Shibukawa is known as the belly button of Japan since if you go by latitude and longitude it is the dead center of Japan. So they have a festival every year in honor of bellies. The main event involves men with painted stomachs dancing in the streets. Women also dance, but seeing as it would be immodest for them to dance around topless, they wear T-shirts that have been decorated.
Some of the dancers. The guy flexing grabbed my attention with his broken English, so I took a picture.
While they are dancing. Notice the T-shirts on the ladies
Two giant floats that would be pulled up the hill and back to the shrine.
The main street lined with vendors.
Can you catch gold fish with a paper paddle?
Yes you can! Actually this Elder didn't catch any, but since it was late in the day and the vendor had lots of fish left over, he got 2 for trying
I ran into the Elders at the festival as you can see above. But also my friend Hiroshi came up from Tokyo. We hadn't seen each other in a while, so it was good to catch up. Hiroshi had to leave before the big dance started though.
I also ran into about 60 of my students. Many of them wore yukata (a one layered kimono). They were quite adorable. A few won some giant blow up swords and hammers at one of the stands and attacked me as well. Less adorable, but I got my exercise chasing them around food stands.
Before the big belly displaying dance they had small performances by local clubs. I got to see about 10 of my students perform either dancing or cheering (They dance way better than me). I also met quite a few parents as well.
Tomorrow I head into Tokyo. I should have an update about that later.
Toodles!
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