この戸倉上山田温泉の衣料品屋さんは亀清旅館の近所の「べに屋」さんです。一般洋服を売りながら、浴衣や手ぬぐい、祭りのものなどの和服も売っています。そして、お店の中庭が素敵な庭園です。池にカラフルな鯉も泳いでいるし、自由に入れます。
今回の温泉夏祭りでべに屋で短パンを買いました。祭り用の和風短パンは初めてでした。どうやって着るか、下着の上で着るかどうか、ちょっとカルチャショックでした。面白い風に回すし、チャクとかボタンの代わりに紐があったりして、着方がよく分らなかった。
結局、着方は失敗して、祭り最中で変な意味で「ご神体出し」をしたようです。それから確認して、やはり中は下着を着る事が分かって、祭りの2つ目の日はばっちしでした。
短パンツは当然チャクやボタンが当然あるものだと思い込んでいた私には、和服が違うよと、いい勉強になりました。日本に住めば住むほど、物の見方が広くなります。
Onsen Town Togura-Kamiyamada's main clothing shop is Beniya. Our inn, Kamesei Ryokan, is neighbors with Beniya. We take guests there all the time. Not just to shop for western style clothes as well as their great selection of Japanese yukata, tenugui and such, but because their nakaniwa garden behind their shop is simply fabulous. Anyone can enter and see the beautiful koi swimming in the pond, and the finely detailed garden.
Anyways, for last weekend's Onsen Summer Festival, I went to Beniya and bought some shorts to wear for helping out with the Omikoshi. It was my first time to wear traditional Japanese shorts, and I have to admit, it was pretty daunting. I'm used to shorts having a button or zipper to close things up with, but these shorts wrap around in a funky way and have a string to tie everything together.
I was having a bit of culture shock trying to figure out how to wear the shorts, and was getting mixed signals on whether or not to wear anything underneath.
Apparently I didn't do so well, as there was an uninvited phallic symbol that made an appearance at our festival. For the second day, I got things figured out better, including the bit about needing something underneath. So things went a lot smoother after that.
Living in Japan is great for widening one's world view, even in regard to wearing shorts!
Our onsen's clothing store
The shorts in question. Don't laugh -- You try them on. Hint: there ain't no button fly.
