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So I went to my first official Japanese festival today after work. It was the shimbashi festival which is located in downtown tokyo right around the corner from my office.

Let me start by saying that festivals in japan are like street fairs. I show up at the shimbashi eki to wait for cho-san and the smell of the food is just sooo goood. The japanese will put anything on a stick. And one thing about festivals is its the only place to get greasy japanese food. They had fruit on a stick, chicken, pork, steak, octopus, and even hand made candy on a stick.

While walking around we found an place where they had old Japanese toys. One of them was a top that you wound up on string and then through it on a bucket top with a friend. who evers stayed on top longest or spun the longest won.

Then we found the traditional games like Fishing for Fish.. But they were real fish. They give you a bowl and a piece of rice paper. You have to use the rice paper to catch the fish and get it in the bowl. The problem is that rice paper disintegrates when it gets wet. They also had a similiar game where you had to catch a bouncy ball with a thin ice cream cone that would melt when it hit water also.

We found a game that my super gaijin powers was well suited for though,. You bent over and tossed a ring on a toy and you won the toy. So my super long non-asian legs and arms allowed me to reach over and practically place the ring where I wanted it.

We continued walking and found a pagoda like park where there were a ton of lanterns and someone singing traditional japanese songs. After a beer and some pork on a stick people in kimonos started dancing and they broke out the drums.. It was really fun to watch, kind of like the scene in Karate Kid where daniel is in okinawa and everyone is dancing at the festival. Of course I got in the middle and danced a little bit so cho-san could get a picture.

Once we left there we found another plaza where for 100 yen you could bowl 2 balls. I challenged cho-san since he had beaten me at tops and got a strike.. Stupid me.. The strike meant I won a real bowling pin signed by famous japanese bowlers I now had to carry around with me. We met up with cho-san’s coworker and went to a traditional sashimi style restaurant where you had to take your shoes off to enter and sit on the floor.

Had a few more beers and some good sashimi and then called it a night… All and all.. Japanese festivals are alot of fun. I forgot my camera though so I have to wait to get the pictures of me dancing from cho-san.