Blind People Have the Best Ears Ever

So I tried playing that shooter for blind people. I suck at it. I need to play the tutorial several more times. I've never been all that great at matching pitches at different octaves, but it looks like I'm about to get some hardcore practice. On a side note, there are no graphics -- the program brings up a window that's white with a black square border, and that's it.

Speaking of hearing, at my brother's suggestion I have switched from Winamp to iTunes. Hooray for programs that take less resources! I also like the interface better for the most part. I need to get used to avoiding the buttons that take you to the iTunes store, though.

I was late for class today. Only by a couple of minutes, but still... I need to time myself on exactly how long it takes for me to get to the school from my apartment, now that I have internet. ^^' Bloody Neopets. Too absorbing. Originally intended to occupy time for college students, it works. How about that? I wish the Plushie Tycoon prices would go where I need them -- which is LOW. Grr.

After that, I had sadoubu. I spent a lot of my time in sadoubu translating part of the sadou textbook's introduction. Yay! I could already read more of it than I expected, and there were some words for which I could read the kanji but had no clue what the meaning of the word was. That's why I had a dictionary. I didn't get very far, 'cause I also performed the tea ceremony and participated in someone else's. Eventually I decided to save it for later and went to work on a celtic knot that I had started earlier during class. It still isn't done; I'm trying to make it take up a whole page by putting random intersections on the paper and then fitting them together.

Something I haven't mentioned (didn't want to worry people) is that about a week and a half after I got here, a weird lump formed under the skin of my right shin. It didn't affect my movement any, but it did hurt if pressed on it. My lotion quest was a result of realizing that the skin over it was about as dried out as my skin has gotten. Once I got my hands on some lotion, applying it for a few days took care of the lump hurting. Yesterday morning, I realized I had had no milk whatsoever since coming to Japan and had some with breakfast. I noticed last night right after my bath and before bed that the lump was reduced in size; I had more milk this morning and it's shrunk even more. Dunno what's up with that, but it's getting better and I'm glad.

There are a number of things I've mentioned that I would like to go over in greater detail. As such, I present yet another new blog feature. There will be no more than one of these per day, and some days may not have one. (This is taking longer to write than I expected, heh. I picked a doozy to start with.) I present to you:

Bloglight Japan: Feudal Clothing

The basic staple of Japanese feudal clothing is the kimono. The kimono is still worn today for special occasions, though some people do wear them regularly as normal clothing. What most people don't realize is that the kimono is really an entire outfit, with many parts that you don't see. Guys' kimono tend to be less flashy than womens', but all kimono are put together such that the kimono is one color and everything else the person wears with it accents it in a contrasting fashion. For summer festivals and in hotels, yukata are worn. Yukata is a casual kimono made of cotton that has less layers.

To start with, you oughta take a look at JP NET Kimono Hypertext. The History of Kimono section shows the dress of varying periods (the Heian period is probably the most interesting, but I wonder how much of a pain some of that was to move around in). The other three sections are about modern kimonos and show the differences in styles, but the Kimono Encaeclopedia does a better job of showing styles for womens' kimonos and has a bigger gallery of random kimono shots.

The undermost layer is called hadajuban. The hadajuban comes in two pieces and is made of the same sort of material that slips are made of. The first part goes over your head and is pretty much a full-dress slip like you'd buy in the states. The second part is a wraparound, tie-on skirt. At this stage, one can also add padding around the waist or wherever to ensure that one's obi will work right. I don't need that, having hips and bust to spare. :P But it's doable.

The second layer is the nagajyuban. This is one piece, is made of thicker material than the hadajuban, and is pretty much identical in shape to a kimono. Female ones seem to all be pink and white; the only guy one I have seen was green and white. It's put on in the same fashion as a kimono, which is much more easily explained with visuals. I direct you to the Kimono Encaeclopedia's How to Wear a Kimono page. Their description uses a yukata, but the way it works is the same, minus the very last step with the obi-shaping thing.

On top of that comes the kimono. The kimono is put on the same way as the nagajuban. By the time you're done to that point, you've got five pieces of clothing held on with the help of 3-4 sashes.

Then comes the obi (the belt). The cardboard obi-shaping thing gets tucked into the folded-over obi (they come twice as wide as necessary). Its purpose is to prevent unsightly wrinkles from forming due to people having waists. The obi itself goes over that. The obi is tied behind one's back in one of many varied and wonderful ways (though sometimes people will tie it in front and turn it around if they have no help). I bought the kimono book in Sapporo because it had some really, really pretty ways to tie obi. I can't find any place online with a set of really good pictures, but the place I mentioned for kimono history shows a few different ties.

Some of the ties require the help of one or more obi makura (pillows) and/or some cording, but I've only seen cording on really elaborate ones. All kimono setups include another sash called the koshihimo. This is tied around the kimono above the obi, and is tucked into the obi along the top in front, but is still visible. There are some elaborate ways to tie this, too, but those are optional. The last thing that goes over the obi is the obijime, a braided cord that comes in varying colors and styles that are all about half an inch in diameter. There are really only a few ways to tie these, as each tie has a significance relating to the occasion -- a certain way for weddings, a certain way for funerals, that sort of thing.

That's putting the kimono itself on. In addition to that, it's unseemly to have long hair down when wearing a kimono, because it hides some of the grace of the kimono. Some people put a great deal of thought into how their hair is done when wearing a kimono. Accessories are also chosen to match (when I was talking to Mika and Ryoko about the gakusai and kimonos, we were joking about being all decked out in kimonos and carrying AU bags, AU being a cell phone company), including the shoes.

The shoes come in two basic types, geta and zoori. Zoori have a flat bottom; geta refers to any kind that have a separate heel, including the wooden ones that guys always wear. Both types have varieties, but all varieties of both types bear a resemblance to flip-flops. As such, the special socks that go with kimono, called tabi, have two separate toe sections; the big toe gets its own section and the other four get the other.

Now, guys' kimonos, as I mentioned, are less flashy than girls'. They tend to be a solid color, for one thing. The guys (though you occasionally see girls, most notably Shinto shrine maidens, wearing these), however, get hakama. Hakama are the really cool-looking pleated pants. A hakama goes on over a kimono, and is used mainly for really formal occasions and when participating in traditional Japanese cultural stuff like sadou and kyuudou (traditional archery). When a hakama is to be worn, the obi is tied in a bow using a specific tying method. The hakama has straps attached to the front and back of the pants that tie on in a certain way and the result covers the bow up, though you can still see the obi's color. There's a special jacket called the haori which is used for ultra-formal occasions, as well.

And that, boys and girls, is a lesson on kimono. I still want one really badly. TTFN!

Realizations of the Period

1) Someone has told me that guys' shoes in Japan get up to about 28 centimeters in length. Apparently I haven't seen any of those. I may be in luck.
2) Mormons are really good at discovering the most inconvenient times to drop by. Either I've just added noodles to boiling water or I've gotten about halfway through a several minute flash movie with no pause button.
3) There's nothing quite like dancing in your underwear when your headphones cord is barely long enough to let the headphones reach your ears when plugged into your computer on the floor.
4) A thing I've thought of; if we look at bible and evolution and try to imagine them together... if God created us in His image, does God look like a monkey?
5) I can almost sit in seiza (Japanese kneeling position) for the entire duration of a sadou performance. YES! Big improvement over the two minute-ish time frame I started with.