Remember, remember...

I've just got back from an interesting Guy Fawkes night. It was on the beach in Shichigahama, within view of the missionary cabins I've stayed in, in Takayama. A Brit from a neighbouring town, who is an ex JET and now runs his own English conversation school, organised it for free. It was a bit of a shambles to start with, starting a bit late. The bonfire wasn't lit until about an hour into proceedings, but think that was the plan. They had a bi-lingual sketch to explain the history of bonfire night (try explaining it in limited Japanese!). There was a display of some guys - they paraded round the bonfire shouting, 'a penny for the guy', but for some reason didn't actually throw them onto the fire!
There were longish queues for soup and hotdogs. But fortunately for me, being an ALT and having spread the word about it a bit or something, I was compensated with some free tokens for food... so had 2 hotdogs and 2 cups of pumpkin soup on the house, which was nicely unexpected! An Irish ALT spun some poi (the Mauri thing) with fire, which was cool. Then they dished out sparklers- I was given two, which were, well, sparkly. And then just as the event was nearly over, the fireworks were set off.
It was an interesting scene- some screamers, but mostly silent, colourful fireworks, poi being spun, all set under a full moon by the Pacific Ocean in a peaceful setting. Not your typical bonfire night, but probably one that will stay with me for a while yet.
[Again, if only I had my camera... seem to have temporarily misplaced it- oh dear, hopefully it'll turn up soon!] So here's one pinched from someone else's website in the meantime...