Hachioji

Konichiwa! My latest adventure was to a city called Hachioji - about a 2 hour train & bus ride from Urayasu (the city I live in). I traveled with my friend Matt (and a couple of his friends) to meet a longtime friend of his who owns a beauty school in the above mentioned city. She is quite famous there and would be the equivalent of Gore Vidal of Vidal Sasoon. She also designs kimonos - and this is where the exciting part comes in - one of which I got to try on and wear for an hour! I had a few women help bind me into my kimono (I felt so fawned over!). There are many layers and they pad your middle with towels to flatten out your shape and give you a straight up and down figure. Then they tie the obi around your middle (and mine was a fancy one!) to hold all the padding and layers in (in my opinion). The whole process takes around 15 or so minutes. I also had to wear these "socks" that were a bit too small for my humongous "western" feet (and long toes...lol). I wore the hard sandals as well - and shuffled along! My kimono was this soft yellow color with a multicolor heart pattern across the shoulder and down the dress. My obi was green. I will try to get a picture posted somehow. It was so much fun! They also did my hair - put it up and decorated it with some flowers.

After I was all dressed, I got to participate in an informal tea ceremony that took place in a very old tea house. The whole place reaked of tatami mats (which smells like straw - not an unpleasant smell). Our hostess served us a sweet bean cake and then hand crushed green tea - oiishi (delicious)! She then gave us a tour of the tea house. The surrounding nature was so beautiful!!! There was even a pond and a mini waterfall - such a peaceful sound. Did you know that way back when, they made the doors to the tea house/meditation rooms small so that the samurai couldn't get through with their swords? They had to take them off before entering. After our tour, we walked back to the school (just 50 yards away), and our tea hostess watched us all the way there. We even turned around about half way back, and she was still there, bowing. That's Japanese hospitality for ya.