Get your jerk chicken on at the One Love Jamaican festival, held in Yoyogi park this weekend.
If you can stand the queues, the juicy meat from the One Love Kitchen and Market will be worth it, but if not just soak up the vibes and check out the music.
The usual Bob Marley Songs Day takes a break this year, but his inspiration lives on through the title of the event; most of the tunes this year come from Japanese musiciasn paying homage to their reggae heroes – with varying success, according to some, but well worth a listen.
This is a day for embracing clichees and celebrating Jamaican culture. For the uninitiated, there will be patois and dance lessons, which may draw you to the Jamaica Village, and if you want to ‘become a Jamaican for a day’, you almost can.
Cans of Red Stripe will surely be easy to come by – again, watch those queues! – and you can expect a sea of yellow, green and black dancing around the park. The event is free and lasts until Sunday evening (May 20) when the park-keepers send most revellers “home”, but, dancehall after-parties aplenty will surely pop up in and around Tokyo.
