How Was The Firework Show Of The Asian Games Opening Ceremony?

Amazing. Last Friday was the opening ceremony of the Asian Games. I didn’t have tickets but I still wanted to see the fireworks with my friends.

First we wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant that was recently opened. But when we got there the place was dark and the workers said there is nothing and that the Italian restaurant is on the third floor. But the restaurant was completely finished and it was clear that it had been open before.

Then we tried to go to one Italian restaurant (not on the same building) but pasta dish was about 120 yuan which is the same price than in Finland! We were starving so some of us went to Malaysian restaurant and the others, including me, went to Subway.

After having dinner four people of our group disappeared and after waiting for a while some of us decided to go and try to find a good place to watch the fireworks. While sitting in the metro we found out that the three closest stations were all closed because of the Asian Games. They didn’t want people too close to the opening ceremony stadium.

So we got off at the next open metro station and after getting outside we saw hundreds, no thousands of people going to the same direction. Because so many people can’t be wrong, hopefully, we decided to follow them. Nearer the Pearl River there were lots of guards, police men and volunteers to make sure we wouldn’t go too close. First it was way too crowded there and we could barely breath. It reminded me of an accident that happened in Germany last summer.

Luckily soon we found a good spot to watch the fireworks and we could actually sit on the grass. Then we looked our watches, it would be at least two hours wait before something would happen. From some website I had read that the fiework show would start at 9.42pm but when the clock reached that time nothing happened. We waited five minutes more and nothing.

We were tired and hungry so we asked one volunteer guy what time would the fireworks start and he said eleven o’clock. After hearing that we decided to go to eat and come back before eleven. We got back to the road and then we heard it. Fireworks! We started running back as fast as we could but soon it was quiet again. Almost angry we found the volunteer guy and asked why he told us the show would start at 11pm and not earlier. He didn’t say much but an another volunteer next to him said that there’s 50% chance that after fifteen minutes there will be something more.

I started to think how they handled the fireworks in Beijing Olympics and wondered if here in Guangzhou they would have gone few steps further. Maybe all those people watching the TV would right now see a magnificent fireworks show, that have been shooted maybe a few weeks ago. But luckily that wasn’t the case and soon the show started.

I will later try to add a video of the firework show.