, people to see..

So I'll tackle things one at a time and see how far I get.

Late summer is the season of fireworks festivals in Japan. This year, the Koto Fireworks Festival 江東花火大会 is held on August 1st. What people usually do is dress up in their yukata and gather to see the fireworks.

The weather forecast said that it was definitely going to rain that day, so I was quite bummed out, but I didn't let it stop me! I still put on my yukata and everything.

I met up with my friend Ayaka early in the day anyway to just hang out and chat.

And then, dinner at つるとんたん! There are only a couple of restaurants that I went to more than once and this udon place is one of them. Once again, I'd like to emphasize how amazingly delicious this place is. If there is any restaurant I have to recommend to anyone traveling in Tokyo, this will be it. The homemade udon noodles are so chewy with just the right amount of resilience, and the cream-based sauce it comes with gives it the most unique taste and blend of cultures.

Of course, it comes with many other sauces and flavors, even in the traditional broth.

The orders come in different sizes at the same price, so you can choose your portion. Being the hungry greedy beast that I was, I ordered everything in the largest size (I was thinking everyone could share, hey!), and that was the biggest mistake I could have made. There really was too much, even with four people! The bowls were so enormous, I felt I could swim in it! It was still really delicious, nonetheless.

When we were all filled, it was already almost 19:00. My bad for the poor timing. With the festival starting at 19:30, I realized that the place must be really crowded by then, so I decided on a whim to just ditch the festival and make one! Fireworks are banned in New York City, so I've always been itching to do hanabi in Japan. We went to ドンキホーテ Don Quixote (a large discount chain store) to purchase our own hanabi.

Our choice of location was the Sumida River. With Skytree in the background, we created the best memories!

And you see, this is the power of perseverance! I was able to change the weather forecast! Not a drop of rain fell today.

It was really windy and the air was moist, so it was hard to light up the fireworks. In the end, we decided to just create a fire by burning paper (lol Jay).