Festivals in Japan: Iwaki Odori

This one’s going to be mostly photos. Last night was the night of the Iwaki Festival where they had a massive Odori – which means simply, “the dance.” I managed to get a bunch of photos, but in order to get a better scope of the event, I would have probably needed a helicopter; it spanned several city blocks and the streets were filled with singing and dancing.

Many of the foreigners in Iwaki congregate at a bar called Est Est. It is an Italian styled pub that has Italian flags out in the front and wine bottles lined up along shelves. It’s owned by a Japanese fellow who goes by the name of Mado (I think this was his name). There is a photo of him behind the bar giving a peace sign to the camera. This was the same place that I celebrated my birthday a couple of nights ago (it was foreigner’s night where we can get 5 drinks for 1000 yen (about $10).

Anyway, I arrived a bit late in the night, but I believe that the bar is a place where people organize various club activities. Many ALTs from the JET Programme congregate here for events and gatherings. I think that the bar had set up a few groups, including the new JETs in Iwaki, to go and dance in the Odori last night. It sort of worked out for the better that I missed out on the dancing because I got to take a ton of photos.

After the dancing everyone went back to Est Est where there were awards given for the best dancers of the night and tabihada and nomihada (all you can eat and all you can drink). I was still recovering a bit from the night before, so I stuck to the tabihada. It was a good night and I got to meet several new people in Iwaki.