Last night we went to another summer festival, this time in Naka-meguro, a part of town we had never been to before. The main shopping street in Naka-meguro was closed to traffic, allowing room for several small groups of people to parade past on-lookers. I'm not sure of the affiliations of these groups of people, probably civic groups of some nature. But whoever they were, they sure knew how to put on a show. All were dressed in bright and cheery traditional summer gear. Many of the women wore matching yukata, odd triangular shaped straw hats with chin straps and geta. Men and some other women wore happi coats and tabi socks. Each group was lead either by a man holding a pole with lanterns on top or a woman bearing a sign -- the lanterns and signs had kanji on them, no doubt identifying the group affiliation. Each group had a troop of dancers and muscians. The musicians played an odd assortment of drums and a variety of other percussion instruments made of bamboo, wood and metal. As far as we could tell, each group played the same tune and everyone in every group chanted the same words over and over again. I'd love to find out some day what they were chanting! Periodically the group would stop parading and a crowd would gather round as the dancers performed wildly energetic steps, all the while twirling paper lanterns in their hands.

We arrived around 7 p.m. and watched as several groups paraded by. We even came across a Japanese rockabilly band set up in front of a store called Rant N Rave. There was usually time between groups of the parading dancers/musicians for the rock group to play a few songs. We heard them play "Stand by Me" and they weren't half bad!

To our disappointment there was not much festival food on offer, so after awhile we ducked into a little restaurant for a bite to eat. It was called Kite Kite Kitchen and the sign outside said something about "handmade gyoza wrapped with love". The words on the sign were the only shred of English in the whole place -- there was no English-language menu and none of the staff spoke English. We made do with what little hiragana and katakana we know and ordered some gyoza and fried rice. All were delicious! All the while we ate, the groups of dancers paraded past the large plate glass window at the front of the restaurant. The parades lasted until 9 p.m. by which time I imagine the dancers were exhausted. I couldn't believe the amount of energy they expended that evening. Luckily, it was not as humid as it's been lately and there was now and then a refreshing breeze.