Gaijin wearing yukata??

[emiluvsjmusic]

i think its fine for a gaijin to wear yukata ^_^
i'm half and i've worn it a lot of times
it didnt looked stupid on me... i hope hah

[Nyororin]

In my experience, either you look great in a yukata or you look silly. There doesn`t seem to be too much of a mid ground. I think I look like an idiot in one, but my sister looked wonderful.
I had a friend tell me I looked beautiful in a kimono, and she was serious... So perhaps it is all in the eye of the beholder.
Either way, I`m not comfortable enough in yukata or kimono to go about wearing one. Wearing a kimono at my wedding and yukata for about a week in the hospital (yes, hospital gowns here are yukata) after my son was born was enough for a lifetime.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

In my experience, either you look great in a yukata or you look silly. There doesn`t seem to be too much of a mid ground. I think I look like an idiot in one, but my sister looked wonderful.
I had a friend tell me I looked beautiful in a kimono, and she was serious... So perhaps it is all in the eye of the beholder.
Either way, I`m not comfortable enough in yukata or kimono to go about wearing one. Wearing a kimono at my wedding and yukata for about a week in the hospital (yes, hospital gowns here are yukata) after my son was born was enough for a lifetime.

I agree...I participated in a couple local festivals and wore the garb of our Danjiri group, but I cringe a little when I look back at the pictures.

[Paul11]

My wedding was a shinto ceremony, so I had the full get-up. It looked good and felt great, there were so many obi that there was tons of back support. But not in public. It's not just how you look, but whether or not your the nail that sticks out.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

My wedding was a shinto ceremony, so I had the full get-up. It looked good and felt great, there were so many obi that there was tons of back support. But not in public. It's not just how you look, but whether or not your the nail that sticks out.

I think that in the case of women, it has a lot to do with the bust. The traditional form is a very straight one, so if you have a larger bust either you`re going to look weird because it shows a lot up there (as my yukata experiences have been), or you`re going to have to put 50 towels around your waist and shoulders to destroy any sign of curves (like they did for our shinto ceremony).

Either way, sadly, never looks quite right. The flatter the chest the easier it is to pull off... Men, on the other hand, can usually manage to look at the least quite decent as long as they pull off the posture and walk correctly.

Random off topic question - Paul11, where did you have your ceremony? I`m assuming a fairly private locale... I`m jealous. Ours was in front of throngs of tourists in full sakura season at Atsuta Jingu. In-laws wouldn`t settle for anything less for the family heir. *sigh*

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I think that in the case of women, it has a lot to do with the bust. The traditional form is a very straight one, so if you have a larger bust either you`re going to look weird because it shows a lot up there (as my yukata experiences have been), or you`re going to have to put 50 towels around your waist and shoulders to destroy any sign of curves (like they did for our shinto ceremony).

Either way, sadly, never looks quite right. The flatter the chest the easier it is to pull off... Men, on the other hand, can usually manage to look at the least quite decent as long as they pull off the posture and walk correctly.

Random off topic question - Paul11, where did you have your ceremony? I`m assuming a fairly private locale... I`m jealous. Ours was in front of throngs of tourists in full sakura season at Atsuta Jingu. In-laws wouldn`t settle for anything less for the family heir. *sigh*

Some women role towels, put them along their sides by their hips and tie them in place with an under-kimono. thier shapes are changing with diet and they are still trying to get that "kokeshi" shape.

Our wedding was at Kashihara-jingu. A sudden change of plans and booking problems ended up with them giving us some special "emperors room" banquet hall just off the garden. I remember not being able to eat the 1000 course meal (exaggerating, of course) because of all the photos by friends and family. That was in 1999

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

Some women role towels, put them along their sides by their hips and tie them in place with an under-kimono. thier shapes are changing with diet and they are still trying to get that "kokeshi" shape.

Unfortunately, when they`re dressing you for a wedding, you don`t really get a choice. They put towels upon towels upon towels, until I could have supplied a sento with the number they kept wrapping somewhere to try and achieve balance of some sort. I would have much preferred they just wrap my breasts to make them flatter - the obi would have taken care of my waist to hip ratio. And I should have said something at the time, it may have saved me from looking like a balloon and being unable to lower my arms completely... but of course hindsight is 20/20.

Our wedding was at Kashihara-jingu. A sudden change of plans and booking problems ended up with them giving us some special "emperors room" banquet hall just off the garden. I remember not being able to eat the 1000 course meal (exaggerating, of course) because of all the photos by friends and family. That was in 1999

It looks like a beautiful place off the beaten track. We wanted to have ours at Narumi Jinja, (too small to even have an official page, it seems, but dear to our hearts) but after a visit with the in-laws in tow, they deemed it too small and not prestigious enough. ("No one has heard of it!") We refused to go with a package wedding hall plan, so only a few selections were left that would fit their requirements. But hey, they paid for it, so we couldn`t really complain.

ETA: We didn`t get to eat a single bite of our cake, and the last half of the banquet as we made the silly choice to pass out the cake ourselves to all thousand guests. (An exaggeration, of course, but there had to be at least 100) We wanted to make things personal and give greetings to everyone...

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Unfortunately, when they`re dressing you for a wedding, you don`t really get a choice. They put towels upon towels upon towels, until I could have supplied a sento with the number they kept wrapping somewhere to try and achieve balance of some sort. I would have much preferred they just wrap my breasts to make them flatter - the obi would have taken care of my waist to hip ratio. And I should have said something at the time, it may have saved me from looking like a balloon and being unable to lower my arms completely... but of course hindsight is 20/20.



It looks like a beautiful place off the beaten track. We wanted to have ours at Narumi Jinja, (too small to even have an official page, it seems, but dear to our hearts) but after a visit with the in-laws in tow, they deemed it too small and not prestigious enough. ("No one has heard of it!") We refused to go with a package wedding hall plan, so only a few selections were left that would fit their requirements. But hey, they paid for it, so we couldn`t really complain.

ETA: We didn`t get to eat a single bite of our cake, and the last half of the banquet as we made the silly choice to pass out the cake ourselves to all thousand guests. (An exaggeration, of course, but there had to be at least 100) We wanted to make things personal and give greetings to everyone...

Sounds about right. when both our parents did not give thier blessings we planned everything ourselves. Finally, mother-in-law invited me into the family. Which means she got involved and replanned everything 6 weeks prior to the wedding.

We were so busy, and nervous, at the reception hall, thatlater we looked at the picture of us posing near the cake with knofe in hand. I completely forgot there was even a cake. I didn't recognize it at all.

Narumi jinja looks nice. I can never see too many temples or shrines and I like the small ones. earlier you talked about going to Shikoku. There are the 88 temples dedicated to Kobo Daishi that people pilgrimage to. If you can rent a car try to check some out. The main one is propbably the least impressive. But others are small, old and fabulous.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

Sounds about right. when both our parents did not give thier blessings we planned everything ourselves. Finally, mother-in-law invited me into the family. Which means she got involved and replanned everything 6 weeks prior to the wedding.　

We had their blessings from day one, and didn`t personally even want a real wedding. We were happy with a marriage certificate and a little party with our close friends. They protested, of course, but we didn`t have the money for a real wedding with my husband still in school and didn`t want to rely on them for it... So they backed down and let us do our thing with the promise that we`d have a real wedding later when things settled down. 3 years later, when I got pregnant, they jumped into action saying NOW, and dragging us through the planning. Everyone already knew we were married, everyone already knew we were having a baby... But I guess it`s a bit of a pride thing, so they pretty much forced us to have a wedding.

We were so busy, and nervous, at the reception hall, thatlater we looked at the picture of us posing near the cake with knofe in hand. I completely forgot there was even a cake. I didn't recognize it at all.

Even though I picked the thing out - for the life of me, I can`t remember ours either. I know we had one though because I was pretty upset that I didn`t get to even have a bite of it. It was the main thing I was looking forward to.

Narumi jinja looks nice.

Chances are, the photo/s you found aren`t of the one I`m talking about. I have only been able to find one small pic of the one I meant. It doesn`t seem to be an uncommon name.

I can never see too many temples or shrines and I like the small ones. earlier you talked about going to Shikoku. There are the 88 temples dedicated to Kobo Daishi that people pilgrimage to. If you can rent a car try to check some out. The main one is propbably the least impressive. But others are small, old and fabulous.

There is a beautiful little one near here that I make a point out of stopping by just because it seems so... lonely and peaceful.

[Paul11]

It's good you had a ceremony. They're a right of passage and puts your new role and relationship in context.

There's a guy on Flicker who posted a bunch of photos of a jinja of that name in nagoya that is a orphanage.