Sukagawa Fire Festival

I recently had a fantastic weekend with my friends Mikka and Iain from Hanoi, who are also teaching in Japan through the same company I am. Mikka and Iain are living and working in Tokyo and decided to come out and visit me and the country side.

The three of us had met up my first weekend in Japan at our company conference. While at the conference we heard great things about the Sukagawa Fire Festival from my coworker Katie. Her sales pitch worked on us and we all decided to hit up the festival when it came around. Well, Katie done us well. The Sukagawa Fire Festival was freaking fantastic.

Kensuke and Masumi came along and explained to us that the festival was in honor of a King who had lost a battle on the same ground the festival was being held. Every year they light a castle and giant pilars of straw on fire to appease his spirit.

(PICTURE: Masumi and Kensuke watching the Fire Festival.)

When the fires began I started to take some pictures and quickly realized that any photo I took wouldn't look half as good as Mikka's. Mikka is an extremely talented photographer and was snapping away photos like she was the papparzi and the pillars were Brad Pitt. You can check out Mikka's photos on her blog: www.mikkarose.blogspot.com All of the pictures in this post were taken by Mikka.

Here is my favorite photo Mikka took that night. This fireman is epic:

Here's some pretty cool video from the night: