Fizzle, Flash, Bang, Boom

Last night myself and a friend went to see the final night of the Vancouver Festival of Lights fireworks display over the harbor by Kitsilano Beach. The ideal location is actually English Bay on the other side of the waters, but that would have been crowded to standing room only across the entire beach area, and also would have meant crossing the bridge both there and back again, adding a lot of time to our travels, especially with the crowds on the way back.

As I still don't own a camera, I don't have anything to show for it here. Claire stayed at home as we were house-sitting a cat for a friend, and she was feeling the effects of the days heat at that point anyway.

On the way to the beach, Jordan and I got lunch at a delicious noodle bar, and then I got a refreshing homemade lemonade from some young entrepreneurs on the sidewalk for just 25c. In a stroke of genius on their part, they had added mint leaves to the drink, and by the time I had finished my cup, I wanted to go back for seconds.

Instead we continued down to the beach and walked around for about 45 minutes before picking a spot, sitting on the rapidly cooling sand and waiting for the show.

The sun set over the waters, casting reds, oranges and yellows across the sky, and as the last bright rays of colour faded, the fireworks began.

There were massive spheres, small rockets, tiny pops, loud bangs, amazing ones that fizzled into smaller and smaller snowflake-like sparkles, hanging in the calm night air. There were twizzlers and spinners, and explosions of every colour! Reds and greens were the most popular, interspersed with blues, and golds. Toward the end there were heart shapes and disks, and even a very impressive set of staged rockets, that flared with each stage ignition, reminding me of the air distortion when a jet crosses the sound barrier.

In short, it was truly awe-inspiring. I'm  sure we missed out on some of the patterning from the angle we watched it at, but I didn't care. There was music to accompany the whole show, which lasted half an hour in total, starting at 10pm, but we could only hear hints of it from our spot on the beach.

Anyone planning a trip to visit us next summer should consider arriving for the start of August and getting to see one for the nights of fireworks. I'm glad I went to it last night, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again this time 12 months.

Post Script: This is my 399th post on this blog! The next is going to be legend... wait for it...