After the Typhoon, A Block Party

I had my first inkling that something was up in my neighborhood about three weeks ago. These lanterns (above) just appeared one day outside of the station I use everyday on my way to work.

Around this time of year there are a bunch of fall festivals going on all over Tokyo. But then a couple weeks went by without anything happening. I started to think maybe they were just decorations for the season like Christmas lights or something. Last week we had bank holidays on both Monday and Friday, and a lot of the big festivals were the previous weekend. So when that passed I was pretty sure nothing was going to happen.

Last Wednesday a Typhoon came through Tokyo. It actually caused the trains to get shut down for a few hours leaving my stuck at work. The next day I was getting home from work around 9pm and I popped out of the station to find the streets filled with people. About half of the crowed seemed to be wearing all manor of colorful traditional Japanese dress.

Everyone just seemed to be hanging out taking pictures, eating, drinking and having a good time. Young, old, parents, kids everyone was out in the street. However, it seemed like I missed the main festivities. Bummer...

Fortunately that turned out only to be day 1...

The next day at around 5pm I started to hear a crowd outside the balcony of my apartment. Then at 6pm I started to hear drums and chanting a huge commotion. I went outside to see what was going on and there was this huge procession going down the street. People were dressed in all kinds of colors, some people were dancing, some were carrying giant poles with lanterns on them, still others were carrying all kinds of traditional instruments.

I love the part in this video where theres a place for everyone to just jump in and start dancing along with everyone. It was wild and awesome to see. This was literally happening outside my door.

All my neighbors were out with their families, the entire community seemed to be there. Everyone seemed to know someone in the procession. Parents would run out into the street to take pictures of their kids at they went by.

The entire procession only went down the main commercial part of the street, about a half mile in all (~1k for you metric system folks). Outside the stations by all the lanterns was where each group got started.
And after each group made it down the street they went back up and started again. This continued for 3 hours!

After the main processions stopped each of the groups in the procession found a piece of road and did individual performances. Some of the dances seemed to be telling some kind of story,

The enthusiasm of both the performers and the crowd was awesome. I love the part in this video where one of the lead girls runs over to different members of the group whispering and getting everyone to do a certain number. The kind of spontaneity of the moment, I find endearing.

Here's some kind of shrine and traditional drum.

All of the local restaurants and cafes set up little grills and stands to sell food in the street.
This guy is the chef at a favorite local spot of mine called Cozy Bistro. I go in there quite often, particularly in the days when I didn't have a refrigerator. Really nice guy, despite not being able to speak any english he would always come over and try and help me through the menu.
I'm a big fan of Cozy which as far as I can tell seems to be a kind of traditional Japanese western bistro fusion type of thing. It also helps that my room looks down onto it from behind. Cozy is an apt description of the interior space as well.

Tokyo is a massive city, but really at ground level it feels like a series of almost independent centers and urban villages. Usually these are centered around a train station. Hatsudai is the neighborhood I live in/station I live nearby. It's located about a 15min walk from Shinjuku one of the major hubs of Tokyo and the busiest station in the world. Hatsudai itself though is fairly residential, and this main street consists of small stores, cafes, restaurants that exist to serve the locals.

You won't find any of the restaurants in Hatsudai in any guidebooks about Tokyo. This isn't a touristy spot or one that even locals who don't live hear would come to. I searched all over the english language internet looking for information about a festival in Hatsudai and found nothing. The crowd at this festival was large, but by Tokyo standards was actually quite small. The whole event seemed to by produced by and for the people who live here.

Even in this massive metropolis you have these pockets of communities. You have days and opportunities for you to celebrate your unique slice of city, at a scale small enough for everyone to be an active participant and to contribute. It was quite moving to see.