The first ever St. Patrick's Day parade in Tokyo made history for a number of reasons — least of all for the fact that it was the first such parade in Asia, and it unfolded on a sidewalk in Roppongi.
On March 15, 1992, a small contingent of Irish and Japanese left the Irish Embassy en route to a record store called Roppongi Wave. Dressed in emerald green, the group was led by a man playing the bagpipes. The spectacle went mostly unnoticed, which was probably just as well because the parade had not been sanctioned.
The following year, the parade moved away from Roppongi to the genteel surroundings of Omotesando-dori, a tree-lined boulevard stretching from Aoyama Street to Meiji Shrine.
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