逗子の花火大会 - Fireworks in Zushi

This year about 7000 fireworks were used to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Zushi city's 花火大会. Zushi is a small city close to the more famous Kamakura, about 60km South from Tokyo. This map shows the place the pictures have been taken from. The gran finale, lasted 10 minutes, was incredibly impressive, with the fireworks used to mark the music. Absolutely magnificient!

A colorful palm


Chaos.


A nice trio.


Another nice trio. Too bad for the pole just in the center of the frame.



A bouquet

Ice-skating...

...or simply working?


Not the most comfortable kind of shoes, are they? ^_^



The hairstyle was also quite interesting... :-) I wonder how much time it would take to get ready for this photo session ^_^

Shinto Wedding

The predominant religion in Japan is Shinto (神道), which means "the Way (道) to Gods (神)".
In a traditional Shinto wedding, the bride wears the traditional white wedding kimono dress called shiro-muku (白無垢, where 白 means "white" and 無垢 means "pure, innocent"). The bride's wig is usually prepared in a style called bunkin-takashimada (文金高島田), and decorated with golden accessories and decorations that resemble a spike, symboling fertility. This wig is usually fitted in the place of the wedding, since it cannot fit in the car. In these pictures, however, the bride is wearing a white hat, named 角隠し (Tsunokakushi), which is traditionally worn to veil the bride's horns of jealousy, ego and selfishness. It also symbolized the bride's resolve to become a gentle and obedient wife. （→いいお嫁さんになります！） Another name for 角隠し is 綿帽子 (Wataboushi).
It takes at least three hours to dress up woman in bridal kimono.

The groom is dressed in a Montsuki kimono (紋付) with a short haori overcoat (羽織) bearing the family crest with pleated hakama (袴) pants.

World Champions... 1 year later