Their cultural meaning is best explained elsewhere (google search), but for Mari and me, the gozan no okuribi, or fires on the last day of the Bon festival, meant biking through the city at night — gliding past other people walking or riding to parties or viewpoints, women wearing colorful yukata, a father helping a toddler light a sparkler, over train tracks, over a bridge, past glowing vending machines — to a friend of a friend’s place to drop in on an apartment balcony party. Then onto a gathering by the Kamo river, where Doug and friends gave tarot readings, played kalimba and ukelele and oohed and aahhed at family fireworks that shot into the sky from across the water.
