Dezomeshiki!

It's January 6th -- Dezomeshiki here in Japan. That's the day when the fire brigade goes back into formation after the New Year. I took the picture above from my car, but it's part of the demonstration. They spray water, the sirens are going, balloons were released and there were firefighters dressed up as they would dress back in the old days.

By the time we finally got into place, it was over, but if you look really hard you can still see one of the firefighters dressed as he would have in the olden days... at least that's how it was explained to me.

Afterward, the fire officials were handing out balloons to the kids and then the kids were releasing them into the air.

This was near Hirado in Kyushu.

The reason we were late was a major traffic back up as the police above were chasing papers all over the roadway. The picture above doesn't show it, but the papers were ALL over the place!