me with kitty-chan

today i attended the nisei week parade in little tokyo, wearing my first yukata. yukata is traditional japanese summer clothing that is basically a light kimono. i bought one recently because i wanted to get into the summer spirit japanese style and wear it for nisei week. mission accomplished and i am happy about it. i didn't take a lot of pictures this time as i was more focused on video taping it for my new podcast naruhodo japan where i teach japanese and discuss a bit of nikkei stuff (japanese descent people). at this point i'm thinking that i'll do a special video episode every now and then where i cover nikkei events. what i think is really gonna be cool is to compare nikkei communities around the country and around the world, especially since i'm about to travel to south america and visit a couple nikkei communities there to celebrate 100 years of okinawan immigration to brazil and argentina.

yukata for all!

what was cool was that i was one of the few people in yukata so i got stared at. maybe they thought i was some super otaku gaijin 'cos with this mixed blood face, people don't think i'm japanese. thinking that just made me laugh inside. also, when we busted out the super cheap video camera and i'm talking into it like a reporter without a microphone, we really got stared at. maybe they were staring because the "super otaku gaijin" was speaking japanese? i dunno. with our diy setup, there's no way we could have been confused for a real production crew.

in the evening, i ran into a girl with her pet dog and both were in yukata! i had to take a picture. i've seen japanese sites that sell clothing for dogs like that but to see it in person was great. one day i'm gonna own a dog and have it wear okinawan clothes. that would be too cool/cute.