Today I bought my first kimono! Our speaking class went to a flea market at a local temple where we had to buy something to present as a 'Show & Tell' in our next class. So I bought a robot Karuta set (a Japanese card game which we all learned in our first tutorial in 1st year) and then I saw a pretty pretty kimono stall. I started sifting through them all, and before long I was being attended to by the two women on the stall, who were having fun dressing me up as a doll in all the different colours and patterns and finding one to go best with my blonde hair. Eventually I picked a pattern and we looked for an appropriate obi (the belt thing) to go with it. We found one and they tied it up and put me in front of a mirror, I quite liked it, and I seemed to be drawing quite a crowd of women who were stopping at the stall and saying "kirei!" or "kawaii!" ("pretty!" and "cute!") They seemed to like the fact that I was trying on kimonos :)

I will put a photo up soon, but as it's second-hand I want to give it a bit of a wash first. And I need to learn how to tie the obi myself. However, I did get a pretty picture of the floral court outside my window, which is now in bloom:



You go up to the little hut, and for 200 yen (under £1) they let you cut your own bunch of flowers. So now I need to head to the 100 yen shop and find a vase...