radhardened | Day 8: Saturday, 24 October 2009

On Saturday morning we went to a hands-on roketsuzome workshop at Yamamoto Roketsuzome やまもとローケツ染め. On my last visit I'd made a panel depicting Mukai Kyorai's Hut of Fallen Persimmons. This time I traced a design of an Ōharame 大原女, a woman who peddles flowers or firewood from pastoral Ōhara, to produce this panel. There are no longer Ōharame as such, but we had seen women dressed in Ōharame costume in the Jidai Matsuri parade a few days earlier. Here are my photos from this workshop.

Afterwards we went to the Nishijin neighborhood, famous for its weavers, where we visited a yuzen dyeing workshop. Kimono made of yuzen dyed fabric are exquisite works of art, with prices to match.

From there, Julia—the other chado practitioner in our group—and I ducked into a wagashi shop—it was either Oimatsu or Tawaraya, I don't remember. We were just in time for a demonstration of wagashi-making at what I'd describe as a small sushi bar for wagashi, where each customer chooses one of two types and watches the confectioner make it before partaking of it with a bowl of usucha. Watching the wagashi being made was just as much fun as eating it. The lighting was too dim for my camera, but if I figure out which shop it was, I'd go back and do it again with pictures. Maybe I'll just have to visit every wagashi shop in Kyoto to make sure I find it. :)

We caught up with the rest of our group at the Nishijin Textile Center, where we watched a kimono fashion show (my photos). It was interesting to compare the models' movements and poses with those I'd expect at a Western-style fashion show. We checked out the center's store after the show, but I missed the museum and weaving demonstration, which I guess were in other parts of the building.

That evening I visited a former chado classmate from back home who had since moved with her husband back to Kyoto and given birth to a daughter. They fed me a delicious feast of a dinner, including her father's homemade pickles. Between her family and her career as a medical researcher—back when she was in the DC area I was the only student in our session without a doctoral degree—she doesn't have much time for chado anymore, but it was nice to catch up.