When our team was looking to build a new Tokyo sales office space, being on a street that was the center of a festival from the Edo period (1603 to about 1868) was not exactly on the list. To our pleasant surprise, Oct 19 and 20th of every year we have the Bettara-chi festival in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. I think we’ll just call it the “Odenmacho Matsuri“.
One website describes it-
The area’s proximity to the Edo Shogunate made it a thriving commercial district, and hotspot of circulation for a variety of crafts and products such as Kimono materials, seafood, and paper. (there is a paper merchant that still continues to be in business today!) Every year on October 20th, the “Ebisu “Assembly” – A merchant’s gathering to wish for good business and family safety – is held.
The original festival was only on October 20th, but the market that consistently emerged the day before, on the 19th to sell tools for the annual event, slowly merged with it to make a bigger festival. Somewhere along the way, pickled daikon radish — the Bettara-zuke — came to be sold at the street stalls, and gradually became the focus of the festival.