The other week Setsiko (one of Josh's students) came to the house bearing gifts. She had gone to Kyoto and bought us both a full set of Yukata. This is Japanese traditional summer clothing. They are kimonos but made of cotton rather than silk, lighter for the terrible heat that is the Kansai region of Japan. Setsiko really wanted us to go to Japanese summer festivals (matzuri) and felt that we needed the right clothing. Our outfits include everything even Japanese wooden shoes (getta) for me, apparently Josh's feet are too big.
So now we have these awesome outfits all we needed was a place to wear them. It was then that our friends Dan and Yuka thought that we should all go to Kyoto wearing Yukata. Lots of people wear traditional clothing in Kyoto. In fact, many women go to Kyoto with the expressed purpose of wearing their traditional clothing. So we thought we would give it a try.
Josh and I spent the night before drinking Yamamomo juice and coconut rum and watching internet videos about how to put the Yukata on. It is a bit of a process. The next day we were off in our traditional clothing, it was extrordinaily hot but an excellent time.
These are not real Gieshas, they are girls who have dressed up for fun as Giesha for a photo op, a common sight around Kyoto.
This is the shrine of bad wishes, we usually check it out to see what nasty things people had written lately.
These girls were also walking around in their traditional clothing so they asked us if we would take a picture with them.
Yuka just before she almost fell into the fountain.
Ahhh..... KYOTO!
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