Maiko Time

My dad came into Kyoto the night of the 30th, but since my mom was leaving the following morning at some ungodly hour we didn’t have much of an overlap between everyone’s vacations. My sister and I had our appointment with the Maiko studio on the morning of the 31st, so while Dad entertained himself walking around the Gion district we got dressed up. The first thing that they did was have us change into lightweight shifts and tabi (split-toed socks), and then while I was choosing a kimono from their collection (I had to choose one of the longer ones because I’m taller than their average customer) my sister had her hair tied back in a net and her makeup done. It seemed that after washing our faces, the makeup person rubbed pink makeup onto our cheekbones and the sides of our noses, then painted us in white makeup, starting with the back of the neck down over the shoulders and then the face including the lips. This was all then powdered lightly in pink blush again where she had put the pink makeup before, then black was used on the eyebrows and to line the eyes, and then red on the lips (drawn smaller than our actual ones) and the corners of the eyes. When the makeup was done, we were dressed in our kimono of choice, starting with an under-robe with a stiff kimono collar but no sleeves, a sort of tight wraparound skirt with red on it, with a patterned red collar (chosen by our dresser) layered on top of the under-robe collar covering it completely. Next was the kimono itself (Mine was blue with a pattern of cranes and feathers, while my sister’s was dark green with gold-accented phoenixes and flowers), which was tied on tightly and then topped with a stiff plastic piece, and the obi, which was in two parts. Last were more sashes (obiage), a cord with a large broach (obiage and obidome), and the wig itself complete with hair accessories (kanzashi). Once we were all dressed up in this way it was a little difficult to move, but while we had our pictures taken in the studio the photo guy helped us. After the studio, we stepped into our tall wooden sandals (okobo) for a walk around Gion, where we attracted quite a lot of attention. Maybe if we had been Japanese (or at least Asian) some tourists would have thought that we were actual Maiko, but since my sister and I are both clearly not, I thought that we would just take our walk without incident. I don’t know how many people wound up taking our picture, or how many of them posed with us, but it was a considerable number, enough that my Dad didn’t see me wave down my host mother and host sister (whom I had text messaged earlier so that they would know when to stop by). My host family has a picture of my family, so they knew my Dad immediately by sight, but Dad was a little surprised when my host sister ran up and hugged him by way of saying ‘hello.’ It was a little sad when it was finally time to change back into our real clothes, but it was also nice to be able to walk with a free stride and breath deeply again. It wasn’t cheap to do, but it was so much fun and we took tons of great pictures, it was like being a celebrity for an hour or so! After this we walked around a bit more, had some lunch, did some shopping, and picked up some sushi from a takeout place near my house and some cake from my favourite bakery and ate it in the hotel room. When I got back to my host family’s house I watched the end of the red and white competition on television and listened to the temple bells tolling to welcome the New Year.
-A real maiko’s kimono has a one-piece under-robe as well as a one-piece extra long and extra wide obi, but these are not very practical for dressing up tourists in. While we chose our own kimono, the shop woman chose everything else including our wigs, which is how my sister ended up with pink flowers on her head.
-Since the shoes are smaller at the bottom than they are at the top, they’re a little challenging to walk in. In addition, I’m already taller than most of the women in the country, but with over 5 inches of shoe under me and several more of wig over me I positively tower.
-Every year NHK (I believe) hosts a ‘red and white’ competition, which is basically a big televised show where the preceding year’s top female singers (the red team) ‘compete’ against the top male singers (the white team) to see who’s better. I don’t know how they decide the winner, but this year it was the white team.

Gion

On the day of the 30th Mom, my sister and I went shopping along the main street in Gion. It was cold and windy out, but it was still very busy. We looked in on all sorts of shops, from extremely expensive kimono accessory shops to a couple smaller affairs. One that we found ourselves in was very small and non-descript, but had an impressive collection of Maiko fans (showing that they were patronized by Maiko from the Gion district) and a good mixture of little souvenirs and more expensive hair accessories for kimono. While we were in the shop, another woman was being closely attended by the store’s two workers. She was an older woman, with her hair in an unusual sort of chignon and an expensive-looking fur coat. I think that she actually might have been a geisha, though it is hard to tell older geisha in their day-clothes from other women. After some shopping we stopped at a noodle place in the basement of another small shop that was quite good and mercifully warm, and then decided to take a look at a ‘Maiko Experience’ store. This is a place where a person can pay to be dressed up as a maiko (complete with wig and makeup), and have professional pictures taken and/or go on a walk around the area surrounding the shop. There are many of these around Kyoto, including one in Gion where we had been shopping. We checked into it, but the woman said that they were booked for the day, so we made reservations to come the following morning.
-Around the new year’s season, many shops have ‘mystery bags’ for sale. These are bags that have a flat price and are filled with many different little things from the store, always worth more than the amount paid for it. I guess that this is a way that stores get rid of older merchandise before the New Year, but I got a great assortment of things from a fan shop in Gion this way, all very lovely things at a fraction of the total value.
-Make reservations in advance for dress-up things such as Maiko experience shops.
-The best western toilets to be found are almost always in the large department stores, and since they are so big I don’t feel as bad about not buying anything.
-A 24cm long foot (on a woman) qualifies as an LL (or XL) at Hankyu department store at least, and they don’t tend to carry much above that.

More Temples

On my sister’s first day in town it poured rain, so we opted to try the hotel buffet for breakfast instead of going to the convenience store and back as had been the plan. The buffet had some American foods that I hadn’t had in awhile (such as cereal, sausage, rolls) as well as traditional Japanese breakfast foods such as grilled fish, miso soup and various vegetable salads. Because it was raining, I decided that it would be a good day to try Teramachi Street, which is a covered outdoor mall, filled with small stores, restaurants, and souvenir shops. Both Mom and my sister managed to come out of the day with kimono and obi that had been significantly reduced in price before New Year’s. I didn’t buy much of anything, although I did pick up some much-needed fuzzy socks to sleep in (They’re sea-foam green with cherries) and a lovely scarf with a deco motif. That evening Mom wasn’t feeling her best, so only my sister and I went with my host mother and host sister to conveyor-belt sushi, where we ate a lot (too much) and my sister tried natto (fermented soybeans) sushi. I made the mistake of saying, just as she put it into her mouth ‘I’ll tell you what it is later’, which I guess sounded a little too ominous. She managed to get it down, no thanks to me.
It must have been the next day that we went out with my host mother to see the gold temple (Kinkakuji), one of the most famous in Kyoto. It was originally the second home of a shogun, but was turned into a temple after his death. The main focus of the complex is an open sort of building whose top two floors (of three) are plated almost entirely gold. This sits on a manicured pond that the shogun used to paddle around on in a little boat. After this, the path leads up through some gardens, out past some more temple buildings and a tea room. There are a couple of places along this path that have small clusters of stone images surrounding small bowls. The aim is to toss a coin from the path and make it land in the bowl, which I did manage to do, but only on a bounce (does that count for less luck?). We stopped briefly at the tea room for some matcha and a semi-sweet rice and bean cookie, and then were off to lunch. We ate lunch at a café attached to a bread shop in Kitayama, and ordered lunch sets that we could barely finish. It was a very good thing that the dessert that came with the set was a light apple jelly with frozen yogurt, because anything heavier would have made me ill.
It was either that evening or the next day that we went back to Kitano Tenmangu shrine to look around, going through the Kamishichiken geisha district on the way, which was all but deserted. At the shrine my sister wanted to buy a charm, and asked me to ask the priest at the booth what a pretty purple one meant. I didn’t quite understand his answer, but I thought that he had said something about ‘finding love’ or something, which my sister figured didn’t sound too threatening, but when I bought it the priest said ‘Congratulations’. Now, I’m still not certain what he meant by that, but my immediate thought was that I had bought some sort of ‘safe childbirth’ charm accidentally. Oh well, at least it’s pretty. At some point, on one of these days, we attempted to visit Nijo castle, the official residence (I believe) of the Tokugawa shoguns for when they were in Kyoto. Unfortunately, the castle was closed for New Year’s, as was the sword shop across the street from it. On the way there, however, we stopped in at a shrine that was home to a wild boar-God, where we bought a shrine charm for back pain.
-While Teramachi has a lot going on during the pre-new year’s season, the Nishiki market is positively a mob scene.
-The Shijo area shopping district, including Shinkyogoku and Teramachi, are great places to go when it rains because pretty much all the walkways are covered.
-While in America New Year’s is a big party holiday, in Japan it’s very much a family thing, which, among other things, means that most of the geisha districts seem pretty much closed down.
-There really should be some sort of special radio station in Kyoto that (rather like school closings announced on snowy days in Colorado) tells tourists which temples are closed on a given day. It would save a lot of walking.
-2007 was the year of the boar, the last in the 12-year animal cycle brought to Japan from China a really long time ago. 2008 is the year of the mouse.
-My host mother is a check paying ninja of the highest rank. I had thought to physically grab the check for lunch when it came, but she used her lightning-fast reflexes to get it before I could. Clearly the only reason that I have been allowed to pay for my host sister sometimes is that she is still in training.

Tour guiding

On the 26th Mom and I made it out to Kiyomizudera and Sanjusangendo temples, along with Yasaka shrine. In general it was beautiful weather but uneventful, but we did manage to do a good deed while about to leave this lovely café that we’d found on the way down from Kiyomizudera. Just as we were getting ready to leave, a couple of foreigners (I later learned that they were from Boston) sat down at another table, and I overheard them ask for an English menu, which the café did not have. I liked the place a lot, and I knew that if they couldn’t read the menu the couple would leave, so I helped them with ordering as much as I could. They were really nice people, and I hope that they like what they ordered. On the same day we also took a walk around Gion, though we were both tired enough that we didn’t go far. We did, however, manage to see a young geisha heading into the Ichiriki teahouse in full dress. This was the first time that I’d seen a geisha dressed to go out, so it was pretty exciting for me. That was a long day but a good one.
It must have been on the 27th then that Mom and I went to Nishijin to look around and get souvenirs. That was also fun, especially since they had a different fashion show from the last two times that I’ve been there. These ones were nice, but they had some more modern features that I wasn’t as fond of, such as pink-feathered obi accessories with matching headbands. They also had a couple of ensembles that matched obi and kimono colours pretty closely instead of complementing them as is more common. On the evening of the 27th my sister arrived from the US, and we were able to talk for pretty much the first time since the year began. The shuttle that I had arranged for her had been a lot harder to find than promised, I was told that a driver would be standing outside customs waiting with her name on a card but she wound up at the hotel safe and sound anyway, so I considered it a victory.
-Nene’s street up behind Yasaka shrine is lovely, but there were more hills than I remembered.
-You can’t go into the cool Victorian hotel behind Yasaka that I went to with my host mother unless you are eating there.
-At the Nishijin Textile Centre, scarves are not as easy to find as one might think, though they are available, along with a HUGE range of neckties.

Traditional Japanese Christmas

Kitano Tenmangu market was on the menu for Mom’s second day in town, since it was the only market day that was going to fall during any of my family’s stay in Kyoto. It was pretty lively, though not as crowded as the last time that I was there, even though it was the last market day before the New Year. We walked around there for awhile, taking a look at what was for sale as well as the shrine itself, and then headed back towards the hotel through Kamishichiken geisha district. I was hoping that Mom would get to see a maiko before going home, and figured that that was the place to do it. I was not disappointed, as within a couple of minutes of being in the quarter I saw three different off-duty maiko. I can only guess that they are busy getting errands done around noon-ish. I was, unfortunately, not able to locate the oyakodon restaurant that I had eaten at with my host sister, so we wound up at a noodle shop along the way home. It actually proved to be a good choice, since the menu had pictures, the service was quick, the prices reasonable, and the food quite tasty. After a long day we went back to the hotel and rested (at least in my case) very tired feet. Since it was Christmas day, I decided that dinner should be the traditional Japanese Christmas fare: fried chicken and Christmas cake. The fried chicken came from Mos Burger and was quite good (not too greasy and not all breading), and the two slices of roll cake from my favourite bakery here was delicious. We ended up getting one slice of green tea-flavoured roll cake with whipped cream and sweet black beans inside, topped in sweet soybean powder, and another with white cake rolled up with whipped cream and fruit and topped in bran flakes. We brought all this back to the hotel room and ate it while watching ‘Miss Congeniality 2’ on the hotel pay-per-view. Merry Christmas.
-Christmas really is a bit of a non-event here, though the carols and decorations leading up to it might make one think otherwise. On the day itself everything is still open as usual.
-I wish that I could tell you how it came to be that they eat fried chicken on Christmas here, but I honestly don’t know when it started. I’m thinking it must have been one hell of a marketing campaign.
-As far as I can tell, any kind of cake can be Christmas cake, as long as it is eaten in the Christmas time period, though it should probably have ‘Merry Christmas’ written on it. Roll cakes, sponge cakes, chocolate cakes and castella all qualify.
-I don’t know what castella is, but I had ‘mini castella’ at a festival once and it tasted like pancakes, and then we had a castella Christmas cake at my host family’s house, which seemed to be dense and orange-flavoured

Christmas Shopping

Now that finals are all over and done with my winter break has finally begun! To celebrate, I cleaned my room. Thoroughly. It’s amazing how much completely useless paper can accumulate over the course of a semester, and even more amazing how many packages of free tissues can accumulate after 4 months in Japan (over 13). On Friday there was the last Toji market day of the year, which was ridiculously crowded with people shopping for the New Year’s festivities, but a necessary trip since finals had kept me from doing any Christmas shopping at all. Unfortunately, I actually didn’t manage to find much in the way of gifts, but I did manage to find myself a furisode kimono (one whose sleeves fall from the wrist to about mid-thigh with arms extended) for only about $30 that complements the obi that my host family bought me as an early Christmas gift. Christmas here is actually not a big deal at all, in any real terms, but lights, Santa Claus, Christmas trees and Christmas sales have been imported from the US. It’s actually almost more of a couple’s holiday, whereas New Year’s is a very big family holiday with several days’ worth of accompanying traditions. Since this coming year is the year of the mouse (we are just leaving the year of the boar) everywhere you look there are adorable mouse-themed greeting cards, statuettes for family altars, incense holders and all matter of sweets. Shrines and temples have been preparing for months already, but the official day to begin family preparations for New Year’s is the 22nd, the Winter Solstice (here in Japan).
-Christmas in Japan has somehow (I’m sure it was a brilliant marketing campaign) become associated with fried chicken. That, and Christmas cake, which comes in every size, style and flavour from any bakery in town.
-Rather like Christmas cards in the US, New Year’s cards are extremely important here. Though many people do them digitally (I here) through email, my family and many others set about the arduous task of writing to relatives and friends to wish them a Happy New Year.
-One of my friends noted that Japan, the capital of cute, is the perfect country to be in when we head into the year of the mouse.
-On the 22nd, it’s traditional to eat pumpkin and take a bath with yuzu, a lemon-like citrus fruit. Unfortunately, modern plumbing and fruit are not a good match, so if you want to take a yuzu-bath then you pretty much have to go to a bath house.
-They don’t sell much in the way of wrapping paper here, due mainly to the fact that any store will wrap nicely anything that you buy, usually for free.

After a long absence...

Whew! It really has been a long time since I posted an entry, but I promise that I have a good excuse: finals. In one week I had three presentations (one in Japanese) and a final paper due, for which I spent the entire preceding weekend in my room. The following week I had three Japanese exams and another final paper due, for which I spent the entire preceding weekend in my room. In short I did nothing (and saw less) of interest. About the only interesting thing that I did at all was go to see the illumination at the Rhom company headquarters just outside Kyoto city proper. It was beautiful. Fall came late here, so many of the trees still have their leaves, even if they’ve turned yellow, which meant that when they were filled with tiny randomly blinking lights they looked as though they were made of gold. The company itself makes tiny parts for cell phones and the like, so lighting up a couple dozen rows of trees was small potatoes for them, but the result was utterly gorgeous and I’m afraid that my photos do not begin to do it justice. They also had a couple massive trees covered in a net-like configuration of blue lights, which basically made them look like very large baskets, which was a little odd. The last most exciting lighting trick was done with a weeping cherry tree that had no leaves on it, but had been meticulously covered in white lights that traced every branch. Worth seeing, if you’re in the area.
-You can still buy anything that you would ever want at the 100yen store. I managed to get watercolours in 12 shades, three different sizes of paint brushes, paper that did not warp when wet from painting, two CD-R’s and silver eye shadow for about $7 (all for one of my projects)
-Even when not at school in Boston, I still manage to wind up with ridiculous amounts of work. This must be some sort of twisted talent of mine.

A Trip to the Meiji Era

AKP was nice enough to completely arrange and pay for a trip to a place called ‘Meji Village’ for all of its students and their host families, so that’s where I was today. Meiji Village is essentially a park in Mie prefecture where various buildings (sometimes the whole thing, but more commonly a representative sample) from the Meiji Era (1868-1912) where moved in an effort to preserve the feel of the period as a whole. They have all sorts of buildings too, from sake factories to doctors’ offices to homes of famous authors and politicians, meaning that there was actually far too much for us to see in just the 3 hours or so that we had. They also have preserved there streetcars from Kyoto and a little steam locomotive, both of which I rode, which lead you from ‘Kyoto’ to ‘Nagoya’ and then onto ‘Tokyo’, with the buildings in each area grouped loosely with regard to their original location. Luckily, today was a beautiful fall day, warmer than many days preceding and probably than most of the days that will follow, with beautiful fall leaves everywhere. One of our first stops was lunch at the cafeteria building, where my host sister and I dined on a style of box lunch that used to be sold at train stations, and were usually comprised of local products. After lunch we went down to road a bit to a photo studio that was set up to let tourists dress up in period clothing and have professional photos taken. For this, you could choose between very over-the-top Victorian-esque clothing and more traditional Japanese clothes. As tempted as I was by the plumed hats, my host sister convinced me to try the quintessential Meiji costume: that of the Meiji schoolgirl. During the early 20th century there was a big push for public women’s education, and since uniforms in Western styles were too expensive, the school board came up with an outfit that could be put together by pretty much any girl in her home. This comprised of a normal kimono top, men’s traditional hakama pants (which essentially look like a full, pleated, ankle-length skirt in heavier fabric) and ankle boots. So, I was talked into it, and after the professional photos were taken, the photographer, I think because she was amused at the novelty of a blonde girl in traditional dress, let us take pictures with our own camera in front of the building while we waited. After that bit of excitement we wandered around for a bit, finally stopping at a structure unlike any other in the park, and really unlike anything I would have expected to see there. For one, it looked like something from the 20’s, and for another it didn’t look in the least bit Japanese to me: it was stone and concrete, and highly detailed, with many windows and terrace-looking platforms. It was, in fact, the lobby of the Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, preserved for posterity in the middle of Mie prefecture hours away from its original home in Tokyo. It really was beautiful, too, and in my opinion it seemed influenced by decorations on Aztec temples. After all this we had to head back to the bus for our long drive back to Kyoto before it got too dark.
-Rest stops in Japan are NOTHING like ones in America: they are clean, well-stocked, have restaurants and gift shops that have things that you might actually want to purchase and food that will not make you sick.
-It was easy to think, while walking down sunlit streets lined with old buildings in perfect repair, that I would have enjoyed living during the turn of the last century, but a stop in at a doctor’s office, with all of its instruments and hand-made medicines reminded me that I really am lucky to be alive now.
-A train car used by the Meiji Emperor was on display as well, and when my host sister and I were telling my host mother how beautiful it was she grimaced and said ‘yes, and all our hard earned tax dollars went to making a car for one person to ride in’. That put things into perspective.
-When bread (‘pan’) first came to Japan during this time period, the Japanese, who didn’t see it as a staple food as they already had rice, didn’t quite know what to do with it. Their solution was to put red bean paste (‘an’) in it and call it ‘anpan’. It was a huge success and is still a staple of the student diet.