Fireworks and the Happy Policeman

A few nights ago I went to the river with my friend Enagi to have a few beers and fire a whole bunch of fireworks that I bought a while back. They've been sitting in my room waiting, so the time was right. When we arrived we saw that the tide was high, so we couldn't get to the usual spot south of the train bridge, instead we went north, not far from the train bridge, at this point the river is narrower, and on the other side is a part where people sit, usually couples. Generally the rockets shoot out over the river, occasionally the fall a bit lower and go closer to the other side, but they don't really have the power to reach the other side. We'd been there for quite a while when I noticed someone walking towards us from the south, the I saw he was carrying a helmet and something long, it was a policeman with his Maglite/Nite stick, I had that brief feeling of panic that I haven't felt since I was a teenager on my skateboard running into the police. But of course he was a Japanese policeman, probably bored shitless due to the lack of crime in Japan, so he politely told us that it would be good if we didn't fire rockets at the trains or the people on the other side of the river, also we scared another group away because we were shooting balls above their heads. I managed to understand about 50% of what he was saying, but I was unable to give any response besides "Hai". I didn't catch the bit about scaring the folks away though. Then he left and we started picking up our stuff, intending to move further north, suddenly he came running back, saying it was ok to stay, we just had to aim in the other direction. So we fired some more rockets in the other direction. Then he returned few minutes later to tell us we shouldn't fire rockets, only quiet "doragonsu"(dragons), as they are called, that spurt a shower of sparks one metre into the air, funny thing was that there were many other folks firing stuff closer to the trains. As soon as he left this time, we noticed another sinister looking character lurking amongst the long grass not too far away, my first thought was that he was some kind of queer looking for a random blowjob, he was wearing leather fingerless gloves, which is never a good sign. So he came over, and we saw he was some sort of vigilante, with a pot belly and a batman-style utility belt, he stood above us and laughed "haha, gaijin!". Then he started telling us a speech about how Japanese people like to sleep at night, so we should be quiet, meanwhile I said nothing and Enagi kept saying "Sumimasen". Then he disappeared back into the bushes. I still have one rocket left, it'll have it's day. The best bit was the lack of intimidation we felt from the cops, I'm sure if we'd been in Australia, and fireworks were legal, they still would've wanted to check our bags and strip search us or something, but here they apologise for disturbing out fun. I guess part of the problem was the hybrid rocket we made earlier on, we joined 2 different types of rockets together with a melted plastic bag and a lighter, both had different fuse lengths, one was a whizzer, the other a banger, it was a little heavy though, due to it's size, but it worked in 2 stages, like a space shuttle. So we managed to light both fuses a different times, and the rocket took off, unfortunately the weight caused it to lean to one side, and it levelled out and headed straight across the river to the other people, but it was a success, halfway over stage 2 lit up, and carried it the rest of the way across the river, where it landed near a couple before exploding. Guess they weren't as impressed and decided to call the friendly police man. A true story.