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We had a fantastic day at the Kumamoto Castle Festival (Kumamoto-jou
omatsuri) today!
Samurai blokes performing at the Kumamoto Castle festival
Although the festival itself wasn’t much (just a few child-orientated
shows and food and souvenir stores), the highlight was getting to wear a
full kimono – for free! Helen, Ellie, Saranne, me and the other girls all
donned the most beautiful kimono you can imagine, and had our hair and
make-up done to match.
I chose a dark blue kimono with a lovely gold and crimson floral pattern
on it. Putting on a kimono is a very complex operation – you need about
three trained professionals to dress one person! First, they put on the
white undershirt, and tied it very tight with lots of padding. Next, they
put on the actual kimono robe itself, which is the really tricky part.
After padding this out and tying all the necessary places, they had to
fasten on the matching obi (belt). The obi is huge, and is folded several
times into a wrap. They tied this into an incredibly elaborate knot on the
back. I donned some tabi (Japanese socks that make you look like
you have hooves, in my opinion!) and zori (sandals), and went to
have my hair done. They fixed it up with a beautiful black and gold bow,
and decided to leave my make-up as it was (I was wearing pink lipstick,
which is quite similar to traditional lipstick worn with kimono, and very
dark eye make-up). When I saw myself in the mirror, I couldn’t believe it!
And when I saw the other, I couldn’t believe it either! We looked like
beautiful Japanese ladies!
Ian, Ellie, Helen, me, Saranne and Richard in our kimono
You can see why the kimono is such an enticing outfit. The colours are
designed to be highly contrasting and dramatic yet still beautiful, like
the markings of a tropical bird or butterfly – the long, flowing sleeves
re-enforce this image. But its allure goes further than that. With its
bright, floral patterns, multiple layers, dangling gold ribbons and
accessories and big obi tied at the back, a kimono really makes a woman
look like a specially-wrapped present to be opened and enjoyed. For its
beauty and subtle symbolism, the kimono has to be one of my favourite
national costumes.
The most incredible thing, though, was how the Japanese visitors to the
castle reacted. They all stopped and stared at us, and exclaimed “kirei!”
(“beautiful!”) Many wanted to stop and talk to us, and even more stopped
us to take our photograph. I’ve never had so much attention in my life! I
suppose it is unusual to see Western girls in Japanese kimono! One old man
even came up to me, shook my hand, and then left, without a word! So
strange.
Even more strange was when one woman went up to Ian and Andy, who were
dressed in traditional men’s wedding kimono (they kept being asked if they
were getting married!). The woman asked if it was okay to take a photo, to
which the guys replied, “Of course,” and started to pose. No, the woman
said, she was asking permission to take a photo of their wives – she meant
us! We had a laugh about that for a while! It was such a pity when the
time came to take the kimono off after an hour of posing around. I really
want to wear one again, it was so fun!
It was Ian’s birthday today, so we went out in the evening to celebrate at
a small restaurant/karaoke bar. On the way there, I saw my first Gothic
Lolitas, all dressed up beautifully in Victorian-esque dolly dresses. Like
the men who saw me in kimono today, I exclaimed “kirei ne,” but got
ignored. Sigh…I wish I could join them, I’d love to get a Gothic Lolita
outfit and prance about all day like them!
The restaurant itself was nice – for 2500 yen (about £15) we got four big
dishes to share, all-you-can-drink and two hours of karaoke, which was
pretty good! Afterwards, the night was still young so we headed to
Sanctuary – a bar that’s popular with gaijin, and particularly past Durham
students. The second floor, where the main bar is, has nice jazz music and
a pleasant atmosphere (unlike the nomihoudai bar we went to not so long
ago which was a bit dark, noisy and cramped for my liking), while
downstairs there’s a dance floor (although the music’s not great, I asked
the DJ if he had any rock music and the best he had was Avril Lavigne).
And yes, the consequence of all this is that I ended up spending way too
much money again. I’ll have to try and avoid going to town all week now!
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