Konnichi-wa (hello!)

We've been a long way over the past week, to Japan, for the wedding ceremony of Mat and Airi.  We flew out from Almeria last Wednesday morning, up to Madrid, on to Heathrow, arriving at Tokyo Narita on Thursday morning.   Mat arrived 20 minutes after us and we were met by Airi and her father, Sumio.

It's 2 hours by car up to Ashikaga, when we arrived her mother Yumiko was picking vegetables for dinner.  We knew that Ashikaga was almost on the same latitude as we are, so assumed some plants would be familiar to us, but both of us were so surprised to see the same vegetables as we grow,  the veg patches laid out in a similar fashion complete with acequias for watering.  They are fenced in to stop the wild boars digging - just like here.

We had a sight seeing afternoon - went to the old part of town to the temple and saw some amazing avenues of cherry blossom.  Apparently it's late blooming this year - but is in full bloom now.  Friday we went out to Coco Farm winery - yes, there's a vineyard not far from town.  Wonderful  wine.

Orihime shrine

And so to the big day. Mat and Airi went off earlier than us to have their kimonos fitted, we went with Sumio and Yumiko to the New Miyako hotel where we met other guests and then took the hotel bus up to the Orihime shrine.

Yumiko in the middle, and family.

First we were shown into a mini shrine, where everyone was gathering.  Airi was with her kimono dresser  behind a screen,  Mat - still in jeans and a t-shirt and feeling rather obviously under-dressed - was waiting for his turn to be dressed in his wedding kimono. At 2pm we followed them up the steps into the shrine for the ceremony.  It was a very traditional solemn affair, none of which we understood although we heard our names mentioned a few times by the 'priests'.  We kept a close eye on them to see when to bow, sit, stand, pick up our dish of saki and drink - don't think we did anything wrong.

This is just a taster of the 100's of photos that we have.  Reception pictures, food pictures - a 10 course meal alternating courses of Japanese and French cuisine, speeches in Japanese although ours was very brief and to the point  and pictures of it all.

Thanks especially to Sumio and Yumiko for looking after us so well.