Italy, China, South Korea, England and Vietnam: What do they have in common?

We teach every Friday night, every Saturday morning and every Saturday evening.

It's not our favourite.

But this weekend we have both Friday night and Saturday off!

We've been asked for the last several months by Vietnamese friends: You know about the fireworks?

We do. Since 2008, our city, Da Nang, Vietnam, has hosted an international fireworks competition over the Han River. Incidentally, we live just one alley away from the river.

Now, while this isn't a national holiday or anything (we're not celebrating Vietnamese freedom from the American's or Ho Chi Minh's birthday or death day), we do get the fireworks days off from work. Friday and Saturday.

For two reason:

1) The traffic will be so incredibly bad and congested we won't want/be able to be out. A few roads and the main river-crossing bridge will be closed to motorized vehicles from 5pm on each night.
2) Students won't come to class. The fireworks happen during our regularly scheduled Friday evening and Saturday evening class times.

Friday night we plan to watch from our roof. Our fifth floor is half inside (laundry room) and half outside (balcony). We're probably two kilometres from the the show, but only a few hundred yards from us is where the road closes. Our second day location will depend on how good our view is Friday night.

We could buy tickets and sit on the HUGE bleachers they've set up along the river. (I just have to say that my previous sentence has two prepositions in it--prepositions that I taught last night to my elementary class). Tickets range from 200,000 to 600,000VND, so $10-30USD.

There are several reasons I haven't even considered getting a ticket.

1) Don't know how to, or where to or when to. A friend who is watching the fireworks from a boat (the fireworks go off over the river) said she bought her tickets DAY OF. Unless I'm buying from a scalper, I don't understand this day of ticket purchase thing.
2) 200,000VND (well, 400,000 really) is a lot out of our monthly budget.
3)The closer we are, the louder it will be. Oh, I can handle a national anthem and loud banging and popping and sizzling. But in this country, as I have come to understand, noise pollution doesn't exist. Horns honking (or blasting as they pass you, in some cases), neighbors singing karaoke all day long, and the Big C grocery store music game (in the grocery store: stand in one place and try to count how many different songs you can hear over the PA system. Lauralee counted at least 3).

It is loud here.

There will be 12 famous Vietnamese singers/artists performing. I had a hard enough time with the decibel level in a couple of Vietnamese church services I've been to. I can't imagine what it will be like when they want tens of thousands of people to hear the music.

That was a long reason.

So we now have a four day long weekend. Our regular weekend is Sunday and Monday. Any thoughts on what we should do?