Each year, firefighters from across the city gather at Kanazawa Castle to put on a display for the locals in celebration of the new year. Firefighters climb up onto tall bamboo ladders supported only by their crew mates and perform death-defying acrobatic stunts. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when they even flipped themselves upside down and hung by their feet nearly 5 or 6 meters off the ground! All the while, crew members hoisted flags and cheered on the ground. After about 10 minutes of this display, the firefighters regrouped on the ground and started rolling out hoses connected to their water trucks, and to my wide-eyed surprise, started stripping down! (Mind you, it was only about 5 degrees Celsius at most that day!) Immediately after the firefighters tore off their clothes and were wearing nothing but their fundoshi (traditional Japanese underwear), they grabbed the hoses, cranked them on full blast, and fired torrents of cold water straight up into the air. But what goes up must come down. These firefighters spent about 5 minutes in the freezing cold barefooted, barely clothed with cold rain pelting down on them! Those of you who know me know that I love the cold, but I got shivers just thinking about how cold those men must’ve been. (Ah yes, I should point out that this was a men-only display. The female firefighters looked quite content to view from the sidelines in their winter coats.)
After the death-defying, bone-chilling show was over, we bought a few warm, toasty melon buns (メロンパン) and hit up one of our favourite ramen spots. It was a good day with good company, and definitely made us appreciate our Uniqlo Heattech that much more.
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