Kyoto, March 12

9:27PM JST - “A traditional day visiting temples!”

Hello!! How is it going? I heard it was rainy again back in the Netherlands... suckssss, well here the sun shone brightly once again XD It was a beautiful day as the weather forecast said! Which was superb because we had rented a kimono for today! Kimono’s are a traditional Japanese ‘piece’ of clothing which can be worn at several formal events. Of course it’s really traditional it’s not like a fancy dress or something, you can LOWKEY compare to the Dutch ‘klederdracht’ XD But then 10 times more beautiful than that. You also see a lot of people walking with these traditional clothing on the street and it’s really pretty and cute to see! I’m super happy we did this!

We had to be at the store at 10:00 so we had to wake up earlier XD We really didn’t want to get out of bed so the 8 ‘o clock we planned became 8:30 in the end which was luckily still doable. It was about a 15-20min walk from our hotel and when we arrived there were already quit a lot of people.
We entered the building and had to take off our shoes and were send to the 2nd floor where we had to show our reservation tickets. Then we got to choose our own kimono. There were so many to choose from and every print was equally as beautiful as the other ones. With the kimono also came a big obi belt which you could choose too if you weren’ happy with the one already provided with every kimono that hung there. We had a normal package but for ¥1100 we could choose 8 more accessories is we wanted to! Of course we did that we wanted to have the full experience so we also got to choose a flower arrangement which would be placed on your back on top of the obi belt.
(Sorry went out to get a snack lol, i’ll continue writing now.) We got to choose an extra belt which was a thing thread with either a pretty stone on it like I had or other ornaments like Jo-anne, she had fabric flowers on it. We also got to choose a colored collar instead of a plain white one and a fabric which would be placed right above the belt for an extra complimentary color.
So once we chose everything we were send to the third floor where they would dress you. Now that was a process. You were so many layers especially at the belt part. First you’d strip down to your underwear and got a white thin sort of robe as undergarment. You also got special socks with your big toe separated from the rest because you’d get to wear slippers. Then you’d put on your white jacket with colored collar. Then you’d get your kimono and it got tied around your waist to keep it in place. You’d get another piece of fabric around your waist and another one and another one. It got kind of tight and hot XD then on top of that you’d get your official obi belt. You needed all those layers so that your obi would be smooth around your waist. Well it got wrapped around you like 2 times and then tied at the back. The obi is pretty big in width - I think about 8 to 10cm - so it gets tied in a special way at the back and it lowkey looks like a big ribbon. Well on top of that you’d get the small belt (the thread with ornament) and then your flower arrangement is attached at the back. So if I didn’t’ miss anything you’d be done with dressing XD The kimono itself was pretty comfortable and the obi, although it was a bit tight, wasn’t that uncomfortable in the end. It was a beautiful way to sit straight though XD You couldn’t bend well and because of the flower arrangement you also couldn’t lean back when you sat down. Then we got to choose a complimentary handbag and had to ransfer the stuff we needed for that day from our backpack to the handbag and everything else + our clothes got kept safe.
Well that wasn’t the end yet, we also got hair arrangement in out package so we were sent to another room where we could choose a hairdo. We could choose out of 8 styles. 8 long and 8 short but we both had to choose out of the long ones. They were all charming but I decided to have my hair in a loose bun which was arranged with curls & braids so it looked a bit like a flower. A piece of hair in front brought to the side (as all the hairstyles suited bangs and I don’t have them. Seriously bangs are a d here, almost every girl I see has bangs.) and 2 strands of hair, on each side one, curled a let loose. For another price we could also have a small hair ornament and yes we wanted that too so we bought one. We got to keep it too so we have a souvenir of this day now!

Once we were finally done dressing we choose a pair of special slippers that matched our kimono and went our way! We wanted to go to Fushimi Inari Taisha as that is a beautiful place to take pictures with our traditional get up. So we took the metro to the temple and walked up to it. This temple is the main temple for many of the temples distributed across the country who worship Inari, the Shinto god of Rice. Fushimi Inari Taisho is also known as ‘The temple of the thousand (1000) gates’! It has 1000+ vermillion Torii gates over it’s pathway and it’s absolutely stunning to walk through that! The temple grounds are actually quite big. It’s path leads all the way up on the sacred Mount Inari and everywhere there are little shrines with fox statues placed on either side. The Fox is an important animal for this particular temple. It is believed that these animals were Inari’s messengers thus the many fox statues.
Although a bit inconvenient with our kimono’s we followed the trail up on the mountain constantly walking under the vermillion torii gates. It wasn’t super busy and the higher you got the less people :) The forest on the mountain surrounding the path was nice and cool and the sun sometimes peeked out in between the many trees. The weather was perfect and we got to enjoy the scenery in peace~

After quite a hike we descended the mountain again and stopped for a snack! We got taiyaki! It’s a fish shaped snack which is prepared like waffles and stuffed with a filling. The fillings could be anything but we had red bean paste filling which was quite tasty! When we were done eating (because, as you know, you can’t eat while walk XD) we wanted to quickly visit Kiyomizu-dera which was another temple located more in the middle of Kyoto. We had to turn in the Kimono’s by 17:30 so we took the train so Kiyomizu-dera. The temple however was on quite a mountain so we had to walk a few streets up in the sun. Then the kimono is quite hot hahahha especially at the belt part because there are so many things layered. Well we snapped a few pictures at Kiyomizi-dera and decided to came there again when we had more time.

And so we went to return out kimono’s. We got help taking off everything and got into our normal clothes again. That was quite a day but I loved it. The whole outfit was just super cute together and we got to keep the socks and hair ornament as a special gift! I felt really beautiful with my hair done up like that and a pretty traditional kimono!! Definitely recommend it and they also have traditional clothes for boys! Worry not, they’re way less patterned as the kimono’s. They’re mostly a plain color but have quite some charm to it too!

For dinner we didn’t’ feel like going all out and I had seen a corndog stand several times before and really craved to taste it XD So we got corndogs for dinner hahahaha. Our first one was one filled with mozzarella cheese and covered in sweet potato chunks. Then I wanted a second one hahah (I was hungry) and got one with a sausage inside. Jo-anne didn’t’ feel like a second one but really wanted to try melon-pan with vanilla ice cream inside. Melon pan is sweet bread which resembles a cut-in-squares melon at the top and this one was filled with soft served vanilla ice cream! ‘It was really tasty’ to Jo-annes words

Now we’re chilling in the lounge and it’s getting late XD We decided to take it easy for tomorrow since we ran around today. Maybe we’ll go to Arashiyama with it’ famous bamboo forest, but that’s undecided. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

Good night!~

-Yaru