Choosing Kimono & Suits (Sapporo)

3rd October, 2003 - Well, I haven't really talked about this yet... but our thinking was (now that T-chan's immigration approval had come through) was that we would get married back in Adelaide early in 2004. But because we knew that not many people would come from Japan (it's a long way to sunny Adelaide), T-chan's family wanted to hold a mock-wedding party in Japan now. Weddings in Japan are not that dissimilar to the West in that they tend to have a formal (ceremonial) and informal (party) component. Actually, weddings are big occasions and typically involve many costume changes... throughout the day. We weren't going to have the formal wedding kimono... as we weren't getting married.

So we had booked the Grand Hotel in Sapporo to hold our Pre-Wedding party for the 11th October. T-chan had already been looking at dresses (see In-Between Time post), but now it was my turn. We had decided to go with a formal kimono and formal suit/dress for the party.

The kimono are really nice - and take a bit of effort (and assistance) to put on... however men have it easy compared to the women which can take upwards of 1 hour and involve 1-2 extra staff to get the kimono and belts (obi) just right. Actually it took about 1+ hours for the kimono/makeup.

It's a shame that my family back home in Adelaide were going to miss out on this... it's quite a production.

Actually I have to say that I wasn't soo keen on the range of suits... but they had some nice formal kimono. Somehow the word dapper doesn't come to mind when I remember the whole process.... more like "fish out of water". Still it was fun, as you don't often have this sort of experience.

How many days to go?... Less than a week before our big Pre-Wedding Party.

The In-between Time

July - Sept 2003 - T-chan was in Adelaide on a working-holiday visa... but her plans of travelling around Australia had come to an early change of direction. Not long after arriving in Adelaide, she had met a young man (that would be me), and fell in love. Unfortunately her visa ran out in July 2003, and such was the love between the two, they decided to continue their life together by getting married. However such is the immigration policy in Australia that T-chan had to actually leave Australia to apply for a fiance visa. And there was no guarantee that once she left, a new visa would be forthcoming.


So late in July, T-chan left Australia - for an unknown amount of time... so that she could apply to the Australian government to get married with the man she loved. It was a strange departure at Adelaide airport - and one I'd not like to have to do again.

Meanwhile I was stuck here in Adelaide. Wondering what was going to happen. Our lives had been constantly changing - evolving - but now our future was in the hands of someone else. Not to mention that immigration is not a cheap business either.

Our plan was that I would travel to Japan in October and would wait there until we got our visa. I'm not sure what would have happened after 3 months (the normal tourist visa period...) Luckily we didn't need to find out as the visa came through in late September.

In the meantime, T-chan was thinking of weddings... or more importantly pre-weddings. But that's another story to tell shortly. In the meantime, I would be getting a constant stream of emails from my gorgeous T-chan trialling out a new dress... one after the other. Marriages have some definite advantages for women.

No matter what however - this second trip would be a far different affair to the whirlwind that was the first trip. As such, I won't do a daily coverage, but will walk through some of the highlights of Sapporo and Hokkaido.

At this time - still not envisaging that I would be blogging this 6.5 years later, I missed many opportunities to take photos of the everyday things. Gomen nasai!  ? : ` )