Come On Here, Let's Dance Together!

This past weekend was the final weekend of July. That means normally uneventful Toyota City turns into a party!

Oiden Festival kicked off on Saturday afternoon in the center of town, which happens to be where I live and work. I would have taken the day off if I had any idea what Oiden entailed, but I got to catch some of it on my breaks.

The roads were blocked off, a giant stage was erected, and the streets filled with awesome. I had heard that people dance in the streets for five hours to one song on repeat. I didn't understand why they would play the same song over and over until I heard it and realized it was the best song ever. You can download it in full by clicking here.

The festivities started with a guy on a microphone leading the crowd in chanting, "We love Toyota! We love Toyota!" in English. At that point, the music kicked in and the dancing began. Old ladies, little kids, college students—everyone had their own group of dancers and their own choreography. Up and down the streets the procession looped around the city center, each dance team taking their turn on stage when they reached it.

This was the highlight of my stay in Japan thus far. Better than sumo. Better than the dude sleeping on my shoulder on the train. Better than the root canal. I was pissed that I had to go back to work, that I didn't have a dance team, and that my memory ran out on my camera before I could shoot anything really awesome. The footage below sucks.

The next day, the streets remained blocked off and became lined with tent after tent of people selling shit. Like a carnival, but good and not gay. This was all in preparation for the fireworks show that was to take place that evening near Toyota Stadium.

My friends and I found a spot on the bridge that Tom likes, where everyone was kinda just plopped down on the asphalt—no chairs needed. The clouds started rolling in and I started looking for people carrying umbrellas.

Mildly digressive explanation:

Everyone loves umbrellas here. A slight drizzle, umbrellas go up. They even use them for the sun. In their defense, it does rain all the time here and it is extremely hot and humid every day.

So I was looking around and noticing that not many people were carrying umbrellas. It was nice earlier and it sucks carrying stuff around when you're doing so much walking. I couldn't wait for it to rain to see what would happen. I imagined they would freak out much like our various cats throught the years when my dad sprayed them in the face with a water bottle.

Finally, the nightning clouds and ominous winds broke into rain. My camera was ready. Sure enough over half of the people suddenly had umbrellas. I think some Japanese people are able to use their powers to conjure up umbrellas. Or maybe they just had them hidden under their yukatas, Highlander-esque. Luckily, a good deal of people did not possess the necessary powers and started fleeing. You can also see this on the video below, but again I had to protect my camera before it got really good.

Soon, it started raining Lost style. I'm talking umbrellas don't matter and it kinda hurts rain. Everyone, umbrellas or not, went into full Godzilla mode. I found myself in the midst of sheer mob panic—umbrella prongs flying at me from every angle at exactly eyeball level.

We made it back to Rickey's/my apt. area, largely unscathed. I had just finished changing when the fireworks, which we thought were canceled, started. Of course, we were no longer in an optimal viewing area, so my pictures of that also sucked.

Both Saturday and Sunday nights ended with a gathering at Rickey's for post-Oiden celebrations featuring the orignal Oiden song I spoke so highly of before.

Enjoy this likely unrelated quote:

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.