Kugayama is near Kichijoji. It’s inside Tokyo and less than 30 minutes from Shibuya, but it doesn’t feel like Tokyo at all. I had no idea it would be like this… Normally I’d have no reason to go there, but I heard there was a firefly festival, so I went to check it out.
Right now is firefly season. Fireflies are supposed to show up only in quiet places with clean air and running streams, so I never imagined there’d be any inside Tokyo, let alone a festival for them. And as I suspected, this isn’t really a place where fireflies would live naturally either. Apparently the local authorities breed fireflies as a matter of policy and release them during the festival.
Maybe that’s why there were far more fireflies than you’d ever see in the wild. Apart from the crowds, since it was a festival, it was worth making the time to go. I didn’t take any pictures of the festival itself, because it was dark and there was nothing particularly special about it anyway. By the way, I gave up shooting with my own camera and used a friend’s Nikon with an image-stabilized lens instead. Nikon… it’s good… When will Pentax ever learn…
So, enjoy the photos…
