Monthly Archive for August, 2013

There have been quite a lot of festivals around Tokyo during the summer, a lot of which consisted in fireworks displays and those were amazing! However, there were a few other interesting festivals to note. In our area, Toritsudaigaku, there was a dance festival and not a dance festival where a group of dancers perform, no, a dance festival where locals join the ‘dance floor’. The ‘dance floor’ is actually a circle drawn on the ground around a tower where a drummer plays the taiko (Japanese drum). It was interesting to watch as kids and parents as well as older people danced side by side on these old and more modern Japanese songs accompanied by the sound of the taiko.

This week’s photo is one of two young girls and an older women dancing at the Toritsudaigaku summer festival! More photos of the summer festivals on Flickr.

Last weekend, we went to the Summer Festival in Nakameguro with a group of friends, to watch Japanese dances, some traditional and some more modern ones. Let’s be honest though, the dances were fun but the festival atmosphere is always the draw for me… There are always big crowds, but it’s perfectly organised (the Japanese way :-); there are food stalls serving all sorts of tasty stuff and stores selling beers and other drinks on the street. This time, we came across something I’d never tasted before: Ichiban Shibori Frozen Nama (frozen beer). It’s so funny, they serve a normal beer in a plastic cup and then add a frozen beer head on the top. So the frozen beer looks like a beer combined with a 99 cone!  Interesting… The foam is extremely bitter but the mix of the foam and the beer is quite delicious!

Video of the frozen beer making process: