finally. the kimono pic. special shoutout to Akiko-san, the host mother that knows how to hook a gaijin up. another one of my friends here and I really wanted to go traditional, but the only option we knew was going to Kyoto and paying a $100 for a professional to do us up and take a couple of pics. no wig or makeup included in this little treat, but for free, who cares?
oh yeah, there was a camera crew as well. apparently, our little gaijin-become-traditional-japanese-adventure was something TV Tokyo felt like filming. I don't know why Japanese peeps would want to watch a bunch of gaijin try on kimono, but if you want to hand me my 15 minutes, I'll take it.
in fact, because of Akiko-san, I've been getting to do a lot of random things with the international community in the Saitama (the "city"/prefecture where I live... kinda like a zip-code or a burrough). Me and Stephen are her 33rd and 34th exchange students, so she's used to showing people like us the Tokyo ropes.we went to an ikebana gallery showing last week, where I got to bust out my mono no aware knowledge (japanese aesthetic ideal about beauty in nature), and lately it seems like I'm always hanging out with her friend's exchange students. a few days after that, I represented America (dubious, dubious) at a Cub Scout Rally - good pay, nice swag, but my cheeks still hurt from smiling so much. This week, is Golden Week/vacay time for all of Japan, so there was a pretty cool international festival up near Omiya that I was recruited to paint kid's faces at. oh, Japanese children. is there such a thing as too cute??
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