Today I brought the kids to the Bon Odori festival in Esplanade in Penang. The place was filled, few hundreds people were there. Parking was nearly impossible. God provided us one, although it was a distance walk from Esplanade but it is sure better than none. We reached there about 8pm.

Lots of food stalls around and hungry people too. There was a popular stall selling mega huge balloon and water balloon that they played like a yoyo. I got my son a big balloon. My son played for a while and passed it back to me. I can see $$ flying away, anyway, it was for charity.

The place was dark, not enough lighting. Fortunately, they placed lots of tables and chairs.

There were dances & performance. Many people joined in to dance. Lots of Japanese people around. Mostly there were in Kimono. Too bad, no kimono for sale else would have gotten one for my gal. I saw so many Japanese children in Kimono, they were very adorable.

Fireworks were started sharp at 9pm. It was beautiful and real loud. My children enjoyed it. People started leaving once the fireworks was over, so did we.

Venue: Esplanade
Date: 16th July(Saturday)
The program:

17:20 Arrival of VVIP
17:30 Speeches…bla bla
17:45 Launching by some Japanese guy plus chingay show
17:55 Inspection of stalls by VVIPs
18:25 1st session Bon Odori dance
18:50 1st Awa Dance session
19:15 Drum demonstration
19.35 2nd Drum demonstration
19.55 Dance performance by Msian Jap Soc.
20:15 2nd Bon Odori dance session
20:40 2nd Awa Dance session
21:00 FIREWORKS display
21:10 3rd Bon Odori Session
21:30 Lucky Draw
21:45 Sayonara