Another fireworks festival

On Saturday night, I went to the small town of Arai outside Hamamatsu with Ayako to a local festival. This festival was for its shrine and they have fireworks for 2 of the nights. We got there in the late afternoon to see some young guys wearing the town's festival clothes singing and dancing in front of different stores to bring them good luck:
One of my students in the group saw me and so soon I was surrounded and brought in the crazy group:
Afterwards, Ayako and I tried to get a good place to sit before the fireworks started:
The special thing about this fireworks display is that the participates hold some large fireworks while they are going off:
They have even larger flame-throwing fireworks, but of course theses are too large to be held by hand:
Overall, it was an interesting fireworks display to watch. We are going to another one on Sunday with a number of friends. Today was also the first day I got to the beach, so it was a good, relaxful day.