Addendum. Candles and fireworks: Yoru Ume Matsuri in Kairakuen (part 3)

It’s already more than three weeks ago, time flies these days. Lots of events, graduation, people leaving, publishing paper, and work kept me quite busy, so I was not able to post this earlier. And now the new students have arrived. I still hope you’ll enjoy a few impressions from the spectacular Yoru Ume Matsuri in Kairakuen.

It’s the first highlight of the year with lots of people coming to Kairakuen. You can wander around the big park where several special trees are lit up festively. In the last years a few candles showed the way through the plum tree forest, but the popularity of the event is also is enemy, since more and more people flock to the park. It’s still not Tokyo, but maybe close.
A few things happen in parallel in the park. Unfortunately the hours are almost to short to take in everything. You will find the usual food vendors in front of the park and Tokiwa Jinja. A special festive food court is in the lower part of the park. They have everything, ranging from pizza to sausages on a stick, turkey drum stick, fries, all the way to ramen. Draft beer, hot and cold sake, as well as coffee and tea are served, too. But for any such events it is quite common to bring your own drinks. Sweets of various kind are also available. It’s without seeing anything else a wonderful night out.
Apart from the various specialities, the park undergoes a spectacular transformation. What is pure nature at day is some kind of art installment at night. Many trees are highlighted with special, in part colourful, lights. Other parts of the park remain completely dark. The big meadows are covered in candles and people. Even a long walk between modernized, but traditional looking lanterns is now part of the festival. Three hours is hardly enough to take it all in. While I know from previous visits, that Kobuntei is also equipped with artful lanterns, we had to skip it this year dues to time issues. It also appeared quite crowded, which was another point to consider.
The last act of the festival is a rather brief fireworks display. In order to have a good view, you need to be in the right spot at the right time. With the necessary preparation – that I was able to do this time around – you know where to go, but you have to be there early. Everything worked out in our favour, but I still think that time passed as double as fast as usual.

The food area in the lower part of the park was crowded, but not overcrowded. We had some wonderful food and beer to get us warm and in a festive mood. (I really need to apologize for the poor picture quality, but it is the only one I took at this place, so it has to suffice.)

Many trees were illuminated. It is hard to tell from the picture, because the flowers are quite small. It basically still looks like a dead tree.

At some places the trees were illuminated in different, changing colours. It is a bit mesmerising and I could have stayed there watching it for hours. It’s almost as good as staring into the open fire. I really don’t know why it gives me that much pleasure.

The bamboo forest got its fair share of illumination, too. I really like bamboo; the large plants are impressive and can really make you feel small. Well, I guess that is true for all big trees, or big things in general.

On the meadows of the park you can see the light installments. The bright line that forms in the background are lanterns that blur together. My phone is probably not good enough to get decent pictures of this kind of setting.

Up close, you can see that the lanterns are the traditional spring colours in Japan: white and pink just like the flowers. They have been paid for by various sponsors, unfortunately Ibaraki Univesity was not among them.

The candles were arranged as a crane this year. The motto of the picture that is laid out changes every year. I believe this year it symbolically stands for asking for peace – a crane usually does that in Japan.

The candles were glasses wrapped in colourful (or white) paper. Staff was regularly replacing burnt out candles with new ones. I am a bit surprised that with such events I have never heard of any accidents, and neither have I seen such a paper catching fire.

(Almost) Countless candles were laid out. At least too many, to fit it in one picture. People were very careful while walking around – it is a general meme that one is respectful towards each other. You might notice the few dark glasses in the foreground. Soon after I took the picture someone rushed in to replöace them. It is well organised.

Taking pictures of fireworks never really works for me. And I have taken far too many to actually see a difference in them anyway. This is just a sort of proof, that it happened. Fireworks are enjoyed best in the moment, to capture the experience is impossible. At least that is what I think.

Yes, it is impossible.

While I really tried to go back to the park during the daytime, I was unfortunately too busy to do so. Therefore this concludes the mini series about the Ume Matsuri. If I ever find the time and the pictures from the previous year, I will certainly write about it again. However, it has been a wonderful time and experience again and if you happen to be in the area in March (in the future), I wholeheartedly recommend going to Kairakuen.