Okayama

I realised that I talk a lot about where we are and if you aren't familiar with Japan, it can be a little confusing, so here is a rough map. We started our time in Tokyo and then went down/west to Nagoya (about three hours on the shinkansen). You can see Japan has four main islands that I've labeled too, which will make more sense when I talk about where we go after Okayama. 

Next stop on our journey was Okayama, which is to the west of Nagoya. The shinkansen only took an hour and a half to get here. This is a largish port city along the south coast of Japan's main island (Honshu). 

I love traveling via shinkansen especially because you can get great lunches to eat on them from the station before you go. I was sorely tempted by these kids ones that come in reusable shinkansen style lunch boxes. 

After leaving Tokyo, we had noticed a significant difference in the demographic of tourists. Tokyo had been full of every kind of person; German, French, Indian, Aussie, American, etc. Nagoya had a stack load of Chinese tourists along with the European mix. Coming to Okayama was different again; we only saw very few foreign tourists here. It was still a big city though, so easy to get lost in. Strangely, even though the tourist numbers were fewer, the local department store could have been Australian there was so much English around. Every shop had an English name, from the typical ones like Subway and Starbucks to other random ones like Strawberryholic and Wego. 

Our first stop on day one was to visit Okayama Castle and the gardens there. We wandered through the gardens first, trying to do outside things before the day heated up too much and we needed to retreat to aircon. The gardens were nice enough, but I wouldn't actually rate them too highly (even though they are on some "Top Ten Gardens in Japan" list). 

There were actually a number of light displays set up for illumination in the evening, so maybe it would have been better to come back then. Oh well! We had fun wandering around the various parts and enjoying the views. 

Okayama is famous for its fruit, so I picked up this peach mochi to enjoy there and it was delicious. Then we went into the grounds of Okayama castle. No idea why these enormous fish were on display, but it was likely some festival had just happened. 

The castle was pretty fun because they had a Pokemon event running with lots of cutout Pokemon displayed. Rachel picked up a sheet at the gate that she filled out as we visited each one. You had to write in the names of the Pokemon you found and then use certain letters of each name to answer a question. At the end, you handed in your sheet and got a sticker for your troubles. 

The castle looked cool from the outside, and different to other castles we had seen (like Himeji Castle last year), because the outside was panels of wood painted the dark colour. The castle (and the outer buildings) had been completely destroyed in 1945 but the main building had been rebuilt. They had a model of what it all would have looked like pre-destruction, and it was cool to see all the different buildings that would have filled the now open spaces. 

Inside was five floors of museum that you could take your time walking through. They had a number of displays that were interactive, like this box (below) used for carrying nobles around. There was some support for English (QR codes that you could scan), but not on every item, so it was a little harder to engage when you couldn't read what it was all about. 

And the view from the top was pretty good too. Okayama castle seems to sport a very similar gold fish to Nagoya. 

The air-conditioning of the castle was nice, when we went back outside it was heat city again. So we stopped in to do an hour of karaoke on our way home. Lots of fun singing in the cool aircon. If you are ever in Japan in the summer, I can recommend karaoke as a way to avoid the heat. 

The next day we went to Kurashiki, which was about twenty minutes from Okayama on the train. Kurashiki is an area known for its traditional indigo dying, and when Japan became obsessed with jeans, it was a big production base. As a result, there are all sorts of denim shops clustered together in Denim Street. You can also get a blue soft serve "denim" ice cream. Which we did. 

It tasted mostly of blue Powerade, but was a cool snack on another hot-ish day. I was tempted by the denim, but didn't buy any, still thinking about how heavy our bags were and how far we still had to go with them. We wandered around the area, enjoying the smaller town vibes and old school streets of low Japanese style houses with tiled roofs. 

Okayama is where the story of Momotaro, or the Peach Boy, was originally from, so there was loads of Momotaro things all around too. We went into a Momotaro museum, I was hoping to get pictures and different versions of the story for classroom resources. What it was instead was an optical illusion museum with a Momotaro theme. 

A little strange, but the girls and Steve had lots of fun with all the illusions and tricks. We picked up some Momotaro themed kibidango which is a rice ball sweet similar to mochi that the area is known for. These were delicious and I wished we had more of them. Then we headed back to our hotel in Okayama for a chilled afternoon of D&D playing. 

To be honest, our accomodation here was not to best. It was a pretty standard business hotel, but at one stage must have been fine for people to smoke in. I guess maybe you still can smoke in some of the rooms, because the cigarette smell was quite strong. Steve and I tuned it out pretty quickly, but the girls are so not used to any kind of smoke, and they made their discomfort very clear. 

Anyway, we managed to survive another night there. Steve and I went and picked up a hire car in the morning for our next adventure, which gave us a rather delightful break from carrying all the bags around on trains. Stay tuned! 

Nagoya

When we left Tokyo back at the end of July, Steve was taking some time off and we had a two and a bit week chunk of travel planned. Our first stop on the journey was Nagoya. Steve had never been, and there were lots of fun things to do there, including Legoland. 

Given that we hadn't gone to any theme parks in Tokyo (not even Disney!), we felt it was time we did something a little fun with the girls. Legoland was actually a delight, even though it is designed for younger children and the weather was a whopping 40 degrees. 

The huge Lego sculptures all around the place as well as the giant sized Lego characters were just so much fun to see and marvel at. They also had a whole area where there were displays of scale models of various things made in Lego. I took loads of photos of so many of them, hopefully to use in my classroom. 

Lego themed kids lunch that I had. The brick shaped potato chips were nothing to write home about (I gave mine to Rachel), but everything else was pretty tasty. We had done some brief research before we went and noticed there were two water play sections that would be good to cool off in. To enter, you needed to book a time slot. We missed all of the morning slots, but managed to get a 3:30 slot for one area and a 4:20 time for another. I was booking at the same time as Steve so we got a couple of extra times later on (after 5) too. 

Cooling off in the water was so good, even for Steve who could really only stand up to his knees on the edge, not wanting to venture too far in just in case someone bumped his hand. The girls had fun in the first play area which was a splash pad with some slides and lots of things that dumped water on you or squirted water out. 

The second water play area was a huge inflatable maze area with jumping castle vibes, but because Japan have a completely different approach to water safety, the kids were only allowed to walk through it. They weren't allowed to sit in the water, or jump on the inflatable things. And to go up and down a slide, they needed to wait in line at the bottom for the people in front to go up and over and clear out before the next person was even allowed up. Our girls were not amused. 

We ended up leaving that area so they could go on the dragon roller coaster that they had found fun a bunch of times. It had been long and hot, but a really great way to kick off the holidays. 

The next day we started a bit slower and then found our way to a shopping street celebrating tanabata. Even though the star festival is usually celebrated in July (7th of the 7th), some areas celebrate in the first week of August. This street had heaps of decorations hanging from the roof, including contributions of giant character displays. These were made by local businesses or schools and were part of an annual competition. 

We had some shaved ice to cool off as we wandered down the street. Steve wanted to try some local green tea beer, but they didn't have it in a can to take home.

This sumo was one of the funnier things hanging from the roof. There was onigiri, pandas, fuji-san and Ghibli characters too. 

We left this fun street to go find a spot at the World Cosplay Summit. This happens every year in Nagoya and I'm only sad we weren't able to figure out more about the event before we got there. There was lots of stuff happening in various venues, but information was sketchy. We managed to narrow it down to there being a cosplay parade through the main shopping street at Ozu, so we just went there and hoped for the best. 

It would have been good to be an hour earlier and on the other side, because then we would have seen the actual contestants and winners of the Cosplay competition, but as it was, we got a pretty good spot in the crowd lining the street and saw the parade of anyone who wanted to walk in their costume. It was pretty awesome to see so many people dressed up. Such a huge variety of costumes and characters walking the streets, each group separated by a truck/float with music and dancers. Vibes were good and we were happy to be there. 

The last morning, in Nagoya, Steve and I got up early and took a quick train ride out to try to see the castle. Unfortunately it's well hidden behind the walls and didn't open till 9. So we went to see the Nagoya sign and the Oasis building instead. 

That Oasis building has water in the roof helping to keep the open space underneath cool. It was pretty impressive to see. Then we went back and packed up all the luggage again. We had found when we left Tokyo, even though we didn't have a particular shinkansen booked, we did rush a bit trying to get to the station. I think we thought if we make the time carrying the luggage shorter it will be easier. Not true. We were all very sore from lugging everything at a fast pace (well, except Steve, but that's because he has BJJ muscle that the rest of us are lacking). 

Giant fish with teeth.
These are everywhere in Nagoya because they are on the roof of the castle. 

So we went slower and it was better. Caught the shinkansen to Okayama and that is where the next part of our journey is. 

Teacher Training Program: Trip to Kanazawa and the Finale

[Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, if you need a catch up or for pre-reading]

This should be my last post about the Teacher Training Program I attended while in Japan this year. It was nearly seven weeks long, and honestly, I came away from it feeling so rich. My Japanese language skill improved so much, but I also benefited so many other ways. Getting to know people from all over the world, hearing how life is in their countries and classrooms. All of the Japanese cultural experiences that we got to do. Even a day trip to visit a Japanese high school and talk to students and teachers. The fact that all of it was covered by a grant, so we didn't pay for any of it. Not only the lessons (twelve students to a teacher is a pretty great ratio!), but the resources they gave us too; text books, cultural books and other items. What an experience. 

I also just felt really privileged to be an Australian. And an English speaker. Everyone else there had learnt English as a second language, and then Japanese on top of that. A fair few people had another language or two up their sleeves as well. I was in awe of them, but how lucky are we to naturally speak the language that so many people have to learn as a necessity to communicate outside their home country? Such privilege.

Anyway, to top off the amazing experience we had, the last week included a one night stay at Kanzawa, which was a three hour shinkansen ride across the country. I'd never been to Kanazawa, so I was pretty excited to go. Most of the other teachers had never ridden the shinkansen before, so they were so keen for that too. It was great to catch their excitement. 

Kanazawa actually gave me Brisbane vibes as we got off the train and walked to our hotel. The streets were wide and so were the footpaths. The buildings around us in the city were really similar to Brisbane size. Not like the immensely tall and over crowded Tokyo skyline at all. Sure, there were Japanese style buildings, but when there is spaces for trees on the side of the road, I'm feeling much more like Australia than Japan. 

The first day we were there, we did a Japanese sweets making experience, which was fun (and delicious) and then a gold leaf workshop. Kanazawa is famous for gold leaf but doing the workshop (where we decorated a plate with some designs) was possibly the most stressful twenty minutes ever. The gold leaf was so thin that even breathing was a hazard when you picked it up and tried to place it on the plate. Thankfully the staff at the workshop were there to fix (or "cure" as they said in Japanese) our mistakes. 

The rest of the first day was wandering around and exploring. I did go to the castle before I found my way to the local Pokemon centre for this photo and had some delicious tempura for dinner (while messaging back and forth with Steve who was sitting in various waiting rooms getting x-rays on his hand). 

The next day we started in the famous gardens in Kanazawa and saw this (again iconic) lantern balanced precariously on two legs after an earthquake broke the other. It was a hot day, and our group split up to go and explore. 

I tried to go to a kimono store, but sadly found it was closed on a Wednesday. So instead, I took a bus to a very fancy library. From the outside it looked like a regular building and I was initially worried I'd gone to the wrong place, but once inside; stunning. The whole Library was designed in a circular way, with four levels going up, and mezzanine floors floating around. There were break out spaces on the corners and lots of hidden nooks to study, sit or just enjoy the library vibes. 

I couldn't get enough of it, but I also didn't want to be annoying taking photos. You'll just have to go see its beauty for yourselves! After wandering around there for a bit, I took the bus back to central Kanazawa  and visited the samurai district. Lots of old style Japanese houses all built up together next to each other behind walls with lovely tiled roofs. 

I visited this Samurai house/museum which had a beautiful garden and lots of spaces to sit and take it in. Because gold leaf is so iconic in Kanzawa, you can get it on a variety of foods, including ice cream, so I had a hojicha (roasted tea flavour) ice cream with gold leaf. Actually delicious. 

Then I wandered around the city some more, through these lovely red tori gates and then back to the station and hotel to pick up bags and get onto to the shinkansen. 

It had been a rich little trip away, even though I was worried for Steve for large parts of it. Back at the centre in Kita Urawa, we had a few wrap up classes, mostly giving lots of feedback on the program and reflecting on our learning. There were also a few karaoke sessions together and planning for our final graduation ceremony and breakup party. 

The graduation ceremony was appropriately formal and Japanese. We all went an bowed when we received our certificates and were experiencing lots of mixed feelings that it was all over. Excitement, relief, pride, sadness, it was all going on. 

After the official ceremony, we had a break up party. Mostly just some snacks and drinks and people taking loads of photos with everyone. Then we had about a half hour of performances. A number of people got together for different things. Class 3, that I was part of, wanted to sing a Japanese song. I had said I'd play guitar for them, but when they chose the song (tegami, by Angela Aki), it was a very piano song. So I figured out how to play the piano part instead. Honestly it's been soooo long since I've played piano let alone for something like this, but I practiced like mad in the week and a half that I had leading up to it, and I was really proud of our performance. 

Then Wine-san from Myanmar did a dance, and a group of people from Class 2 did a mash up dance (lots of Indian moves). I got up and taught everyone how to do the Heal and Toe, which was lots of fun. At first people had no idea what we were going to do but ended up getting into it. It was great to see people from 33 countries all dancing something so iconically Australian. Everyone in the room was dancing and I wish I had a video of it. 

The last group I accompanied on guitar this time, some people from Class 1 singing a BTS/World Cup song: "We are the Dreamers". That was really fun because I helped them translate the chorus into Japanese so we sang it in English and then Japanese. 

Then it was over. We had the rest of the afternoon to pack before people started leaving for their flights home the next day. Carlos from Mexico would be the first to leave at 4:30 in the morning, but technically, I was the first to go on the Monday afternoon. I was wondering when would be the best time, but in the end, I just said goodbye to people I saw on my way out and handed my room key in at the front desk. It was about 2pm and they were shocked and immediately went to get the coordinator (Mori-san) and some teachers to say goodbye. They were worried there wasn't people to say goodbye, but I was fine. I don't need fuss!

I'm actually so relieved I had the freedom to leave that way (rather than having to have a flight booked and airport transfer organised), because I saw the videos the next day of everyone else leaving. Even Carlos, who was up at 4 in the morning for his departure, had almost everyone else there as well, giving hugs and waving goodbye. Every person until Laura from Cuba (last to leave on Wednesday) got a huge farewell with lots of extended crying and waving. I'd consider myself in touch with my emotions and I'm fine to cry, but definitely sure I don't need all the extra drama. 

And then it was officially over. Time had gone so strange while I had been away each week at this course and we were really racing towards the end of our Tokyo time. Even when we finished, I didn't have heaps of time to process because once I was back in Tokyo, it was only four days before the girls finished school, and we had a stack of things to sort out. Glad I can type it up now and I'm honestly so thankful for the whole thing. If I ever got the chance to apply again (which I can do in five years time), I totally would, but I also don't want to take a space of someone who possibly needs the experience more than me. 

Broken Hand Sadness

This happened back at the start of July. Steve went to BJJ as per usual, was doing a drill and put his hand down awkwardly. It hurt a bit, but not too much, so he wondered if he had just jarred it. After a week of resting, it was not feeling better, but had started bruising up, so off he went to find a doctor. Should I mention I was away at my language teacher course? Not just in Saitama (about an hr on the train), but actually away on a one night trip to the other side of the country, Kanazawa (more on that soon), and I had accidentally taken the passports with me. Whoops! Talk about stress! 

The Japanese health system is different to Australia, and there seem to be specific doctor's clinics for bone injuries, so there were a few different visits to start with before he found the right place. Sophie had been to a doctor already because she had a virus/cold in June (lost her voice and had a whole week off school!). Steve started there, but that was a kids only doctor. They sent him to another local doctor who was literally across the road from our house. They were a general practice and didn't do bones, so they sent him to another place near where we did our major groceries. 

Steve then managed to navigate all the forms with some broken Japanese, a hefty amount of Google Translate and photos of the passport and visa. Whew. Honestly, Japanese people are usually so strict about paperwork I was worried they wouldn't accept the photos. That itself was a miracle. They took an X-ray of his hand (left) and found he'd broken a bone connected to his ring finger. 

It was a small break and the bones were pretty close together, so they put a splint on it and bandaged it up. The advice was to come back in a week and check on the progress. The girls did some serious stepping up to help Steve out while I was away finishing my language course, and they all got through ok. There may have been trips to the local ramen restaurants to help as well. No judgement!

Steve went back a week later and the second X-ray showed some fusing - progress! The doctor was happy with things and just said to come back again before we left Tokyo for a check up (two weeks to go at that point). He also said that when the hand was unwrapped at night for a shower, Steve could do some light movement exercises to help keep the joints moving. The plan was to have the hand checked in another two weeks when we got to Takayama, which would hopefully be at the end of the six week healing cycle. 

We were all really hanging out for the final doctor's visit. Steve was great at not using his hand too much, and being careful of it. There was no pain, so we were pretty sure we were going to get the all clear. In the heat of summer, the bandaged hand had been super uncomfortable for Steve, not to mention the impact on the travel. 

Being in a new city for the final appointment, Steve again had to go through the rigmarole of finding the right doctor, this time only going to one place before the sent him on to an actual hospital. The hospital came with a doctor who had studied in the States and spoke some great English. This was such a relief for Steve who could finally ask lots of questions. 

It was also a small victory though, because when they x-rayed the hand, they found the break had in fact not healed, but gotten worse. It's likely the advice to do the light movement once a day was the contributing factor here. I can't describe how frustrated and disappointed both Steve and I were when we found out. Not only were we in for longer with a broken hand, but if it doesn't fuse, now we are also expecting surgery and then likely an extended rehab period to get the hand working again. 

Since Steve broke his hand on the 1st of July, this means that about three months of being in Japan will be spent with a broken hand. I know it's not the end of the world, but it's certainly been less than ideal. I broke my own hand way back in 2007 and I can remember how frustratingly slow the rehab progress was. At least Steve broke his left hand and not his right like I did. Not much we can do but be thankful for Australian health care for when we return. 

If you're the praying type, we'd love to have you praying for us. We are trying to manage as best we can, and rolling with the punches when it comes to adjusting our plans, but it's been frustrating. This was definitely something we didn't see coming when we decided to do six months in Japan. We will be in Hiroshima in a week and when we get there, Steve's off to find another doctor/hospital to have regular check up visits until we go home. Let's hope the next x-ray has better news than the last one! 

Leaving Tokyo

At the end of July, right after Steve came back from his trip up Fuji-san and the girls survived a guide camp and Rachel did a school camp, we packed up our little house and got ready for the next part of our trip. It was pretty crazy to be saying goodbye to the place we had come to love. It was also crazy to see how much stuff we had accumulated in four months. 

It had always been my plan to send stuff back to Australia at the point we left Tokyo, because we wouldn't need any of the big winter gear we had brought with us, or Steve's BJJ gi, or hiking stuff anymore. But there was also school things from the girls, and books I had collected for teaching materials. Not to mention the kimono.... Even after boxing up 60kgs of stuff to send off on a ship (sea mail is much cheeper than air mail!), our suitcases were still heavy. 

There wasn't much we could do about it though, so we just strapped everything in as best we could and were thankful for the wheels on the suitcases. 

It was exhaustingly hot almost every time we stepped out of the house at this point of the summer, so I switched up and did some night walks around the neighbourhood instead. So thankful for the beautiful place we had managed to find ourselves in and all the great memories we had made. 

There was again a three week run down of all our food supplies, trying to use up everything we could. Big flash backs to leaving Brisbane in March, though on a much smaller scale. Amazing to look back at those photos of us getting here. Only four months, but Steve might need a haircut now, and both girls are taller than ever. The photo above was the last time Sophie wore those overalls. She's managed to grow out of every pair of shorts she brought with her.

We rolled all the luggage to the station, things a bit more complicated by Steve's still broken hand, but not forgetting anything in the end. I was thankful we didn't pre-book our shinkansen tickets so we didn't have to stress about making the train. They come every fifteen minutes anyway, so easy to catch! 

And suddenly we are off to a new part of Japan and a new adventure. Steve is taking this next two and a bit weeks off so we can have a proper holiday before we settle in a new place for the last stint. Time continues to play tricks on us; fast one moment, slow the next. Will try to get the updates out faster so I can catch up to real time, but no promises! 

Teacher Training Program: Expo

More updates on the Japanese language program that I got to do with 32 teachers from ten other countries (here are part one, two and three if you need them). One of the hands-on learning experiences we had to do was present an Expo. We were allowed to choose whatever topic we liked and then work with a group to come up with some kind of presentation. 

There were people performing dances, or telling others about fashion and sharing local cuisine. Just like a regular world Expo, the focus was sharing things that were unique to your country. Some of the groups focused on one country - like the group of Indonesian teachers who all performed an Indonesian folk tale for us. Other groups were made up of people from a variety of countries - like one of the dance performance groups with a representative each from Myanmar, Cuba, Morocco and Algeria. 

Dance group from Indonesia

I really didn't mind what I did, since Australia is such a melting pot of culture anyway, so I ended up joining in with two other teachers who wanted to talk about the oceans around their countries. Celine from the Philippines and Cynthia from Indonesia and I had a great time working together. 

Umi-Gumi; the Ocean Group

All of our team work and then the presentation were done in Japanese. We had three sessions leading up to the Expo day as well as a full day of preparation before the event. It was pretty big and a lot of work. If you opted to perform on the stage (like the dance groups, or the drama groups) you had to prepare a short information speech to give as well. For the people who made posters, we also had to organise a speech explaining things, but didn't have to give it on stage. We just presented on the floor to whoever came to view our exhibit. The plus side was not being on the stage, the down side was that we had to do it three times over. 

By the third time, we were quite confidently giving our speeches and sharing the information, so that was great. Achievement unlocked I guess? So thankful when that was over though! Our poster was pretty awesome. Celine had a big vision for it to be 3D (possibly inspired by her love of BTS and their song 3D), and we had a lot of fun putting it together. I suggested the origami animals and promptly made quite a few to give it that extra something. They came in handy when I was describing the oceans of Australia and warning people to be careful of all the dangerous animals that could kill you. Visual aid is always good right?

It was so cool on the day to see everyone dressed up, and many people in their country's traditional clothing. It does make me a little sad that Australia doesn't have something, but I also love how multicultural Australia is so I don't mind that much. 

After my group presented their poster in the morning session, we all watched the stage performances for the middle and afternoon session. There were a number of extra roles to help run the day, tech people and MCs to keep everyone on time and things moving. I had to MC the afternoon session, but thankfully that was only two performances and the final remarks. Still don't love having to talk with polite language since I'm so bad at it. 

Ai-san and Carlos-san checking the tech was all going to work. 

And here we are celebrating the fact that it's all over and we made it through, thanks to Aiman-san with his excellent selfie taking skills. 

Small Sewing and the Soran Bushi Outfits

I am honestly missing my sewing machine more and more as the weeks go on. Maybe as the weeks tick by and we are closer to coming home it feels so close and making me long for it more. Or possibly more for the creative sewing outlet, and also for the speed at which you can make a thing. Even so, I'm continually surprised by how quickly I can hand sew something when needs must, so here are some small things I've done in the last couple of months. 

Our home in Yotsugi had only shoji screens, and no curtains, so the morning sun in our room was quite bright. Steve picked up an eye mask from the 100yen store, but it turned out to be polyester which is essentially plastic. Not fun to have on your face in the summer. 

I took it apart to salvage the elastic and made a reversible one out of some leftover fabric from the girls' school bags. It was quick and effective. I wonder if it counts as zero waste if I use every part of the fabric I bought, even if it ends up being on different projects? Maybe, or maybe it's just "sewing my stash". 

I also patched a pocket of Steve's pants with the cat fabric. You can see in the picture it's already been patched back in Australia using some leftover fabric from my dad's Christmas shirt. I'm glad to be extending the life of the shorts, though I don't know how much longer they will take. 

For Steve's trip up Fuji-san, he needed to carry everything in the backpack and the big jacket was not fitting. So I suggested adding some elastic strapping to the front of the bag to stuff it in/hang it off. 

I made small loops with some leftovers from the Red Yukata, and then threaded some elastic through. The end result was exactly what Steve needed it to be. 

The  last bit of sewing I did in Yotsugi was to prepare some happi type garments for the girls. Happi are a Japanese jacket that are worn for festivals. They are often costumes for things like dances. Sometimes they have sleeves similar to a kimono or yukata, sometimes they are shorter, more modern looking, and other times they don't have sleeves at all.  They are always made with the same rectangular body shape with a standard long Japanese collar attached. 

These are Zero Waste because the fabric cut for the collar part is just folded into the collar to reinforce it, and everything is rectangles. Any extra length is generally tucked in for extra strength. 

It started like this (below). The slit up the middle is also cut about 8cm into the shoulders on each side, and then the collar is sewn around, just like a yukata. Then it's just side seams and hems. So easy. 

I also made the girls each a hachimaki (headband) out of the blue fabric to match. The reason they needed these was to submitt their entry into the school talent show (in Australia). They decided to dance the soran bushi which Rachel learnt for Japanese school sports day. They worked really hard perfecting the dance and I made the costumes. 

We actually filmed their audition video when we had left Tokyo and were staying at the seaside in Shodoshima. It was perfect to do this traditional fisherman dance by the ocean and we are really proud of the girls. Hopefully they get to the finals!