The 45th Yufu City Hasama Fireworks Festival - Colorful fireworks brightly dye the sky above the venue
In the mountains of Yufu, Oita, the 45th Hassama fireworks fill half an hour from 20:00 on September 19 with 5,000 shells over the Nakasuka ground beside the Oita River. The enclosing hills bounce the launch reports back down, so this small local festival punches well above its size in sound. Food stalls open from 13:30, turning the riverbed into an all-afternoon outing for the town.
The ground is a ten-minute walk from JR Mukaiano Station, or about 15 minutes by car from the Oita IC on the Oita Expressway. Being a riverbed ringed by mountains, the echo is intense — earplugs are a kindness to small children. Stalls are planned from 13:30, so the pre-show hours are part of the fun. No large-scale event parking has been announced, making trains or nearby commercial lots the realistic choice. Forty-five editions in, it remains a neighborhood fixture where locals outnumber travelers. Yufuin's hot-spring district is about 30 minutes by car, easy to fold into an overnight plan. Mukaiano sits on the JR Kyudai Line out of Oita, and the walk to the ground passes quiet residential streets.