It is so AMAZING to have Damian home in Japan with me... I almost like living on the other side of the world now! We had a nice Thanksgiving together with some of Damian's shipmates and their families. We had a potluck and everything was oishii! The deep fried turkey smelled pretty good to me, but I left the tasting up to the carnivores of the group! There were about 12 of us at Thanksgiving and it was nice to have a big group get together... most of us are used to big families at home so this helped to fill the void of our families for the day! It was a wonderful first Thanksgiving as a married couple! Black Friday was an absolute ZOO here... I'm typically NOT a crazy black friday shopper, but we wanted to get some furniture for our apartment at the furniture store on base because it was so much cheaper. Apparently people were lined up starting at 10pm the night before... well that certainly was not going to happen! We got up and headed out around 0800 and only had to wait in line to pay for about an hour... totally worth it too.... we got a new TV stand and a funky bookshelf we have been eyeing since we got here! The line in the electronics department of the exchange was completely ridiculous... at least a 2-3 hour wait to pay... not worth it! We spent our day putting our new furniture together, napping, hitting the gym, and finally a $1 movie.... Moneyball (which I highly recommend!).
Today (Sunday) we went to a Japan Festival right outside of the base in Yokosuka! It is sponsored by Yokosuka City and the Yokosuka International Association and it is a great way to get acquainted with Japanese culture!
It was free admission and some of the things cost extra but there was a ton of things to check out! It was run by volunteers from the community... many of them over the age of 100 (this is a guess but most were elders of the community). They really took joy in teaching us about their culture. There were many stations where you could sit down and try stuff out such as Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), calligraphy, origami (Japanese paper folding), handmade toys, and other games. One of the highlights of our day was at the Kendama area. Kendama is a traditional Japanese toy that is similar to the cup-and-ball game. One of the volunteers took a special interest in teaching Damian and I many of the Kendama tricks... he was somewhat of a Kendama master! We each were able to complete 5 of the tricks and received a certificate of merit in Japanese! We spent about 30 minutes at this area as both of us are pretty competitive and were unable to allow the other to do a trick without mastering it ourselves...I was able to try on an uchikake which is a traditional Japanese wedding gown. It was heavy as all heck!!!! These two women got me all suited up in it and then Damian got this picture!
The uchikake is an outer robe made of fine silk, it can be white or brightly colored. All of the embroidery is done by hand, and is extremely impressive up close... a lot is done in gold and silver thread. Images that are often found on the uchikake include cranes, turtles, pines, cherry-blossoms, and chrysanthemums as these are ALL symbols of happiness and good fortune. One thing I absolutely LOVE about Japanese culture is that everything has some sort of symbolism attached to it which makes everything a little more meaningful. 
Damian and I arrived at the festival pretty early before it got too crowded and when we stepped into one of the rooms, a volunteer grabbed Damian and was so excited to dress him up as a Samurai. I was pretty excited too, it was pretty neat watching them put all the handmade armor on him- great picture opportunity! They had real samurai swords there as well and we were able to hold them I didn't realize how heavy one of those swords were until I held one for a minute. I thought Damian would have made an excellent samurai back in the day!The BIG reason we went to this festival was to dress in Kimono. As many of you are aware, Kimono is the traditional Japanese garment worn by men, women and children alike. They had many Kimonos of all sizes to try on, we actually had to wait about an hour until we were able to get dressed up.
The Kimono dressing was 500 Yen.... an absolute bargain!!!! That's only about $7 to get all decked out in Kimono and walk around and take pictures. The word Kimono literally means "thing to wear" and the sash worn around the middle that secures them is called an "obi." They are all so beautiful but until today I had NO idea how intense these robes are to put on. I had 3-4 women helping me put my kimono and obi on and it took about 30 minutes... The obi is similar to an outside the clothes corset and had about 7 different layers of ties. They pulled me so tight I had a hard time taking a really deep breath. After they had me all done up, I was pretty sure my scoliosis was cured... I have never stood so straight and tall in my life! There are 15+ different parts of a kimono... I'm not going to explain them all here, but just understand it is a lot more complicated than it looks. A woman's kimono can cost as much as $10,000 USD with all these parts, plus the special socks and sandals on top of all of it. In the picture I have a long sleeve kimono on, but traditionally since I am a married woman I would have a short sleeve kimono on... obviously so I could do the dishes, cooking, and other cleaning without getting my sleeves dirty.... haha BRILLIANT! After the festival we went out to a sushi-go-round restaurant for lunch and then a quick stop at the 100 Yen store before heading home for the day!
Japanese Word of the Day:
Otto (o-toe): Husband
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