Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.669
Hello from Yuka. Ogenki desuka? How are you? I am very happy to write this newsletter this time. The past newsletters written by our young staff are so interesting, and this time it is my turn, I am writing this newsletter as one grandmother(Ichiro and I are now grandparents of three grandchildren).
I like to talk about Okuizome today.
Okuizome is a ceremony held after around 100 to 120 days after a new baby's birth.
In this ceremony, the special meal is prepared and the baby is made to pretend to eat the meal with parents' hope that this baby will never need to worry about food during a lifetime.
Our younger daughter Mugi got married to Norihiro(they were junior high school class mates!) and their baby boy, Jin had this ceremony the other day.
Norihiro's grandmother, Teru san flew from Kagoshima to meet her family and today we all got together to celebrate her 88th birthday & Jin's Okuizome!
BEIJU - 88 years of age is called BEIJU and we celebrate this age especially because of the Kanji.
Bei, the Kanji character for rice is written using the characters for eight, ten, eight and is often referred to as the "rice birthday". Ju means longevity. So 88th birthday is considered to be blissful and special.
We had these two special event together at a Japanese food restaurant near our house.
Look at the meal(the top photo)-- you can see dishes and also a stone on the small dish in the middle. The stone was from a shrine where Jin had his first time visit (it is like Christening in Shinto). The stone is served wishing the baby had strong teeth(as we wrote, the food are served to the baby to make him pretend to eat, so is the stone too).
Teru san, Jin's great grandmother touched each food and stone with chopsticks and touched Jin's lips.
Norihiro's parents, sisters and the families including Jin's cousin Kasumi and us (Ichiro and me)had this celebration together, enjoyed the lunch, talked and saw the family album together. It was such a lovely moment to see the four generations(Jin, Norihiro, Norihiro's mother-Yoko san and Terusan-Yoko san's mother).
Jin smiled to Teru san a lot, he seemed to know Teru san was his great grandmother!
You may have noticed, Teru san's vest is made of kimono fabric (It is Oshima tsumugi, very fine woven pattern fabric - Oshima tsumugi is very strong and can be taken apart and tailor repeatedly).
The urushi bowls used above were given from my grandmother when I had Okuizome, so the set is very old, but Mugi wanted to use the urushi bowls instead of new bowls. The bowls are 56 years old! Norihiro's mother prepared the food (cooked vegetables, sekihan rice and noodles). It was a big family day celebrating special moment of Jin and Teru san together!
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We have more Christmas gift ideas from Ichiroya this week!
How about light and comfortable home wear-`HANTEN'. Those type of home jacket is very popular in Japan.
Hanten is quite light like down jacket and so roomy and SOOOO relaxing!
See, Ichiroya staff also enjoy wearing Hanten:
We have
These are reversible-both sides have charming patterns.Hanten are `UNISEX' item and you can wear over your usual clothing.
It is washable, just be careful the colors may come out a little at the beginning, so please wash hanten separately at first.
They are basically free-size - this time we have size M and L and size L is quite big!
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/347273/
We have cool design hanten - perfect for your men friend!
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/347296/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/347304/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/347302/
They are light and the shipping cost is reasonable(registered Standard shipping to USA or Europe is US $12.60.
However if you do not need the registration, we can ship without it to save on your shipping cost!
We have this option of `non-register SAL' for hanten shipping, and you can reduce US $3.70 for the shipping.
(Some countries do not have SAL shipping option, please ask us if you have questions about shipping)
Please let us know by email if you do not need registered shipping. We can give you another payment link to complete.
You can enter `hanten' as keyword to see more hanten we have.
If you have kimono lover friends, how about cute hair accssories as Christmas gift?
Enchanting kanzashi:
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346616/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346618/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346617/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346619/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/345920/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/345921/
(you can check more by using keyword `kanzashi' at our search corner)
If your friend (men) wear haori, how about these cool haori ties for Christmas gift?
They are magnet type. Who can tell they are magnet????
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346612/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346613/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/346614/
We have chirimen eyeglasses case - many of them were sold, we only have 4 left now:
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/345913/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/345914/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/345908/
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/345909/
At our accessories section, there are obijime tie, various elegant collars and many other cute stuff. Obiage sash are used as scarf too. You may get inspiration for Christmas gift there! Of course we have all kinds of kimono and obi too and adding new arrivals as usual.
Domo arigato gozaimasu, thank you very much for reading our newsletter.
We wish you a wonderful new week!
