Blog　2018年12月の記事

2018年12月30日

New Year Preparations at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine

Kitano Tenmansu (北野天満宮) is a shrine to the god of learning, Sir Sugawara Michizane (菅原道真), and is very crowded with visitors especially during the New Year’s holiday season. In my childhood, my parents often took me there, especially at the time of my entrance examinations. In the premises, there are a lot of statues of ・・・

2018年12月29日

Kappogi, a Coat over Kimono for Domestic Works

The year end is getting close and my readers must have been doing very busy in preparation for welcoming the New Year. In this busy time of the year, I always think of Kappogi (割烹着), a Japanese coat over Kimono (着物) mostly for cooking. My mother and grandmother used to wear white ones with rubber ・・・

2018年12月27日

Susuharai, Sweeping Dust Away Ceremony at Higashi Honganji Temple

Higashi-honganji (東本願寺), otherwise affectionately called as Ohigashi-san (お東さん, Mr. Higashi), is the head temple of Otani (大谷) sect of Shinshu (真宗) located near YUMEYAKATA. The sight of many temple buildings that are the world’s largest level architecture is just overwhelming. In the temple, the famous winter event in Kyoto called Susuharai (煤払い, sweeping soot away) ・・・

2018年12月26日

Lengths of Kimono Sleeves

Nowadays, the sleeve lengths of ready-made Kimono (着物) and Juban (襦袢, Kimono undergarment) are standardized to approximately 49 centimeters so that the sleeves of outer and inner layers are almost always fit with each other. However, when I try to wear my grandmother’s Kimono on Juban I bought, sometimes the sleeve lengths are mismatch and ・・・

2018年12月26日

Boiled Pumpkin at Yata-dera Temple

Toji (冬至, winter solstice) is the day which has the shortest daylight hours in the year. In Japan, we take a Yuzuburo (柚風呂, hot citron bath) and eat boiled pumpkin on this day. There is an old saying that if you eat a food which includes more than two “n” consonants in its name on ・・・