The bad news first... I have very limited blogging skills. I just open, write, and post. Today I decided to go into the Dashboard and try things out and get all fancy!
So I saw I had a ton of comments, all of which I had read on the blog itself. So I decided to delete the giant pile of what I thought were comment notifications so I would be better informed when new ones popped up. Nope. I instead ruthlessly and unwittingly deleted every comment that's ever been made on this blog, 50 at a time. >_< It took me a while. I wondered why there wasn't a button to delete all the notifications at once...
The moral of the story is don't let me near Dashboard. So if you notice your comments are missing, I apologize. It's because I'm an idiot.
But hopefully a better-dressed idiot soon.
The good news: Thanks to a newspaper ad passed along by a friend, I am now enrolled in Wasou's free autumn kitsuke classes!
Wasou is one of the big kimono schools here in Japan, which exist to help Japanese women learn how to wear kimono ("kitsuke") and become more knowledgeable about them. They exist because kimono are no longer a part of daily life for most younger Japanese women, so while they know a bit they're usually not much more familiar with them than your average American.
The lessons (15 in all) are truly free minus a few small fees here and there (300 yen for a student photo taken your first day, 1,200 yen for a bento box lunch during a couple of "lunch seminars", and 8,000-12,000 yen for an optional all-kimono party at a local hotel at the end of the course). The way Wasou makes its money is if you choose to purchase any kimono or obi at the two lunch seminars, where kimono and obi makers come and basically do a trunk show.
Wasou also makes a few bucks off of any dressing doo-dads you choose to buy that they demo for you during the first class: elastic koshihimo cords that are more comfortable than the traditional cloth ones, bias-cut collars that never wrinkle, etc. They made a few bucks off me once I saw how handy some of the things were. :)
Once I have a few more lessons I'll post more about my experiences with the school. And hopefully not delete anything along the way! Arrrrgh!
So I saw I had a ton of comments, all of which I had read on the blog itself. So I decided to delete the giant pile of what I thought were comment notifications so I would be better informed when new ones popped up. Nope. I instead ruthlessly and unwittingly deleted every comment that's ever been made on this blog, 50 at a time. >_< It took me a while. I wondered why there wasn't a button to delete all the notifications at once...
The moral of the story is don't let me near Dashboard. So if you notice your comments are missing, I apologize. It's because I'm an idiot.
But hopefully a better-dressed idiot soon.
The good news: Thanks to a newspaper ad passed along by a friend, I am now enrolled in Wasou's free autumn kitsuke classes!
Wasou is one of the big kimono schools here in Japan, which exist to help Japanese women learn how to wear kimono ("kitsuke") and become more knowledgeable about them. They exist because kimono are no longer a part of daily life for most younger Japanese women, so while they know a bit they're usually not much more familiar with them than your average American.
The lessons (15 in all) are truly free minus a few small fees here and there (300 yen for a student photo taken your first day, 1,200 yen for a bento box lunch during a couple of "lunch seminars", and 8,000-12,000 yen for an optional all-kimono party at a local hotel at the end of the course). The way Wasou makes its money is if you choose to purchase any kimono or obi at the two lunch seminars, where kimono and obi makers come and basically do a trunk show.
Wasou also makes a few bucks off of any dressing doo-dads you choose to buy that they demo for you during the first class: elastic koshihimo cords that are more comfortable than the traditional cloth ones, bias-cut collars that never wrinkle, etc. They made a few bucks off me once I saw how handy some of the things were. :)
Once I have a few more lessons I'll post more about my experiences with the school. And hopefully not delete anything along the way! Arrrrgh!
3 comments:
OOOooh! I'm so jealous! You will have to post some things and let us all know how it goes. I am very excited to hear about your coming experiences.
Hi I am planning to enrol onto a Kimono class in Tokyo in the coming summer. Are classes provided by the Wasou School also for foreigners? I am currently learning Japanese and plan to spend 6 weeks in Japan. I would really appreciate if you could tell me more about the Kimono class. :) Thanks a lot!
Daisy, I quit updating here and came back to check on something and saw your question! Sorry for the long delay!
As long as you speak a decent amount of Japanese, you can join the classes, but be aware the instructors will likely be nervous until you can prove you can communicate and understand them. The classes are also multi-month affairs, and you can't drop in to just one or two.
If you're only here for 6 weeks, I would recommend looking around for smaller kimono schools that might have shorter classes. Thanks for your question!
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