Gardens & Geisha

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Hi Everyone,


This past week was a whirlwind of activity here in Kobe. I was very fortunate to have a visitor from home. My friend Leigh came to Japan for six days. So little time and so much to do!!!
We visited several beautiful Japanese style gardens, complete with ponds, pretty fish and bonsei trees galore! Between Chinatown, the harbourfront and a lot of incredible shopping there was a lot for Leigh to see in Kobe.

On Friday, we dined on sushi. I love the shrimp sushi, and I tried octopus too, but it was a little too chewy for my liking! Afterwards we headed to meet my friend Etsuco who was kind enough to treat us to an ikebana fair. Ikebana is Japanese flower arranging, and as we learned from the large crowd, really, really popular in Kobe. After saying goodbye to Etsuco Leigh and I headed off to Kyoto. Kyoto is an absolutely beautiful city, full of rich culture and Japanese history. More recently its become a popular international tourist destination following the release of the book, and subsequent Hollywood blockbuster 'Memories of A Geisha´.

Gion is a famous entertainment area in Kyoto and is know as the home to many tea houses in which beautiful, well-trained geishas entertain wealthy clients with songs and dance. Strolling along the streets and narrow alleyways of Gion was truly a remarkable experience, that I will always remember. Softly light tea house and restaurants with read Japanese lanterns hanging outside lined the streets and Leigh and I were fortunate enough to see about 15 geishas on their way to work over the course of a few hours. One beautiful courtyard in particular caught my attention and we decided to go in, it was full of tea lights and bamboo, recognizing that we were in the back of a tea house, where we probably didn´t belong we came face to face with a geisha making her way to the back entrace. Aside from brief eye contact she didn´t react just went about her business.With her deep black hair, snow white face and colourful kimono she was a truly beautiful sight.

We continued to make ourway down a side street where we stumbled upon a group of about 20 tourists , cameras at the ready. We learned they were staking out the back of a theatre were many geishas prepare for thier evening. We also learned how fortunate we were to have our brief encounter with the geisha, many tourists leave Gion with out ever seeing one. Over the course of our time with the group of tourists we saw about 12 more geisha. They were very poised and simply ignored the cameras and made their way to work. Some of the tourist were pretty pushy and I was actually embarassed to be part of the group as many chased after the geisha to get the ´perfect shot´.

Leigh and I also had the opportunity to get dressed up and pretend we were geishas if only for a little while. Complete with full make-up, jet black wig and beautiful kimonos the experience was a lot of fun, and we have professional photos to prove it.

Right now my own photos will have to do.

I´ve added more photos from this weeks adventures on my Yahoo photos page

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/uticmfennell2005/my_photos?urlhint=actn,del%3as,1%3af,0

Tomorrow´s my first real ikebana class, and I am looking forward to have some pretty arrangements to decorate my room, don´t worry there will be many pictures to follow!!!!

Hope you are well, please keep me updated on what´s new in your world.

Miss you!

love, Melissa

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