Gorgeous evening yesterday. I met up with some friends earlier for a BBQ, then went back to my apartment to let some other friends in so they could keep their bikes in my apartment instead of fighting the crowds with them for the fireworks show.
Turns out Vancouver has an annual fireworks competition. In the past, it has run four nights. Three countries compete, each on one night, and then the final night is the grande finale. I’m told there are judges, the firework shows are set to music and are often spectacular. I caught the first night, from a distance, last weekend. I was at a birthday party and some of us stepped out to see. I heard the second night, half asleep on my couch. I heard a big “boom” and had to think for a second. What goes “boom” in Vancouver?
Fireworks. Of course.
So last night I went with the bike friends down to Kits Beach to watch the last night of fireworks. Due to funding or sponsorship issues, only three nights this year instead of four.
The beach was packed. At the BBQ on Locerno, that too, was getting busy. And I’ve heard that neither spot is as crazy as the stretch of the Seal Wall along English Bay on the downtown Vancouver side. Images of Chicago’s 4th of July fireworks came to mind, though the crowds didn’t seem quite at that level. There was still space on Kits Beach, so we found a spot and played cards.
Still annoyed I lost in Speed more than I won, but that’s for a different post.
The sunset was pretty good. Had a nice glow to it. And at 10pm, on the dot, the fireworks started.
Supposedly the fireworks show is set to music, and one of my friends had the app on her iPhone to listen. Yes, there is an app for that. I figured it’d be instrumental, classical music. How else can you set a show to music unless it’s a musical that requires voices?
Nope. The show was set to popular music, though Amy Winehouse was the only one I recognized. I didn’t quite get the connection between the fireworks and the music, there didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason. The fireworks themselves were pretty good. Nothing exactly out of the ordinary, though there were some cool ones, like stars that looked like rocket ships.
What struck me as most interesting was the smoke that hung in the air, and gradually disseminated across the Bay and the mountains. The picture below is the best show of the night, and you can see the smoke:
At times it provided an interesting contrast, almost decorative, and at others it obscured the fireworks. It was interesting to see it stretch out towards the ocean as the show wore on. The air was still it just hung there, waiting.
The show lasted about 25 minutes, and the bigger fireworks earned the louder cheers. I don’t know who won. I’m not even sure what countries participated this year, but it was cool to a fireworks display somewhere else. And the crowds seemed to enjoy it. Hopefully they’ll do it again next year.