Omagari Akita “Fireworks Town” Street View Tour

welcome to omagari station this is where we're going to be starting an amazing adventure around this town of omagadi famous for this right in front of you you are seeing well that's a firework shell and if it were real it would be probably the biggest firework shell in the world times five it is massive in fact kanai's gonna go stand right next to it she is dwarfed by the fireworks shell and that's a nice picture snap snap snap snap snap how you doing everybody welcome to omagatti it took us uh oh and there's the yurikera no there's a yuriketa it's a cannon and a firework shell it's crazy it's on the community bus uh you gotta love the countryside of japan there's also a convenience store and a cafe and this is where i got a a fireworks inspired uh coffee that had a a pattern of it you can see fireworks shells in the windows of the cafe this is a this is all about fireworks oh my god and we're going to be taking you and walking with you or you're going to be walking with me and kanai over there we're going to go down fireworks street it says hanabi dori do you see it the orange arch and take a look at downtown omagadi it's gonna be really cool now omagadi uh station here actually opened in the year 1904 and uh after world war ii it became part of the uh japan rail east japan network wow what's he hunting can i he's hunting oh he's in hunting positions something's gonna happen something's he's gonna pounce i don't see it just leave it alone looks evil now okay go go go run get away all right so this is this station omagadi station opened in 1904 so it's got some history here the city itself omagadi wasn't incorporated until i established until the 1950s i believe and then in 2005 it was it was uh became part of dyson so this city is actually called tyson in 2005 about five or six towns came together to create one megatown and i'm taking you this way leave that police station looks like like the wild west out in wyoming this one building all on its own i'm taking you this way because i want to show you um a passion of mine and what what some people call a manholer and there's one over there hey mad hatta is here the mad hatter and eugene's here we're now in akita prefecture very far away from the city of tokyo and look at look at the weather surprised it's like just cloudy and the sun is popping through and there's not much wind at all it's amazing how the typhoon is really impacting tokyo and it's not doing much anything here manhole nice i found this one uh we're walking to the hotel um this one really encompass uh really captures the city doesn't it it's uh water forests mountains and fireworks it's beautiful it is i like the details the colors in it look at that and they painted it and i wonder if this came from uh uh the fireworks the manhole factory that i visited a few years ago it's pretty um it doesn't look quite the same if you go to the one in the middle of the street i think i saw irvin or von here we're we're not decided what to call her right now on discord there's a debate raging on what his name should be we'll find another one that's what it looks like unpainted like the internet is is speaking yeah here's another one right here it's a little bit safer a lot of streets around here i saw are are rusted over and you get this kind of a brown look to it it could be from the salt they use in the winter i'm sure there's a lot of a lot of uh um salt and sand on the roads during the winter when the ice and the snow which is very high here i've been told the omagadi is very famous for fireworks as as you have seen right away you'll see fireworks on every single establishment in one way or another whether inside or outside there's something having to do with fireworks because four times a year they hold what's called a hanabi taikai a hanabi is the word for fireworks taikai means what like a big competition yeah like a festival big big competition and uh omagadi is one of one of the top three fireworks festivals in japan but they don't do their hanabi taikai once a year like most localities they do their fireworks festivals four times a year four and three of these were canceled this year which leaves one and that's the one that we're going to tomorrow the omagadi fireworks festival red light we're going down hanabi street khanai's wearing her hanabi masks maybe they know what to do here in the town i'm going somewhere karaoke i don't know do your homework all right let's go take a look down hanabi street this building right here though is quite interesting before i take you down hanabi street i just want to show it to you it's it is quite a unique here all right so on the side of this i guess it's a bank or something the the top part of there has fireworks on it you can see there's like lines in it but if you walk past it gradually the image changes so you have a bunch of fireworks right now yeah it's like magic it's like one day when i i have my own bank looking building i'm gonna do this with my building too and as you walk past it it will it will explode into a different image look it's disappeared where'd it go oh that's so weird look it's changing what wow and now it just turned into one big one pretty cool huh i don't know it's not quite as exciting what is for lunch hey time that's a good question irvan udon maybe they they don't have any kitty towel here we have to look for that all right let's get away from omagatti station this is the jr station we're gonna walk around to the other side and take you down hanabi dori because that's where all the excitement must be and there might be some cats excited about this omagadi station has 2 000 average daily passengers that's not a lot when you think about shinjuku stations millions but it gives you an idea the population is about 39 000. that's not a big town you can see here's a gift shop omiagi and do you see the way that the chocolate manjus the package is shaped like a fireworks cannon that's kind of neat and then they have more uh gift packages here what is that senbei yeah it's pretty nice there's a big that's a nishakudama right yeah yeah i can tell by the size the shakodama is the one that um people bought yeah the kickstarter supporters we had about nine of them by a shakodama this is a nisha kodama double the size this is a massive like it's just massive nishakadama imagine how big the yon shakudama was right it's very big all right this is hanabi avenue and we're going to take a look down this street looks like there's a lot well can i craft through it's red there's a big community bus coming i just saved your life [Music] you must grant me three wishes yeah but what is cool about this underpass is that you get to see the area's mascots whether they're creepy or not i'll let the internet decide so this looks like a fireworks ball a shell and that's his head and his fireworks exploding on his cheek and there's a cannon and another baby bomb a baby fireworks shell the cata and you can see them they're all taking a bath down here so maybe they'll be at the festival tomorrow maybe i really hope so that looks funny i like to meet them it's the bomb all right let's get down here and walk hanabi avenue the buzzing center of town wow it's so quiet yeah it's gonna be a really really fun live stream i think we're things have really mellowed out here [Music] so what oh okay so this is this is root in this is the luxury hotel for uh omagadi i stayed here the first time we're not staying here because options are slimmer but root inn is uh yeah it's a pretty standard uh in any other town it's pretty standard uh hotel like a hotel it's a chain but in omagadi it is the top hotel so oh no no there's if you want udon there's a place that we had udon just up the street that was so good yeah i ate it last time i was here filming for the production episode yeah everything has little fireworks on hanabi street in here it's very cool basically japanese towns um outside of urban areas are kind of like this a lot of them mom and pop businesses probably have not changed since the showa period and you can find some really interesting things inside there this is yamaguchi uh and yeah toy shop omochia doesn't look like it looks family owned and doesn't look like it's changed much over the years oh this looks like a sake and a yeah omiyage gift shop and uh you can see the fireworks on the side here interesting they do have umeshu in the shape of a fireworks shell which kanai is going to get for her papa she said here's a here's one of the udon shops i think oh it's over there yeah this one kanai this one yeah they had really good udon here yeah we ate lunch here last time it's good yeah maybe we can get some some lunch there they had i think i got a katsudon soba set yeah let's check it out the menu can i cut it on us yeah wrx turbo's here let's rev this up let's see the menu let's see the menu we're gonna come back here oh yeah there's the tempura lunch time is until three 11 to three last order is a two though oh yeah that looks good whoa that's pretty cheap too do they have kitty tomple that's what kanai wants oh this is good that's duck though kanai doesn't like duck i got that one the set the set there they had sushi looks like fireworks oh they put the sushi in the shape of fireworks look the title is one why just am i oh that's a star mine right there and this is a mega fireworks look at that that's awesome that's a hundred dollars though that's nice you want it okay hey brenda at this rate we're gonna be getting that 100 sushi plate we're gonna end up trying that firework sushi i'd like to try that for well look at those dragonflies what kind of noise do they make do you see them there like one was on top of the other one what are they doing wow look at this car these are all the um uh gachapon i think they collect it it's all inside their car yeah oh they're taped down so even if you brake hard they won't go flying very nice i approve the whole dashboard is like a museum do you see that the whole dashboard is like a museum that's awesome that's how if i buy a car a real one that's what i want my dashboard to look like like a museum to you i want to make a zoo yeah but i want to go even a step further and build cages for them and stuff because they can't have freedom inside the car would you give them freedom i guess so they're not real animals i like curious george maybe curious george you can put he doesn't need a cage he's got the yellow hat man as his friend no no convenience stores or 7-elevens you can see that what is that that looks like fireworks that's a hot uh a firework shell with a cannon what yeah that's a shakodama that's a shakudama that's the size that's a that's what our supporters ordered yeah that's a shakodama size and it's a cannon and i guess it's to keep cars from cars from you know doing something bad i don't know not sure exactly but we're we're going down hanapidori and we're looking we're looking for trouble some fireworks here now every every time that they held the omagadi fireworks festival which is tomorrow uh there's almost a million people who come to watch it but this year's is very special we're not going to have a lot of people coming to this event because of the uh pandemic that's why live streaming it is really the best option so if anybody's thinking of coming here probably best to stay home and watch it live only omagadi residents uh the citizens of this area can come but i've been invited kanai and i have been invited by the town to bring you this special fireworks festival because we bought our community upon a lot of it so we are here to bring you the story and it's kind of neat oh there's a supermarket oh this is where all the life is we just walked this whole street oh look at that you get you always when you look at the photographers you always get like a slice of life as they do the portraits right look at that the two the two kids living oh my god life they look pretty happy it's nice family pictures very nice i approve hey matt matt angstrom's here how's the weather by kanai her wagyu beef you remember and if it's on me oh you got it have a great rest of the week and weekend wish peter and his family are there too yeah they couldn't make it i invited them but they've gone over to uh camping which is a shame but maybe next year i might do this again he's actually peter's voice is in the in the music he does like a disney-esque like welcome to walt disney world opening for only in japan so big shout out to ppg and thank you for for doing the opening you're going to hear it tomorrow in the live stream when the festival starts that's going to be taking place 6 to 8 p.m japan standard time and and 6 p.m is like 5 00 a.m new york time and it's like 2 a.m california time i think but uh yeah i think not too long after it starts i think ours is [Music] today so i'll be able to i'm gonna actually put this in the uh open the event 24 hours in advance the programs too oh we're gonna get the programs oh right so every fireworks festival there's a program there's kind of a um i don't know like a listing something yeah and like you would get at a baseball game or a sporting event there's a program and we're in the program only in japan community it's awesome so i'll be able to show that to you and uh and share with you our banske entry yeah that looks pretty cool all right and this is the uh looks like another main street this is the big intersection of omagadi it appears like because there's a lot of people hanging out here we're gonna go investigate what is that house over there that brown house just pan around here up above you can see the mascots are on the signs oh they don't play music in the out in the countryside they usually will play some kind of music that's for firemen what do you call that song [Music] that means you better hurry up when they do that yeah it's the main drag right there i know there's like people hanging out on the corner coming through the rye i don't know i all i know is that that song is everywhere it used to be um 20 years ago when i came to japan and gradually they're they're um they're they're getting rid of it so the traffic signals don't have the same they just have the chirping birds to make it universal but i like the tunes keep the two in japan what is this shop this is a okashi shop [Music] okay run away run away run away run away nobody was in there run away it's the main parking area i promise you an exciting live stream and that's exactly what you're gonna get this is the li the life of the the city here um what else can we show them can i yeah what else is omagadi favorite famous for hanabi fireworks yes okay i can show you all right i can show you a picture many people who have come to omagadi say that this is the best fireworks experience that they've ever been to apparently it's really really large this is a picture stolen from instagram check it out it's kind of well it's really bright but you can see we don't have food stands this year but you can see how incredible they go to the next level here and there's an artistry to the fireworks in omagadi this is going to be yeah i am vlogging this live tomorrow six to eight p.m this fireworks on the chairs if you sit there do you explode try to sit there can i three two one oh that's a good picture hi i'm from omagari lovely hi i'm forrest forrest gump would you like a box of chocolates i don't know i might have watched that movie more than one time sorry do you know what these polls are for for snow all the canadians are probably looking we got those then you know how high the snow is or something i think with the plows coming through here they it really piles up the snow i can't even imagine what winter is like here we're very lucky they told us so for tomorrow's fireworks festival they told us that we have to have um they told her to bring a down jacket it's so cold at night and it's on the river side the place that i think i put did i put a link in the description i'll show you um i'll put a link in the event page the event stream and you can see where exactly this event is taking place there's nothing around there it is very i wouldn't say it's a lake effect because there's nothing around there it's just there's some mountains and a river and it's just open so the the fireworks are so clear and easy to see here and you don't get that in the city and even in some of the towns there's buildings and and trees and there's no big clearing this is a big clearing and that's one of the reasons why omagadi is such a popular place for fireworks festivals there's space for everybody there's space for everybody that looks like a little cafe i thought that was a what is that it looks like a spaceship window i like that can i they got burgers wow gotta get the wagyu though we're gonna go get some wagyu maybe for dinner oh there's a yakitori restaurant right there awesome hey marty's in the house marty found the fireworks hanabi uh super sticker tom servo welcome kcn engineer welcome both of you we gotta we have to get we have to get some wagyu thanks to matt here those bentos were good how was your bento ekiben it was good she had the sukiyaki one i had the miso katsu one and that's why i'm still like i'm still not too hungry because we had the massive bentos let me see let's see the um let's see just take a quick look at the shop here oh look look at that bowling pin that's the happiest bowling pin i've ever seen it's saying hit me hit me hit me if you can that ball that pin is so big i think any little bowling ball that hit i'm just gonna hit it and bounce off that's the thing with when you compare these countryside restaurants with tokyo there's just so much parking look at that it's so easy to go in there and park but when you drive you can't you know drink so it looks like a good yakitori restaurant let's have a quick look see at the river and then uh we have to go back to the hotel the hanabi association people are coming to meet us so we had about an hour to show you around and i think it's kind of neat to spend an afternoon looking around oh my god get away from the city and just get an idea of what we're going to be doing uh tomorrow now this is i don't think this is the this goes around to the river but it's i believe a pretty nice view from here and you can start to see after we get out of the town how natural akita prefecture is it's so beautiful here japan was the first country that i the first place that i came to and and experienced black light bowling back in 1998 it's like what is this they took bowling to another level it became like a not just a game of bowling but it was more than bowling it's like next level bowling bowling from the future or something i thought [Music] oh okay so this connects with the um that's the fireworks museum and i did a live stream there not too long ago and this is fireworks park and last time i was here the rain was so bad we couldn't see anything in the sky looking out of the window it was it was a really bad weather but it's funny that tokyo is experiencing a typhoon and we're out here in the middle of akita literally this is the middle of akita and the weather is fine the weather is fine maybe we should cross the street then head back to the hotel crazy why is the weather nicer here there's no wind tomorrow's supposed to be cloudy beautiful river oh this side is really nice it is a very nice little town there's a lot of akia or abandoned houses that we walk past as well a lot of businesses that have shut because of the pandemic not a lot of business going on there wasn't a lot of business to begin with and and over the last six months it's been really it's it's hit tokyo really hard i think you can take up the mask here it's hit tokyo really hard but it's hit as uh the smaller towns of japan especially harder and that's um you know i'm really happy that our community was able to to come together and raise some money to to bring the fireworks festival here um it's a good thing that we did you know it's a really good thing it's beautiful yeah this is not the eye of the storm somebody ruins the eye of the storm no we're not in the eye are we yeah japan has is in deflation which means that if you go to the bank and it's been like this for 20 years i went to a to the post office i was going to open up a savings account but um the interest rate i think was point zero zero one percent which which means typically i don't know like like what's the point but uh japan's in a deflation sorry about the wind beautiful hey michael turner welcome really enjoy your vids new member is in japan roughly the size of california roughly yeah i'm not really sure california is pretty big but um it being an island inside of japan there's so many different cultures it still takes quite a long way to get from one side to the other from tokyo by shinkansen to get here was uh i think three and a half hours so it's it's quite big to get down to shinkana by shinkansen to okinawa uh to uh kagoshima takes i think seven hours to get to hakata and then another three hours so ten hours on the shinkansen i think to get to kagoshima from tokyo so it's quite a quite a hike it's a it's a much larger country than it looks on the map to me to me japan always was a small country and then i lived here it's really big i mean it's not but well you know what it actually puts america in perspective doesn't it how massive the united states is when you think about how how big japan feels to me even after 23 years how big is america right it's huge europe as well very big these continents us is massive australia too imagine what is it 24 million people in australia and all that space wow most of it's desert spiders and stuff snakes and it's kind of a dangerous place australia isn't it kind of psyching myself out australia love australia they're coming in the spring down there lucky i miss summer already all right this happy bowling pin is where we leave you uh really good i'm gonna go get some uh lunch with kanai and we have to get ready for the uh meeting with the hanabi festival people we're going to the factory factory does that mean i should like live stream again no i think we have a meeting some meetings i have meetings oh right i thought it was interviewing the day of the festival at the in at the hiroba the uh event place all right we'll figure it out so it looks like we've got some meetings um probably gonna have a dinner with the fireworks manufacturers uh to celebrate last time i i think he he took us out took me out and then and he paid as a gift for the payment that we gave to him it's a very japanese cultural thing but um i'm just really happy that that they've they finished the fireworks they got my the music that i prepared from only in japan music peter put in the opening you're really gonna love it i know it's the middle of the night in the u.s but if you if you wake up for a midnight snack to use the restroom or something in the middle of the night just turn on only in japan you'll you'll see some amazing fireworks at one of the biggest fireworks festivals all of them were canceled this year this is the only one that's taking place they were either cancelled or suspended and i know that a lot of people will say no you're wrong i'm not wrong it's true omagadi was not canceled because it's one of the big big threes and people could social distance we're getting back into the city i like these masks fireworks yeah good morning from norway awesome guys click the thumbs up button if you like these town walking live streams and if you are ready for tomorrow it is almost time i'm gonna try to do i'll try to do a night walk um and see what else there is around the town i'm not sure on that one but i want to hit as many time zones to share a little bit of that fireworks feeling of the festival and why we're here with everybody we'll try to find something interesting and then tomorrow of course i'll be doing a live stream as we prepare and set up on the rear side setting up all the canons i'll be there live streaming to show you some of the uh show you what's going on there how they set up for it but that's also going to be part of the documentary and then at night is the main event and then on sunday can i and i go back home to tokyo pretty exciting stuff ben we're live right now ben ptg legs doing better somebody said i just like destroyed all the capillaries in my leg and it's after three weeks it still looks kind of gross but it's getting better i can walk around okay and it doesn't hurt when i sleep and things like that it's getting better i appreciate you asking about it and i've been resting up getting ready for today tomorrow it's the big one i like this quick uh krishi zaru zaru means monkey and there they are i i'm guessing that they drink a lot in this town i'm guessing that they drink a lot town living on the edge i don't know all right everybody have a good day have a good night thanks for joining us for this uh uh what is a short live stream but oh my god he's got a lot to offer i think um i i do think if you're coming to akita you can come to all right i want to leave you with this fireworks is like the cherry blossoms they they go up into the sky they explode and then they dissipate and they're gone it's just a moment of beauty and a lot of tourists come to japan for four for the cherry blossom season for hanabi for hanami cherry blossom viewing there's also hanabi which is fireworks and that's another reason i think maybe to come up here because they have these festivals four times a year and you can come in the winter spring summer fall hang out in omagatti and see the festival and guess what it's free and you can feel it i don't know what's going to happen next next year but in 2021 2022 2023 just keep it in your mind because this is a pretty pretty cool town to hang out with for a couple of days you feel like you're in deep japan obviously and yeah they could probably use the help and be really appreciative if you did come check it out most of the people who do come to omagadi fireworks festival are like english teacher jet program people who live here but um if you make the trip uh with a jr rail pass i think it's gonna be worth it because everybody who's come to this fireworks festival says this is the king of all the fireworks festivals and this is my first one and we have our own fireworks in this fireworks festival only japan is representing so see you everybody [Music] hey katayama in the house right at the end catches us nice andrew fort wayne welcome catch up with you katayama a little bit later 99

Channel: ONLY in JAPAN * GO

Views: 22,885

Rating: 4.9224515 out of 5

Keywords: Only in Japan, Japan, John Daub, Japanese, Tokyo, Akita, Station, Omagari, Fireworks, Hanabi, Town, View, Street, Alley

Id: jqeqnD1xU_Y

Length: 40min 11sec (2411 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020