Memoirs of a few Geishas and some Samurais

Kyoto is exactly what you picture in your head when you think of Japan. It is teeming with culture, women and men walking the streets in traditional kimonos, and tea houses everywhere. People take great pride in Japanese culture here, and the history of Japan. It’s wonderful to be here and to see a calmer side of Japan steeped in culture.

When we arrived here on Wednesday, we came via train and checked into our machiya. A machiya is a traditional Japanese house complete with tatami mats (which means no shoes in the house) and futons for beds and no furniture aside from a kitchen table and 4 chairs. It’s a bit odd to be in a house and not have anywhere to lounge around. Where to sit? the floor. Where to lay? the floor. Where to play a game? the floor. Where to read a book? the floor. You get the picture. This sounds fine and good, but it really hurts. We’ve been here for almost a week now, and we’re having a blast and really enjoying Kyoto, but we miss furniture. It’s the little things that we take for granted every day, eh? It’s been really amazing to get to see what this kind of living is like, though. It’s been fun to be able to go to the Japanese grocery stores near our house, and get foods that look interesting and eat them. When we first arrived, walking through a grocery store was a bit overwhelming, and a market was bizarre. Now we are walking around with a sense of ease that is new and lovely. I like knowing what things are and knowing how they are prepared.

So, our t-shirt contest has been raised to a new level this week. Remember all of the t-shirts that we saw in Tokyo? Well, in Kyoto it seems that English t-shirts are still the rage, and using English in an incorrect way or out of context is the only way to go.

Here are the winners: (honestly, we’ve seen all of these)

Family Share Primate

Pope Destiny

Heavy Maiden    (this was on a young woman)

Return Great Raft Value

our favorite store names? Infection (this was the name of a bar) & Captain Santa

Luna has seemed to turn a corner, too. For the last few days, things have been rough. She’s been mad and short-tempered, with higher highs and lower lows than normal. We’ve taken it easy and done some relaxing fun things, but stayed at home too, which has been nice to center all of us. She’s really adapting to the food and eating everything (except horse meat and wasp larva), and her story lines are changing. Anyone who knows Luna knows that she is always making plays, putting on shows. She is now creating shows with geishas in them, and dressing her dolls up in paper kimonos she is making with washi tape and tissue paper. It’s really fun to see. She’s told us she wants to be a geisha when she grows up, and she was SO excited to see geishas in Gion. It is adorable.

A few days ago, we did something goofy and very fun. It’s been very interesting to see the geishas on the streets of Gion, where we are staying, and Luna has loved it. For her, it’s like a fairytale coming to life.

So, on Friday we did something totally wacky and great. The pictures say 1000 words (or more). Let’s just say, we know we don’t look sexy, but here we go… Luna did not want to wear the wig because it was heavy and painful. We all have wigs on, so enjoy the show! To make any of these pictures larger, click on them and they will become bigger and turn into a slideshow. Xo!