Here’s a sample video of some of Japan’s if not the worlds best fireworks. Truly a work of art.

One of Brian’s passions growing up is Fireworks. Having setup a pyrotechnic company http://www.pyro-works.com in Cebu, Philippines in 2000, that does fireworks shows for festivals and all kinds of celebrations. This year we attended the International Fireworks Symposium in Omagari, Japan for a fireworks symposium and nightly fireworks shows from the best in Japan and all around the world! The symposium happens every 18 months, Brian has been to 8 of it, Ive been to 3 (Malta 2012, Bordeaux 2015 and Japan 2017).

The city of Omagari, is home to 5 fireworks manufacturers and the National Fireworks Competition where each year 28 firework companies compete for the Prime Minister’s Prize and it attracts over 700,000 spectators. 2017 will be the 108th year since the competition began in 1910.

Fireworks play an important role in Omagari society as shown by their catch-phrase “Fireworks Everyday”.

Since we were already in Japan, we stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel (ryokan) called Yamanote Hotel. Some other delegates from Europe also were on the same hotel with us.

Omagari is the land of hanabi and cherry blossoms, so we made sure we see the beauty of both. We were lucky the symposium venue had a lot of blooming sakuras around.

To cap off every nice trip, there should be good food! Wagyu is number 1 in our mind so we dropped by the best wagyu place in Akita called Gyugentei and it surely didn’t fail our expectations.

We had a great visual and gastronomical experience in Japan, and they have the nicest people in Asia. Surely a country we will definitely go back to.

Here are more videos from our favorite shows in Omagari: