Tommy's Japan Journal 2005-2006

Hayakawa Matsuri
Saturday, August 13th 2005

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The making of yakisoba: Step 1! Cook the chicken! The "grill" looks like half of an oil barrel, with the top and bottom removed. Inside is a bunch of wood-shaped pieces of coal. On top of the barrel they put the huge metal plate that you can see here.

The making of yakisoba: Step 2! Add cabbage and bean sprouts.

The making of yakisoba: Step 3! Add the yakisoba noodles.

The making of yakisoba: Step 4! Add the yakisoba powder! What, you thought everything was from scratch?

The making of yakisoba: Step 5! Mix it all up... with chopsticks! After this step, we skipped the "pour in 5 cans of asahi super dry beer" because I was in shock and didn't expect it.

The making of yakisoba: Complete! And now we fill up the containers with chopsticks and cook some sausages. Yes, I call those "hotdogs-on-a-stick".

Eeeeeewwww! Uncooked fish-on-a-stick! Anyway, we skipped the first steps because they didn't do them here. Clean the fish, stab a stick through it, and cover it with enough salt to turn a lake into an ocean.

The cooking of the fish is actually a little gross, but here they are, roasting happily over coals. They actually have special racks in these grills with little holes for the sticks.

Cooking more fishies.

And the final product! It actually was pretty good, although I refused to eat the head, tail, or fins like everyone else.

The Hayakawa Matsuri was my first festival in Japan, and by far the smallest so far. I mean, it was really tiny. It was also at the gym 15 seconds (literally... maybe 30 since i had to walk around it to the other side) from my house and where i park my car everyday.

There were three stands at this festival: a fish-on-a-stick (f.o.a.s.) stand, a yakisoba stand, and a weird little ballon stand for the kids to play. I got there early and spent the first part drinking a beer they gave me, eating free yakisoba, and watching them make the food. I took some pictures of the yakisoba process because it was kind of amusing... especially the part where the cook took a huge gulp from a beer and poured the rest straight onto the yakisoba.

There wasn't much going on inside. They had some toys kids could buy, and then they had door prizes! I say prizes, but they gave one item to everyone who walked in the door. This was great stuff! Toilet paper, kleenex, bathroom brushes, knives, etc.

The only activities at the festival were watching random audience members sing these terrible, old japanese songs, and watched some high school girl dressed in a wacko red dress sing terrible,old japanese songs. At least the girl could sing.

Anyway, that was the whole festival. I took my camera home when it started raining a bit, so I didn't get any pictures of the pathetic karaoke. Still, I was amused. The festival was during Obon (visit your ancestral home and thank those who left before you week) so I chatted with some woman who was from Tokyo but whose husband grew up in Hayakawa. As always, talking with people was the best part, although I was highly amused by my f.o.a.s. experience.

It hardly seems worth the effort, but all material here is copyright Thomas Williams 2005, All Rights Reserved and nothing at all on this site may be used without my express written permission.