Oh, My Poor Tory's!!!

I got caught in the rain today. And I was wearing my Tory Burch flats. Screw me getting wet, I was more concerned with my shoes getting wet!!!

Allow me to backtrack.

Today was the Takasegawa Fune Matsuri, or, the Takase River (well, it's more like a canal) Boat Festival. The Takase Canal is really old and one particular part of it near Nijo-Dori served as a major hub for transport in flat-bottomed boats, and was crucial to the economy, yada yada...

...but at this matsuri, there were maiko. Two of them. Serving tea and sweets.

And I got a picture with one of them. Not just OF them, but WITH them.

At first I wasn't really sure if I could because there was in fact a sign that said, "Satsue Kinshi" ("Photography forbidden"). In that sense, I internally played the "gaijin who can speak Japanese, but not read it card" and started snapping as discreetly as possible. Spurred on by the fact that the Japanese were taking photos with their noisy keitai (read: cell phone) and big fancy SLR's, I started to edge up a bit closer to the maiko.

Snap, snap. They serve tea. I stick around a bit more. Snap, snap. I think something up is with my camera (too many buttons and I do not know all of them - it's really Mel's camera) but I think I fixed it. Snap, snap.

At one point, the tea ceremony-ish part was over, and the maiko were actually serving tea to those who were present. I didn't get served tea myself, but I did ask one of the maiko if I could get a photo of her, and got both of them together. There was one foreign lady sitting near me and I asked her, as the maiko were milling about, if she can take a photo of me with one of the maiko if I asked them.

Let's just say, my hands were actually shaking a bit. To see a maiko walking in Gion is one thing. To take pictures of them at the Miyako Odori is quite another. But to take a picture with one? I totally acted tourist, but all I have to say is this - I asked her politely in Japanese, and I said "thank you" in the Kyoto dialect ("Okii-ni" as opposed to "Arigatou").

(Apologies for the frizzy bangs - it was very humid. Best to go over to my Flickr because you DEFINITELY want to see the rest of the pictures.)

Afterwards, I checked out the Shimadzu Museum (which will be a field trip actually for my course so more on that in the future) and then decided to check out this underground shopping center near City Hall. It looked cloudy. However it was still hot - so hot, that I could feel the sweat dripping down my neck. I want fall to come. NOW.

There was a flea market in the courtyard in front of city hall, and I walked around, in spite of the fact that they were packing up. Look what I found!!!

A vintage Chloe bag. I am pretty sure it is real if only for one reason: Japanese will not bat an eyelash at forking over hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for a designer bag. Quite 50's/60's-ish, don'tcha think? And it's in pretty good condition - I paid 300yen for it. It was originally 800, then down to 400, then because I was hesitating, the lady suddenly said "300yen." I was sold. Very classic.

Then the rain started. Very very hard. I contemplated riding home (because I had my bike and I do know how to ride my bike whilst holding an umbrella for all it's illegality) but instead I ducked into a store that I have been eyeing, called Florame. It's French and sells organic aromatherapy stuff. The lady in the shop gave me some cold tea and I picked up a a mini-soap in Verbena and a 3-pack of Lavender, Almond Milk and Vetiver. Much like L'Occitane - and in fact, there is one on Shijo. But I don't bother because I can get that stuff back home, but Florame isn't in NYC. I have recently been getting into scented stuff - I picked up scented tealights and a plug-in in from Yankee Candle Co. and brought them here with me. Now my apartment smells really nice.

But oh, my poor Tory's. They felt a bit squishy when I finally got off my bike and scampered up the stairs.