The Wedding (After Party)

After a few hours there was an evening function. An After party if you will. The crowd was even younger - mainly just friends ages of the bride & groom. There was more alcohol and the food was served buffet style rather than individually bought out. Much more laid back & casual.

The bride & groom had another cake to eat & share and they still did some walks up & down the 'aisle'. Most of the time was actually for speeches & videos. They did play Bingo which was good practice for my Japanese numbers, and they played a guessing game where they had to guess the answers about their partners which was funny.

All in all it was a beautiful wedding. Good food, good pacing. The MC was very good & kept the thing moving at a good pace there was always something new to watch the whole day. Entertaining moments. I didn't understand much of what was being said as Masako couldn't really translate much for me but it was still fun. I did feel a little bit like the token white guy at the wedding, but at the after party it seemed a bit more relaxed. I get the feeling that quite a few people in Japan know a little English but rarely have the opportunity to speak & listen & practice so tend to shy away from trying. I know I can sometimes think I could construct a sentence with correct grammar, but since it it's too slow, or too clunky, I also sometimes shy away from saying it aloud, instead saying it in my head.
I learnt new traditions and Japanese iterations on western themes. I learnt some more about the drinking culture in Japan and how it stems from the hierarchy and authority culture and the importance of receiving their drink pour as a sign of respect.
It was a wedding that I was extremely happy to be a part of and thank Masako and her family for allowing me to watch in on. It was an opportunity not everyone has and I am glad I got to experience it with them.

The Wedding

In a nutshell the wedding was a blend between a western wedding and a Japanese one. Utilizing cool elements of both to make for an gorgeous day. It was fun to watch how it unfolded. Overall a very well organized, beautiful wedding with lots of character and some delicious food at the french restaurant.

Enjoy the pics!



Masako getting ready before the wedding


Mariko (Masako's sister) getting ready with mum's help


Mariko's Kimono


Japanese wedding gifts is traditionally money.  To help the new couple get set up in their new house and pay for the cost of the wedding.  It's usually about $300 AUD pp which really isn't much when you consider the cost of the function.  They have a registration collection place where you give your envelope and sign your name.  Better than receiving toasters in my opinion haha.


Grandma and me


A flower arrangement


The bride & groom were upstairs seated and able to take photos before the start.  Also a couple of rehearsals.


Table setup


I assembled the frame.  The calligraphy was done by Masako's mother, and the flower arrangements were done by Masako.  She put vegetables in the arrangement to add a bit of quirk&snazz


Getting ready to practice a run through


Masako's kimono


Entering the room for the wedding guided by her dad.


Vows were much shorter, they read a paragraph each and together and that was about it.  Ring exchanging time!


Look ma! Rings!


Eggplant & pumpkin & flowers


Final bow before leaving for now, to let us start our lunch.


Table set up.  French food, with chopsticks.


The wedding cake.


Entree was scallop & prawn & caviar with gold flakes.  This was the only dish i remembered to photograph haha.


Cake cutting


Feed the bride


Shovel into the groom


The bride re-enters in a different dress halfway through lunch.  This dress was amazing.


Stunning.  Dresses are usually hired for these kind of functions but they're still very expensive.


Individual table shots


Family photo.


Flowers.


Family says goodbye at the end as everyone departs.  Gives everyone a small gift of some sponge-cakes and thank you cards.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~fin~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The after party was to start in a couple of hours  So we went to a cafe and went gambling with Masako and her sister in kimonos.


At cafe


At cafe


At cafe



Reading at cafe


Gambling at Smart Ball.  Basically pinball but if you get it in a certain spot you get extra balls to shoot.  The balls at the end get tallied up and can buy you chocolate or drinks or something haha.

So much fun.  We all did pretty good too!


Our chocolate hoard. 400 yen ($4)

Choosing chocolate.  The lady loved us since she a)rarely sees women, b)rarely sees foreigners, c)in kimonos, and d)talked to her and had lots of fun.  She threw in a few extra balls into our tally so we could get more chocolate.

The Wedding (Traditional One)

Earlier in December before I actually got to Toyohashi, Makiko and Nihashi actually already got 'married' at a shrine in the traditional way. It was with all the older family members and all very serious. In addition to this wedding, they also have the one that I was invited to. More of a wedding Reception but able to invite a younger crowd of friends.

I have a couple of pictures so you get the idea. But these are borrowed only. In the next post I'll go into the Wedding I actually went to lol.

Christmas in JP

Christmas in Japan is more of a festival time of year from the beginning of December til 25th. It's lights, decorations, and excuses for businesses to have sales.

But you wake up on Christmas day and nothing is different. People still go to work, there's no "merry Christmas!" or anything that would indicate that it is actually a different day to the norm.

I went to the shops and collected ingredients to cook dinner and dessert. I cooked fish on the grill and some prawns. some baked veggies and potato salad and some salad. OK I lie, Masako did most of the cooking to save me poisoning her family, but I did prepare and assembeld dessert.

Dessert was trifle. Was quite popular. They've never seen a dessert like it before so the family appreciated. Little candy santa on top obligatory cutesification for a Japanese christmas lol

SomeStuffiDidInToyohashi

Writing a blog is hard. You have to think of a topic and sort of stick to that topic with your post. Even if the photos weren't chronological, or if events took place on completely different days or locations. You don't want to write a diary because that gets boring, and you don't want to keep it too information/topic focused because it can lose the personality of the author. So I figured I'd investigate a happy medium and provide a picture-highlight reel of fun stuff that happened in the diary! Aren't I a genius? 私はてんさいでｓね？Watashi Wa Tensai Des Ne? I'm a genius ay?
Also the fact that I haven't had a chance to have more frequent blog posts - this is a good way to unload a bunch of photos all at once.


Masako's dad has a small paddock nearby where he grows Parsimmons and a bunch of other vegetables.  Fruit here is actually all really delicious I've found.


Masako's dad showing me how to snip Parsimmons from his tree.


Job well done!


Gambling in Japan is quite big ive noticed.  Lots of huge 'Pachinko' casino's on big streets with hundreds of slot machines and various gambling endeavours.  Always full of neon lights, flashing noises and people.  Boat racing is a form of gambling here too.  Instead of horses, you have people driving these tiny boats around a water arena.  We went for a bit of a drive with Masako's sister & her husband to check out some X-mas lights and pop a few yen on these boats.  Need I say? My boat came last and I didn't make another bet after that :) Smart gambling for the win!


We went for a walk around a park/river in Toyohashi.  This is one of the parts of the castle that was here.


Same park as the Castle.


Grandpa is on the counsel of a school and organized Masako a project to develop some sort of pamphlet so we went for a bit of a drive around the school.  Here we are in front of the old school building which was decommissioned due to being unsafe for earthquake.


Masako's Grandma (middle) is renkown as a traditional kimono/obi dresseir.  She runs classes at her home and here some of them are practicing.


The thing on their back is called an Obi and it can be tied in many many different ways.  Fancy, simple.  Often how it's tied is a tricky art and also has subtle implications in social terms such as age, respect etc.


A few of Mako's uni friends came over for lunch


Various different foods.  Not going to explain other than most of them are yum, and a good portion of them i've never heard of before :P


Caught up with Mako's friends on a beach for some lunch.  Nice beach, volcanic sand.  Was a bit windy though.  Australias beaches are hard to beat.  This one actually had large concrete wave breakers all along the coast line intended for big waves or tsunamis.  Interesting to see how prevalent this kind of thing is.