Why you should visit the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival

Last night was the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival, and it's widely regarded as one of the best fireworks events in all of Japan. It's an event that I would definitely recommend others check out at least once during their time living here, for a few reasons!

First is just the scale of the event. My picture doesn't do it justice (do night smartphone images ever capture fireworks well enough?) but it's such a massive display of pyrotechnics. It runs for about two hours, which is a huge difference to my home country where fireworks events might be a 15 or 30 minute thing if you're lucky. 

Second is that it has quite a lot of meaning behind it. The event was started back in 1946 as a way to mourn those who died in World War 2 (Nagaoka was one of the cities bombed), and has been an important fixture on the local calendar since.

It's also a relatively easy festival to access even if you don't have your own vehicle, since it's about 20 minutes on foot from Nagaoka Station. Not too bad of a walk once the sun sets!