Kimono Painting

Two weeks ago, I attended a fascinating exhibit displaying painted kimonos. The artist whose work was on display was the brother-in-law of my Ikebana-sensei, so she helped him decorate for the show with artistically placed ikebana arrangements. The show was held in an historic machiya or traditional wooden townhouse which still had its original wood-burning stove with a built-in rice warming area. These homes (that usually doubled as merchant's workplaces) are well designed and beautifully simple.

The same could be said of the intricately painted kimonos. Each silk kimono and obi on display was painted completely by hand. As you can see in these examples, the skill and attention to detail was amazing. Especially when botanical subjects were handled, the graceful realism just jumped off the silk! This made the ikebana arrangements a natural pairing for the kimonos, don't you think?Making the event even more quintessentially Japanese, I was invited to kneel on a small pillow on the tatami mats and share a pot of green tea with the hosts and other guests who were there when I was. The tea was delicious. However, kneeling (hero pose style) for extended periods of time is fairly uncomfortable.

Daimonji Festival

We had a fun time on Thursday evening at the Daimonji festival. Rieko took us to a viewing on top of an office building in souther Kyoto, so we could see all the characters from one spot. There's a trade-off there; we were pretty far away so we couldn't get the best pictures. I put up a few for people to look at: Daimonji Festival. (You'll need to follow the link to see Renee in her kimono.) Alternatively, we could have camped out near one character and watched one very impressive bon-fire up close. We plan to hike up to one of the characters in the future to get a feel for just how big they must be -- the larger "dai" character is carved into a mountain just behind our house, and I see it every afternoon walking home. Taking a complete guess, I'd say it is about 20 meters tall, maybe more.

The festival takes about half an hour, as each of the characters are set on fire one at a time, ending with the "gate" character, which leads the spirits who have visited during Obon back to the spirit world. Rieko's kimono teacher was there, and inspected Renee. After making a few minor adjustments, she was quite satisfied. We had some authentic Japanese snacks before the festival (sorry, no pictures): glazed sweet potatoes, pickled bean curd, and deep-fried rice balls. And Renee discovered soju. Now, in Korea, soju is a 60-proof licorice-flavored liquor that I found just awful. But the version Renee had was cut to about 15-proof and given a citrus flavor. I had to agree it was quite good.

It cooled down after the festival, and we finished the evening at an old coffee shop. I'm sure I'm forgetting some details -- hopefully Renee can fill them in.