Yukata 'Summer kimono' and Fireworks;

(posted; Japanese culture page)

  July 21st is "Marine Day" in Japan. Firework Festival is close to this day. 

Yukata is worn mainly at the traditional summer events like fireworks and bon dance festivals. Especially we can see children and young couple wear them. Here are the pictures of display of them at the department store. 

I reminisce my mother used to wear kimono frequently and loved to see her wear them by herself elegantly. Not many people wear this traditional clothes nowadays.

Fireworks in my city, was held last night and it became an annual event for both of us to go:-)  Always gives me a moment of feeling of free from mundane affairs. My husband took pictures for me to post. Although I know these pictures won't express the dynamic feeling much, I wish to let you know the event. I wonder if your area have fireworks event like we have in many places during the summer. 

We saw the fireworks from the harbor of the industrial company.
Linking this post to Our World Tuesday;

Thank you very much for stopping by;

Visiting you soon♪

A few Fireworks Topic

                 We enjoyed fireworks with next neighbor's 2 children

押し花の貼り絵  

This fireworks designed paperwork was made by pasting pressed flower "押し花 oshibana".  We call this kind of work "貼り絵, harie". My husband had some motivations for starting to make this. 
Firstly; he was so fascinated by the pressed flower of clovers which his ex-colleague's young boy made (link to my post). This work was made mainly by using the boy's 'pressed flower' of 4-leaf clover (5-leaf is upper right) except the biggest firework. My husband wished the boy to use his ability for his summer work. This was supposed to be the model for him. Unfortunately, he denied making it instantly. Seemed too hard for him p;)  
Hoping to have a favorable response, he also showed it to our neighbor's boy 'who did fireworks together'.  He said that will be the next summer's project, haha. 
Secondly; when young, my husband had one sweet memory seeing a famous cutout artist called Yamashita Kiyoshi (山下　清） introducing his works. Here is one of his work. And these are the links about him and his other works.

He wandered throughout Japan making remarkable cutout works despite a mild speech impediment and some neurological damage. His life was dramatized as well.

I got run out of draft for the next post, so I will be able to concentrate visiting you, my friends p;)  Wishing you all are having a wonderful week.

It got a bit late but decided to link this post to "Our World Tuesday"

Fireworks and Anniversary Lunch

(posted to about me page)

Hello, I hope friends in the western countries who enjoy the Halloween are having nice time. I could see some ornaments in Japan at the store.  I wonder if there are many people decorate things for the event here.

As I posted before here, today is our 35th wedding anniversary (coral wedding (anniversary) 珊瑚婚式, sangokonshiki) and 2 things  happened for this occasion;

Yesterday night (29th), we went to see the fire works. Yes, around this of the season p;) For the Eve of the Civic Festival, next city has the "Congratulatory Dream Fire Works" and not only business enterprise but also citizens can be involved by paying some amount of money. (for many categories like birthdays, many kinds of anniversaries and so on)  The citizens paid money have seats with tables (there were 5,000~6,000 seats) and have a really good view(^_^)彡☆

As you can see from the date, it was put off from Saturday to Monday due to the long waited a bit of rain.  My husband was given tickets from who had to cancel to go. I thought how lucky and meant a lot for us especially for our anniversary. I had never seen them at such close place and really enjoyed them. Haha, some of my bad pictures down there. I have noticed that how difficult to take shots of them.

Today (30th), we went to have anniversary lunch. As I wished to have a Western Meal for a change, we had steak course. So sorry for the bad picture, I think the light disturbed the color. Chestnuts potage soup was first experience and steak was really nice as well. For me, these type of meals are a big treat and fancy (dainty?) ♡♡♡

Having lunch, I thought about the day we got married. It was a fine day and I will never forget the eyes of my parents who must have the mixed feeling. And my aunt's (mother's youngest sister) 2 daughters were just toddlers and running around me. One is a wife of the owner of the Japanese restaurant and both of them a mother of 3 children. The other day I ran into my old student and she has a 2 year boy and expecting another baby this winter. This was a delightful  encounter as well as making me feel how the time has passed. 

Thank you very much for visiting, and I do hope that the Hurricane  Sandy won't be the any harm for you who are in its path!!!      

City Firework festival and Yukata (summer kimono)

This is my more than 35 years old summer kimono             These are the modern new style kimono from PC

 We had unexpected, pleasant call from a couple of hubby's ex-colleague and they came to show their Yukata before going festival.  And approved that I upload their pictures.

City Firework Festival was held last night and it became an annual event for both of us to go.  Always gives me a moment of feeling free from mundane affairs. Enjoyed about 2 hours' transient fireworks show. 

Yukata is nowadays worn mainly at the traditional summer events like firework festivals, bon dance festivals etc. I saw many couple at the festival, girl wearing it but not boys.  A bit funy feeling to see couples like these for my generation. And I wonder if you can see the difference of the design between my old one and new one. As I haven't worn and opened mine after using a couple of years when young, no longer capable to wear.