sweets ahead of cherry season

sweets from Tsuruya Yoshinobu and akafuku , both long established confectioneries.
Haiku on the package by Yamaguchi Seishi goes;
This house has a luck
Swarrows come over
To build their nest
Prior to cherry blossom season, sweets are hinting the blossoms, spring.

family emblem for the nobility

There are traditional patterns for the court nobles. They came over from ancient China and later got Japanized. They have been marked on the costumes and furniture as family emblem.

this is what we got when she tried kimono for court-ladies on. It is called ‘mukai-cho’, and represents “two butterflies facing each other.

a town of Hina dolls

this town of Hina dolls is also the home of merchants and has kept its traditional storehouses.

The box of fire extinguisher on the street has something on top of it,,, which is another set of the imperial hina dolls.

Hina dolls on a scroll

kakejiku , Japanese hanging scroll, is changed in tune with the season of Girls’ day.
standing type of imperial dolls on the scroll is closer to the origin of Hina dolls.

a little different types of Hina dolls

Hina dolls on a picnic in the garden
In some areas, they hang two pairs of 55 different kinds of lucky charms on strings, wishing their daughters’ happiness and health. Handmade crafts out of antique cloth by women.

Ichimatsu Dolls

ichimatsu dolls are a type of traditional Japanese dolls. They have bobbed hair and placed at the foot of the stairs.

The imperial palace

The imperial couple is sitting inside the palace on the left.
the warrior-guardians are standing and the manservants are by the fire in the garden The court ladies are table setting on the corridor. the ladies are playing the fan tossing game.

household equipments in the court

On the lower tiers, they have household equipments.
a cow carriage for the noble family... A set of tea things with a peacock painted on top of the shelf
chest of drawers. snow covered Mt. Fuji on the left of the sliding window, a vermillion shrine gate and flying birds on the right.

the court ladies and the musicians

The second tier holds three court ladies ‘san-nin kanjo’’. Each holds sake equipment.
The third tier holds five male musicians ‘gonin bayashi’. Each holds a musical instrument, which are a small drum, large drum, hand drum, flute. the singer holds a folding fan(out of this photo).

variation of dolls representing the 'Empress'

　Nothing beats faces of the ‘Empress doll’ with an expression of its own. Some of them are from the beginning of 20 century and even from 19 century. They survived through the ages and have seen ups and downs. They have been watching over girls' health and happiness. These dolls that transcend the time-frames are not available at stores.
The costumes are also exquisite. You take a close look, and then you’ll see the multi-layered collars.
This last pair seems to be in not good condition, I saw them behind glass.

imperial dolls --new ones

I’d like to start with dolls representing the Emperor and Empress, placed on the top layer.
At department stores, probably you'd get mass-produced brand new sets, like these ones.
I’d rather explore the old ones from a century ago or two, getting handed down from generation to generation.
You see ‘the Empress doll’ on their left, and ‘the Emperor doll’ on their right. This is Kyoto style placement, which is different from the standard placement.

Hinamatsuri, Doll's Day or Girls' Day

Hinamatsuri , Doll's Day or Girls' Day, celebrated each year on March 3 is a special day in Japan. People display a set of ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period, wishing their daughters growing up healthily. The custom began during the Heian period.
Families generally start to display the dolls in February and take them down after the festival, but here in Gokashō, a town in mid Shiga Prefecture, they keep its display until the end of March. The town is also known for having produced many successful merchants. One area is designated as Important Preservation Districts for Groups of Traditional Buildings.

fan tossing game

There is a traditional ‘fan tossing game’. After placing a target that looks like a gingko leaf on a wooden box, the players sit on their knees at a distance of about one meter, and take turns tossing an open fan at the target. Then the judge scores them based on the patterns of the positions of the fan, target, and box. As you see at the bottom of this page , there are numbers of patterns the three objects end up displayed after the tossing.
Each pattern is assigned a certain score depending on the aesthetics of the positions and how much skills and luck it takes to make them happen.
Those patterns are named after the chapters of Murasaki Shikibu's " The Tale of Genji ".
At Kuroda shop in front of Kyoto Imperial Palace where they dress you up in ‘junihitoe’, they let us a try of this game. kuroda-heisiti@offce.to

kimono of highly elegance 2

The colours of the layers have poetic names, such as "crimson plum of the spring".
The arrangements of the layers and their colours were a good indication what taste and what rank the lady had. The person who dresses her can stand behind her, but has to be on their knees in order to show her modesty.
An elaborate fan was used by the lady not only to cool herself, but also as an important communication device. The jūnihitoe started to appear around the 10th century. As the era went on, the dress was reduced to a "five-layer robe". Even today, members of the Japanese royal family wear junhitoe for the most special of occasions.
It takes half an hour to get dressed, but takes just a moment to undress.

kimono of highly elegance

The jūnihitoe is an extremely elegant and highly complex kimono worn by court-ladies. Literally, it means "twelve-layer robe". The various layers are silk garments.
The innermost garment is white, followed by other layers, finally closed off by a final layer or coat. The graduation from white to red represents the way Japanese plum flowers come into a bloom. Plum flower design is all over the plain white, pink and vermillion layer. The plain green expresses the calyx. The total weight could add up to 20 kilograms.