Oishii Japan 2018

I wore kimono for tea ceremony presentation at a local event today. I chose a purple iromuji, cream taiko gara fukuro obi with karabana design, pink obijime, dark purple and blue obiage, and pink zori. (I've been playing with a new selfie stick/tripod/bluetooth remote, so the posing isn't quite on point yet.)

More photos of the event were captured by Frank Chin, a talented local photographer. There's a few of us performing tea ceremony during the event. Please click here to see them!

First Tea Ceremony Presentation of 2016

Even though our tea ceremony group is much more casual than others in the USA, we still try to have hatsugama every year. Due to our sensei's schedule, we were unable to hold the event this year unfortunately. (For those who don't know, our sensei moved to the east coast a few years ago and has been flying back about once per month to teach us.) However, we were asked to do a presentation for the Oishii Japan food event. Sensei had originally planned to fly in and lead the presentation, but with the blizzard last week, his flight was cancelled. I was asked to lead in his place.

I have done several of these kinds of presentations in the past, so I wasn't too nervous from a stage-fright standpoint. But since I had surgery back in December, I have not been able to practice very much. I felt rusty, and that's what actually made me nervous. Despite my fears, the presentation went very well. My husband provided narration (since this group was unfamiliar with tea ceremony) and one of our other members was my main guest. Two other members assisted some in the background.

And now on to the pictures! I was really excited to wear this iromuji. I bought it last year, but I was waiting for the perfect time to wear it. This event fit the bill in my opinion. The colors in my own crappy iPhone pictures are very washed out, but the two of the actual presentation taken by Frank Chin are very true-to-life.

Coordination for Halloween Tea Ceremony Class

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to wear kimono with the traditional colors to tea ceremony class. I didn't want it to look too out of place, so I wore my orange iromuji, the black and grey bokashi nagoya obi, a deep purple obiage, and a bright green obijime.

Kodo Taiko Performance Coordination

Last week was my birthday, and to celebrate, we got tickets to see a performance by Kodo Taiko. The show was absolutely amazing, and if they are ever in your area, I highly recommend you go see them! My exposure to taiko in the past has been all festival style, but they took it to a whole new level! I was honestly surprised by the comedic skits they included; even with language barriers, the whole audience understood exactly what was going on, and the whole room was full of laughter.

As per usual, I used this as an opportunity to wear kimono out. Since this was a nice performance in a concert hall, I wanted to dress semi-formal. After some help from the lovely IG Facebook page, I ended up choosing this coordination:

A peachy-orange crested iromuji with a silver saga-tsuzdure fukuro obi, accessorized with a light green shibori obiage, a pink and silver sanbuhimo, and a rainbow-colored rhinestone obidome. The juban I wore underneath is a red one from the Taisho Roman era, which proved to be rather fidgety, hence the reason my haneri shows so little. I finished everything off with pale pink zori that have a little silver on the hanao to echo the sanbuhimo. 

I hope you enjoyed my coordination! It was a wonderful birthday ^_^