#probably the best night of the entire trip
Day 25: Caravan (again) and fireworks on the beach!
So I started my day by going BACK to Caravan, for lunch this time. Same deliciousness…I just got a smaller portion, because I’m not made of money. There were many cons and other events skipped over the previous year to save for my trip.
He didn’t have the Portuguese flag printed, and the Swedish flag was flipped, but the effort was still appreciated by all.
Now I had all sorts of plans of things to do, places to see. But I wanted a picture with chef with our YOI banners (well, mine was a banner…his was a towel), and he didn’t have time to pose for pictures until after lunch was over.
And then immediately after, we were invited to a BBQ (again, huge thanks to chef for the new, not common experience!), so there just wasn’t time to do anything I had pre-planned.
And it was 1000% worth it!
One of the girls was dressing up as Yuri, and another was dressing up as Mila, and while I didn’t really have cosplay clothing specifically, I think I made it work. I had just gotten my Yuuri glasses (prescription lenses already in in less than 24 hours after ordering…thank you Japan), so I just dressed in Sagan Tosu gear, since that doesn’t show my hair much.
And to the beach for a Yuri!!! on Ice BBQ we went!!
The music we listened to in the car was YOI.
The music we listened to at the actual BBQ was YOI.
The decorations were all different YOI nendoroids/nendoroid heads.
There was even a banana boat!
The food was incredible.
The view at sunset was gorgeous.
There was even a small surprise birthday celebration.
And yes, the cake was brought out by Coach Victor.
Then the best part of the night.
Fireworks!
Sparklers, to be specific.
Since you can’t really say you’re doing a trip re-creating parts of the show if you don’t have 5 different phones and one bluetooth speaker playing You Only Live Once on repeat while you run on the beach with sparklers.
Now, just as a heads up. I know many people (especially Americans) don’t often consider sparklers the same as the fireworks that fly up into the air and go boom, but Japan does. Fireworks of any kind (at least in Karatsu…I don’t know details about other cities) are not allowed without first submitting a request with the city and getting approval. So even though you can buy packets of sparklers, it’s not something you can just light off. And again, I don’t know everything because my Japanese comprehension is spectacularly sub-par, but arrest was thrown out as something that would happen if there was no city permission first.
So the fact that we got to do this, thanks to Chef or whoever else submitted the request, was unique, and I will forever be grateful for the experience.
…..I’m not nearly as graceful…..
Then once everyone was settling down and started to leave, we discovered we were invited to the after-party that ended up being at Diro’s.
It was after midnight. The Yu(u)ri’s were sleepy…
Ai-san, the one that was dressed as Coach Victor, was also there…
…and then he changed…
…don’t ask me why, I don’t know. Needless to say, everyone got a good laugh.
It was a magical night, and I will always remember it.
So Chef, I know you probably won’t see this, and even if you did, idk if you’d be able to read it, but thank you for everything you included me in! You and everyone else in Karatsu that was friendly and did their best to accommodate the one person that couldn’t speak Japanese means the world to me!!
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