The pro basketball league in Japan is called “The BJ League”. It pays to consult with native English speakers.
Kimono & Cupcakes
Well, my second favorite day of the year finally rolled around (although I did nearly forget about it, if you can believe it). I have now turned 30 years old. I prefer to call it by the roman numeral XXX. That sounds a lot cooler.
Anyway, I did a good job. I slept in, did some knitting, watched some tv (I finally got one--for 30 bucks!), and then got dressed up to begin my festivities. Me and Kei didn’t really have any plans, but I’d told him I’d like to just do a bit of window shopping and then maybe get some dinner and drinks.
So around 3 o’clock yesterday I started putting on the getup I’d picked out the night before, the one you see in the photo at top. This kimono and obi were such a find, in a surprising place to boot. Together they cost about US $140, which is a steal. The kimono is not only long enough for me to wear properly, but it is also in perfect condition. Really nice crepe fabric. The obi (誕生日帯.jpg) was the expensive part, as is usually the case. Heavy silk in a blue-gray on one side, with real gold thread in the embroidery you can see peeking out the bottom; the other side is bright blue with a wave pattern. The brighter side will look great in summer. I tied it Tsuno-dashi style by myself using the bathroom mirror, which is why it didn’t turn out perfectly this time (but pretty damn good anyway). The bright green parts of the sash are called Obi-age and Obi-jime, and those were bought at a kimono shop in Nagoya. The gold one around the middle is also an Obi-jime, which I bought at Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo. If you look closely at the gold one, you can see a little silver piece in the middle, a decoration called an Obi-dome. That one was a Christmas present from Kei this year, and I think it looks dope.
The major triumph of this outfit though, was my success in creating my ‘foundation shape’. When you wear a kimono, you’re supposed to be basically shaped like a flat-chested, round-shouldered, hipless tube. As even Japanese women aren’t really shaped this way, one has to do a lot of wrangling to make themselves appear to be shaped the way I mention. This is achieved mostly through the strategic placement of folded towels. Really! You can’t see any of it because it’s all underneath the kimono, but I have a bath towel wrapped around my waist (to make a straight line between my bust and hips), and another smaller towel folded into a V shape and stuck to my chest, draping over my shoulders in back (for the round shoulder look my own skeletal body does not naturally have). Anyway, that’s that. I guess it’s funny that people expect the removal of a kimono to be a really sexy thing, with exotic silken robes and underwear underneath, when actually it’s just a bunch of Spongebob Squarepants towels.
Anyway, that’s the outfit part of my blog this time.
Kei surprised me by making dinner reservations at a Japanese restaurant we’ve only been to once, and that I’m always begging him to take me to again, Kai. It was so good. **Katie, don’t read the next part. Sashimi, miso with blowfish nads, tiny undeveloped eels, persimmon ice cream, etc.
It’s funny how a meal I enjoyed so much last night would have seemed the most divinely evil of punishments had I been told about it as a kid.
***Ok Katie, it’s ok to read again now. Kei’s friend who works at the restaurant even ran next door and bought me a tiny cactus for my birthday. Nice! We were really full when we left, and I reflected that the nicest part about a kimono is that the Obi holds your stomach in, so you can eat as much as you want and nobody can tell afterwards! Bonus!
After dinner we went to Zerro (where I used to work and Kei still does) for a couple of drinks. Kei surprised me again with a new watch! You can see it in the top photo. It looks like a light green bracelet. Since it was both a friday night and the night after the manager’s birthday, there was not much craziness to be had, which is a really good thing. I managed to get home at the end of the night with my hairdo, kimono, and dignity intact.
The end.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Birthday!!!
