Japanese love affair

Yesterday I went to a beautiful Japanese wedding at this shrine somewhere in Iwaki.

Got up at 7:45am, Hitomi and her lovely grandmother came at 8:00 am to dress 4 of us girls in our new kimonos ('Key-moh-noh'). Each took about 30-40 minutes to put our kimonos on - which was relatively rushed! Kimono-dressing is a long process -

• first you have to wear this undergarment, getting the layering right, tying the strings in the right places, getting the collar right;
• and then wearing this cardboard-like thing at the front of your stomach;
• and then putting the actual kimono on, folding up the middle excess garment bits nicely, getting the length right, again tying the strings to keep the excess garment up;
• and then the obi - a waist-wrap that you wrap around your waist 2 or 3 times and then tying a nice bow or something at the back of your waist;
• and then maybe another decorative string which also holds the obi up
• and then socks and shoes, which...lets just say take some time to get used to.

it was a brilliant day, weather wise, a little windy, not too hot, not too cold. Just perfect.

The shrine was also beautiful, sitting on top of a flight of stone steps.

And the ceremony was really special, traditional, lots of weird fan-waving and blessing-esque gestures, traditional drums and flute, reading vows, and of course, this being Japan, sake-drinking. There was also a great Taiko (big japanese drums) display at the end to celebrate the event, and after that, the newlyweds get a hammer, and together smash a barrel of sake open. Very Japanese - much more exciting than cutting a cake together like the boring west hehe. And so we were all offered sake in a little wooden box, at 11am, on a very empty stomach...

which made walking down those stone steps in funny kimono-flip-flops that little bit harder..~