Awa Odori and More Plague

 For those of you that don't know, when Sumi wants to do something, it's getting done and something as trivial as the Bubonic Plague wasn't going to stop her from seeing the Awa Odori dance in the Tanabata parade today. So she wiped her lymph nodes with hand sanitizer and off we went to see the parade!

Awa Odori is a traditional dance from the Tokushima prefecture that has become a staple of festivals across Japan. The Awa Odori Matsuri (Awa Dance Festival) is in August, but the dance is also done at other festivals, including the Shitamachi Tanabata festival. The dance has several parts and is quite upbeat, accompanied by fue, shamisen, and taiko as they dance down the street. The dance takes about 10 minutes, and they will dance, then walk to the next area, then dance again, and so on. This parade is a little over a mile long, and they had 14 stops along the way, so they were dancing and walking for almost 3 hours!

The woman in front carried that thing AND danced the whole time!

The police had to keep shooing people off the parade route.
They used the rope to cordon off the dancers and walked with them as them moved.

By the way, THAT is what a real Tokyo cop looks like. To be honest, they have a reputation for generally being useless at anything other than staying in their kobans (police boxes) and occasionally giving directions, so being out in this heat herding slightly drunk fesitval-goers is probably the most work they will do this year. All of my knowledge of Japanese police comes from the Internet, so I am sure it is 100% accurate.

    We followed the dancers down the parade route for quite a ways, then circled back to see the Bon Odori dancers. Bon Odori is another traditional dance,  and I could spend an entire blog post on the origin and significance of Obon, but all I will say here is that each region has its own Bon Odori, and this one was a counterclockwise one and far less uptempo than Awa Odori. It was performed by a group of older women who were all unnaturally the same height. 

There was one guy in a white hat that randomly joined them. He knew the dance, and traditionally anyone can participate. I was a little surprised to see them let someone jump into the parade, but it was all pretty relaxed.

After the parade, we went to Salvatore Cuomo, a local "Italian" restaurant where they made real margherita pizza. Like with cheese and basil and everything. They even avoid putting shrimp on it. It was decent. The best part of the meal was their mocktails. They make a non-alcoholic lemon, lime, and yuzu in seltzer that is unbelievable. One also costs as much as half a pizza, so we each only had one.

If you ever find yourself in Asakusa, have one.

On the way back to the ryoukan, I saw a sign that made me stop and chuckle.

Yakiniku literally means "Grilled Meat". The sign says Tokori Japanese Beef Grilled Meat. (Wagyu Yakiniku). The phrase "Japanese Yakiniku Vegetable" is akin to saying "American Vegetarian Meat Loaf". While I am sure some misguided soul has attempted vegetarian meat loaf, I am equally sure no one ever called that culinary mistake American. Anyway, like many Japanese English signs, it made me giggle.

Sumi still has the Plague. I'm still dreading the inevitable Sharing Of the Plague.