Since moving to the other side of Tokyo (i.e., the west side to the east side), people often ask if I can see the Sumida River fireworks from my building. Last year, unfortunately, I completely forgot about the date until the actual day and missed them because I was not at home.

Last night (July 25), I decided to stay home and sit on the balcony and see what I could see. It’s probably a good thing because, looking at the building going up with that crane, it’ll be the last time I’ll be able to see them from my balcony.

What I also decided last night is that fireworks are rather boring when you can’t hear the sound of the fireworks going off or the sound of the excited crowd down below. Added to that, the show went on for so long (just over 2 hours) that I actually started to wish it would end. All in all, although I can see it from my balcony, it was just slightly too far to be spectacular, so I am looking forward to August 8th and the Tokyo Bay Fireworks (東京湾大華火祭) because they are much closer to the building and there will be the noisy, excited, crowd factor.

I actually like this one best (obviously not because of how the firework itself turned out, but because of the green glow lighting up the Tokyo sky):