Friday, January 09, 2009

Things Japanese

In November Laurent spent a few weeks on vacation in Japan - yes we do occasionally take separate vacations. He had been there about three years ago to visit our friend Colette but had restricted his activities to Tokyo. This time he did some serious touring around on their great train system - Kyoto,Nara,Osaka and Himeji. He can't stop talking about how efficient and user-friendly their service was, but keep in mind most of his recent experiences has been on TrenItalia.

One of our guests on Christmas Day was another Colette, a friend from Canada who teaches English in Japan. As well as some gelatin sweets adorned with good luck symbols she presented us with a length of obi silk. Well over 14 feet long, its lacquered silk which gives the pattern extra depth and makes it easier to tie the obi. The band of solid orange silk towards one end would be the part of the obi closest the body. It doesn't show and given the cost of patterned silk it is more economical to use the plain silk.

It is a lovely piece of material and Colette suggested cutting it up to make place mats, though I think I would find it difficult to cut into such a beautiful piece of material. We'll have to think of some way to use it.

And a click on the Chrysanthemum will lead you to the first of Laurent's Flickr photo sets of his trip. "Nara is a small town a former Capital of Japan prior to Kyoto. Lovely temples and sacred deers roaming around the parks of the city."

09 gennaio - San Marcellino

5 comments:

sageweb said...

Bravo on the pictures...he has an eye.

Hey that silk it beatiful.

Doralong said...

Ohh, pretty! I'm jealous. I'm further jealous because I have always wanted to go to Japan.

Actually I collect Japanese textiles (yes I am weird, we knew that)- and you can make a pretty fab drapery swag out of an Obi. The also are quite lovely as wall hangings.

Sling said...

Laurent did a great job on the slideshow..In fact,I enjoy the way you both capture the flavor of the places you visit with the neighborhood market places and such!

flipstinger said...

ahahhah...i like how you pointed out about Trenitalia. Gosh! brings back some memories - both good and bad!

look like you're being spoiled with all these beautiful items.

BigAssBelle said...

what gorgeous photos! Laurent has a gift. What, you don't want to wear the silk as it's meant to be worn? Who knows what might happen if you sashayed through the streets of Italy bedecked in yards and yards of flowing silk . . .