WATER+FIRE=AWESOME!!!!!

so here is a re-cap of our water fire festival experiences! it was fun!

Friday the 6th: Randomly walked right up to the opening parade!

it was quite an experience to say the least. Many people saw us as oddities which was rather interesting/cool. many photographers from newspapers (we think) took pictures of us watching the parade, and MANY of the people involved in the parade waived at us. we do stick out like sore thumbs around here!

we then walked to the festival, took in some opening ceremonies, saw a concert type thing, went to eat with friends, then went back to check it out at night. all it all, AWESOME

Saturday the 7th: we saw some of our friends pictures who stayed later than us at the festival . at the festival a giant bonfire was lit! We totally missed it. Tova and I were determined to see it before the festival was over.

Sunday the 8th. We took a circutous route around the lake to get to the festival. along the way we took a ferry across the water to get to the C-Bridge. Took manh pictures of the bridge that literally goes no where and proceeded to the festival. We arrived too late to get pictures during the day so it was at night, and we wanted to walk on the temporary dragon pier (yes they had a temporary dragon pier. when we got there the guards were kicking people off the pier. we noticed that everyone was gathering RIGHT where we were standing so we stayed put. we waited for 30 minutes, the whole time people were piling behind us now 10 deep! a HUGE light/lazer show started RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! we seriously had the best seats in the house.

after we experienced the fireworks after the lazer show we watched some women drummers and then watched them light the small bon-fire. we were experienced out, so we decided to go home and try for the big bon-fire the next day.

Monday the 9th: this time we made sure to leave in time to get to the festival to make sure we didnt miss the big bon-fire. the only reason why we went today was to see the large bon-fire. we tried to decipher the schedule of events and surmised that they would set it on fire around 9-10 o'clock. it was 3:30, we had time. we walked around a bit, walked on the temporary dragon pier and decided to get some food. we had enough time since at this time it was only 4:30. we went to the theater so we could get some hot dogs. the hot dog place was closed so i had popeyes! it was awesome. we decided to head on back to the festival and saw that people were running towards the large bonfire. it was only 6:30 at this point! we decided that we had to run as well. right when we got there they started the ceremony to light the large bonfire. WE ALMOST MISSED IT!

the drummers who had the ribbons on their heads started to march around the haybale structure. they were followed by the 2 person costumed lion that we saw in the museum. they marched in drumming and regular citizens who had torches followed them around the haybale structure. they made a large circle around the structure and slowly but surely made smaller concentric circles around the structure as more and more people with torches filed on in. there had to be at least 200 people with torches!

when they finally were done they all stopped. an announcer counted "hana, tul, set" and on 3 (set) everyone with a torch lit the structure on fire and started to RUN!!!! they ran right towards us AND PAST US!!! we almost died.

in less than a second the whole structure was up in flames and the heat was indescribable!

i started to walk back a bit since it was pretty hot when all of a sudden the structure was shedding some of its LONG embers and they started to head right towards me! we were down wind so all of it was shedding right at us! some of the embers were falling around me, and some hit my coat and neck. i almost was set on fire. the firemen came and started dousing the ground with water, so that made me feel like if, no wait, when i caught on fire they could drench me and i would be ok.

tova by this point was really scared since she lost sight of me for a bit when everyone ran away. i was scared cause i almost was set on fire and almost died AGAIN. luckily we only lost track of each other for 10 seconds or so (tova thought it was 12 years, it definitley felt that way!) then there was a fireworks show!

btw: we have video of this whole experience, but its 30 minutes long, and dont have video editing software :-(

we couldnt believe our luck over the festival. we literally stumbled upon EVERYTHING!

we are so grateful that we could experience a part of our cities culture.

we took tons of pictures, if you dont have the link to view them let me know . . .

ps: tova took all these pictures, i stink at night photography, and according to my dad i also stink at madden!