Up, Up, and Away!

Imagine an open field just before sunrise. It’s covered with hot-air balloons that grow as they fill with warm air. You hear the hum of fans and see the fire of gas burners. Some of the balloons are almost thirty meters tall! As the morning sun lights the field, hundreds of colorful balloons rise into the sky.

The best place to see a sight like the one that is described above is at a hot-air balloon festival. These happen all over the world, from the United States and Canada to Europe and Asia, and many of them take place in August. At these festivals, balloon pilots test their skills in races or by dropping markers onto targets while visitors cheer them on.

After the games are over and the sun has set, visitors can enjoy the balloon glows. For these, pilots fire their burners at the same time on the ground and light the field with glowing balloons. The most impressive moment is when all the balloons go up together. They fill the sky with floating globes of color.

熱氣球：飛啊！飛上天際！

想像日出前的一片開闊平原。原野上滿是熱氣球，在充滿熱空氣時漸漸變大。你聽見風扇的嗡嗡聲、看到瓦斯噴火器的火焰。有些氣球有將近三十公尺高！在朝陽照亮原野時，數百個五彩繽紛的氣球升上天空。

要看到像上述的景象，最好的地點就是在熱氣球嘉年華上。全球各地從美國、加拿大到歐洲和亞洲都有舉辦熱氣球嘉年華，而且很多都是在八月舉辦。在這些嘉年華中，氣球飛行員藉由競速或把標記物丟到靶子上來測試自己的技術，同時還有遊客為他們喝采加油。

在比賽結束、太陽下山後，遊客可以欣賞熱氣球火焰秀。為了表演火焰秀，飛行員同時在地面上點燃噴火器，用發光的氣球照亮整片原野。令人印象最深刻的時刻就是所有氣球同時升空的時候。天空中滿是漂浮的彩色球體。