Friday the young women in our ward went to the very old and beautiful town Kamakura to dress up in kimonos and have photos taken. I decided the little girls and I would tag along. And we had an extra small girl with us, Miss N.
We met everyone at the gate and walked to the train station. It's only a little 20 minute ride.
The kimono rental shop was on Komachi Dori street, which is a famous tourist area.
This is the shop. We went in with all the teenagers for a while as they picked out their kimonos.
I tried to do some comparison photographing. Since moving to Japan I have not used my "big" camera at all. Mostly because we no longer have a car. Anytime we are out and about, I have only what I can carry on my body. And stuff gets heavy! I haven't wanted to add my big old camera case, and camera, and extra lens, and filters, and so forth. Especially since I'm usually (always) carrying around my kindle, my goshuin book, my eki stamp book... Besides, my phone camera has a lot more megapixels than my big camera. But I do miss my big camera, especially for taking close ups of flowers, which I enjoy doing... So on this trip I lugged my camera around. The upper photo is taken with my phone. The bottom with the big camera... What do I think?
The shop was a riot of colors and fabrics. It was fun! But it took a very long time to get them all dressed and ready. We didn't stick around for long.
The girls waited on the shop steps. Miss M wanted to stay in where the action was.
They played vibration games by humming with Miss R's purse strap around them, I'm fairly certain the passers by were reaffirmed in their belief that Americans are weird...
We walked up and down the street, going in shops and enjoying the sights...
Importantly, one of the girls' young womens leaders is a professional photographer named Grace Cheney. She came along to take pictures. This is one of hers.
Another camera comparison: top is phone, bottom is big camera.
We have a thing about guardian dogs. They are called komainu, and are also referred to as lion-dogs. They always come in sets of two, one on either side of the stairs in front of the shrine, and usually one has his eyes open and mouth closed, while the other has the reverse. I will quote from wikipedia: "This is a very common characteristic in religious statue pairs at both temples and shrines. The pattern is Buddhist in origin and has a symbolic meaning: The open mouth is pronouncing the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, which is pronounced "a", while the closed one is uttering the last letter, which is pronounced "um", to represent the beginning and the end of all things.[4] Together they form the sound Aum, a syllable sacred in several religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism."
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, … which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8.) For an excellent description of these names, please see this article.
Interesting, the child that doesn't belong to me is the only one that can smile normally for photos...
Finally, after about three hours, the young women arrived at the shrine. They looked spectacular. All the time was worth it, because they were stunning.
I took some pictures too, with the big camera.
Just living in Japan...
