Japan Festival
A couple weeks ago at Uwajimaya, we had our annual Japan Festival. Basically, it's an event where all sorts of vendors come set up booths in the parking a lot to sell their stuff, along with a couple of stages for performers to demonstrate martial arts, Japanese dance, taiko, and other fun stuff. On Saturday the 15th, there also happened to be the Beaverton city parade rolling through town, and they needed some Uwajimaya representation, along with a costumed Hello Kitty. Guess who inexplicably volunteered for the job?
I had to be up early in the morning so we could be to the parade route before the start time of 10AM (I typically work the closing shift of 1:30-10PM, so I'm not used to having to be up before noon ^_^;;) In addition to the costume being hot and heavy, it also includes shoes that are difficult to walk in and a head that is difficult to see out of (if you look at the picture in either my icon or below, the only points that have any visibility are the eyes and nose). So, I was expecting that I might end up tripping somewhere along the way (luckily, I managed to avoid that outcome). Once we arrived at the parade....what's the opposite of "disbanding"? It's not "banding"....I guess gathering? Uh, anyway, we arrived at the parade gathering area, and immediately I could hear little kids voices screaming, "It's Hello Kitty!" I ended up taking a picture with a group of girls, and then waving to a bunch of other kids as we tried to find our place in the parade route. Once we knew where we were supposed to be, Dana, my manager/Hello Kitty wrangler took me off to a secluded area so I could remove the head of the costume for a few minutes (some of the rules in the guidebook that came with a costume: someone must always walk with Hello Kitty to guide her since her visibility is so limited, and the head should be removed every 20~30 minutes to keep the wearer from overheating).
And then it was time for the parade to begin. Right off the bat, we encountered a problem: kids kept running out from the sides of the street to come hug Hello Kitty. Not only did this slow the parade down, but because I had zero peripheral vision, I usually couldn't see the kids coming for me, and nearly stepped on a few ^_^;; Eventually, Dana had to just keep dragging me along until the kids saw that Hello Kitty didn't have time to stop for hugs. I settled into auto pilot mode of enthusiastic waving to each side of the street, occasionally blowing kisses if I heard particularly spirited screams of "HI HELLO KITTY!" I heard one person comment that Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth, so she can't blow kisses, and another little boy yell, "Ew, don't blow kisses at me!", prompting me to blow another kiss in his direction ^_^
As the parade went on, I noticed a problem developing: the eyes and nose of the costume were fogging up. Since these were my only method of seeing, it meant that for over half of the parade my effective visibility dropped to pretty much zero. All I could make out were blurry shapes, so the only visual guides I had to make sure I was staying on the route were the people carrying the white sign in front of me and the yellow lines on the road below. Of course, this meant I became quite confused when the parade went around corners and the lines disappeared, and had to yell out for Dana to guide me ^_^;; I also hear that I had a close encounter with horse poop on the road, but I couldn't see it at all, so I have no idea how close I actually came. And there were sometimes when Dana said I was waving to no one, since my lack of seeing meant I couldn't really tell if there were people on the side of the road or not, but I would just keep waving anyway ^_^
Near the end of the parade, I was really starting to suffer inside that costume. I had begun panting, I was sweating so much that I could taste it dripping into my mouth, I had itches that I couldn't scratch. I ended up spending about an hour and a half in there without being able to take it off. After the parade ended, we found an area behind a building where I was able to take the head off for a couple of minutes, but then kids started showing up nearby so I had to put it back on. The group of girls I had taken pictures with before the parade came over and gave me suckers....I tried to eat them, but I had no mouth :P When the car arrived to drive us back to the store, I had to be shoved in through the hatch in the back since the head was too big to fit through the doorways (and we were still in plain sight, so I still couldn't take it off). Once Hello Kitty got back to the store, she really needed to unwind with a nice, hard drink.
The costume took a toll on my body. My shoulders were aching from where the head had been resting on them, and I got a sore on my right ankle where the big, clunky shoes had been rubbing against it (it still hasn't healed!) Even though it was hard on me, I still wouldn't mind doing it again. At least I would be prepared for the drawbacks next time. Plus I got overtime pay and free lunch out of the deal, in addition to some thorough exercise ^_^
After my adventure as Hello Kitty, I still wasn't done playing dress up. Since it was Japan Festival, those of us in the Gift Department who had yukata decided it would be fun to wear them. My Japanese coworker Kayoko helped me and Dana to put ours on:
From left: Me, Dana, and Kayoko
I ended up wearing mine both Saturday and Sunday....my feet were a bit sore after running around for two days on what were essentially two wooden planks for shoes, though they weren't nearly as sore as I thought they might be. And the sleeves of my yukata kept getting caught on things like the stairway railings. But it's fun to dress up and wear something besides our standard black & white work clothes all the time....next opportunity will be Halloween!
I had to be up early in the morning so we could be to the parade route before the start time of 10AM (I typically work the closing shift of 1:30-10PM, so I'm not used to having to be up before noon ^_^;;) In addition to the costume being hot and heavy, it also includes shoes that are difficult to walk in and a head that is difficult to see out of (if you look at the picture in either my icon or below, the only points that have any visibility are the eyes and nose). So, I was expecting that I might end up tripping somewhere along the way (luckily, I managed to avoid that outcome). Once we arrived at the parade....what's the opposite of "disbanding"? It's not "banding"....I guess gathering? Uh, anyway, we arrived at the parade gathering area, and immediately I could hear little kids voices screaming, "It's Hello Kitty!" I ended up taking a picture with a group of girls, and then waving to a bunch of other kids as we tried to find our place in the parade route. Once we knew where we were supposed to be, Dana, my manager/Hello Kitty wrangler took me off to a secluded area so I could remove the head of the costume for a few minutes (some of the rules in the guidebook that came with a costume: someone must always walk with Hello Kitty to guide her since her visibility is so limited, and the head should be removed every 20~30 minutes to keep the wearer from overheating).
And then it was time for the parade to begin. Right off the bat, we encountered a problem: kids kept running out from the sides of the street to come hug Hello Kitty. Not only did this slow the parade down, but because I had zero peripheral vision, I usually couldn't see the kids coming for me, and nearly stepped on a few ^_^;; Eventually, Dana had to just keep dragging me along until the kids saw that Hello Kitty didn't have time to stop for hugs. I settled into auto pilot mode of enthusiastic waving to each side of the street, occasionally blowing kisses if I heard particularly spirited screams of "HI HELLO KITTY!" I heard one person comment that Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth, so she can't blow kisses, and another little boy yell, "Ew, don't blow kisses at me!", prompting me to blow another kiss in his direction ^_^
As the parade went on, I noticed a problem developing: the eyes and nose of the costume were fogging up. Since these were my only method of seeing, it meant that for over half of the parade my effective visibility dropped to pretty much zero. All I could make out were blurry shapes, so the only visual guides I had to make sure I was staying on the route were the people carrying the white sign in front of me and the yellow lines on the road below. Of course, this meant I became quite confused when the parade went around corners and the lines disappeared, and had to yell out for Dana to guide me ^_^;; I also hear that I had a close encounter with horse poop on the road, but I couldn't see it at all, so I have no idea how close I actually came. And there were sometimes when Dana said I was waving to no one, since my lack of seeing meant I couldn't really tell if there were people on the side of the road or not, but I would just keep waving anyway ^_^
Near the end of the parade, I was really starting to suffer inside that costume. I had begun panting, I was sweating so much that I could taste it dripping into my mouth, I had itches that I couldn't scratch. I ended up spending about an hour and a half in there without being able to take it off. After the parade ended, we found an area behind a building where I was able to take the head off for a couple of minutes, but then kids started showing up nearby so I had to put it back on. The group of girls I had taken pictures with before the parade came over and gave me suckers....I tried to eat them, but I had no mouth :P When the car arrived to drive us back to the store, I had to be shoved in through the hatch in the back since the head was too big to fit through the doorways (and we were still in plain sight, so I still couldn't take it off). Once Hello Kitty got back to the store, she really needed to unwind with a nice, hard drink.
The costume took a toll on my body. My shoulders were aching from where the head had been resting on them, and I got a sore on my right ankle where the big, clunky shoes had been rubbing against it (it still hasn't healed!) Even though it was hard on me, I still wouldn't mind doing it again. At least I would be prepared for the drawbacks next time. Plus I got overtime pay and free lunch out of the deal, in addition to some thorough exercise ^_^
After my adventure as Hello Kitty, I still wasn't done playing dress up. Since it was Japan Festival, those of us in the Gift Department who had yukata decided it would be fun to wear them. My Japanese coworker Kayoko helped me and Dana to put ours on:
From left: Me, Dana, and Kayoko
I ended up wearing mine both Saturday and Sunday....my feet were a bit sore after running around for two days on what were essentially two wooden planks for shoes, though they weren't nearly as sore as I thought they might be. And the sleeves of my yukata kept getting caught on things like the stairway railings. But it's fun to dress up and wear something besides our standard black & white work clothes all the time....next opportunity will be Halloween!