We arrived a bit early, so we were let to a waiting area where they luckily offered free wifi. At 10am a young woman asked me to follow her to the changing and washing room. There are free lockers here, so if you come alone you do not have to worry about important belongings. The assistant handed me an underdress, a pair of tabi and a pair of slippers.
Once you've put everything on you proceed to the make-up room. As the name says your make-up will be applied here, your hair will be done as well. The make-up will take a lot of time, as a lot of layers will be applied.
It all starts with putting your hair in a hair net.
Next step is putting the white face paint on, it is applied both on your neck and face. You end up looking kind of like a ghost ;)
Next up is pink eye shadow and red lip paint, already looking a bit less like a ghost.
Now you're all ready! Just kidding. They will also put a wig on your head, using bits of your own hair to make it look more natural and secure it on your head. The inside of the wig is made like some kind of metal medieval helmet, and the whole thing is heavy, really heavy. Parts of your hair get combed on the wig and are spray painted black.
More layers of underclothing are now put on and you're finished in this room.
Now you will go upstairs to pick out which kimono you'd like to wear. They have a lot of kimonos in all kinds of colors and motives. I had already made up my mind that I'd like a dark colored kimono as this makes the light make-up pop. I chose a really pretty dark blue one.
More layers are added to make the kimono fit right, and you get to choose a matching obi.
The whole finished outfit weighs a ton, is pretty hard to move in, and you will get warm in it. I was really glad I had booked an early session, cause today would be one of the hottest days I experienced during my stay in Japan.
Last on the list is picking out hair accessories, they will make a suggestion for the season, but you are allowed to choose whichever you like. I ended up picking the season suggestion because it matched the kimono.
Now you are really finished! At studio Aya you book a package before you arrive, I had booked the Nene plan. This plan includes indoor studio photos, a 30 minute outdoor photo shoot with a professional photographer, and 30 minutes of free outdoor time to take your own photos.
You start with the indoor shoot. You can choose 2 different poses, and as usual I managed to choose the 2 most difficult ones, but I think the final photos do pay off the trouble.
After the studio photos the outdoor photos were taken. Two ladies from the studio accompanied me through the streets of Gion, one to take photos and the other to assist the photographer and to adjust make-up or clothing. Walking around Gion normally isn't that hard, except now I could hardly move my legs, was wearing really high geta, and on top of that Gion has a variety of small slopes.
However, the effort does pay off and they shot some really nice pictures. Additionally, while taking photos some Japanese people stopped to look at me and give me some happy and approving gestures. One man even pulled over his car and jumped out to take some pictures.
Once the first 30 minutes outside passed we were handed a small map with nearby sights that would be nice photo backgrounds. We decided to go to a nearby shrine, as I was moving at a snails pace, and was a bit worried of the return walk. After a few photos at the shrine grounds I had the honor of going on the photo with a complete tour bus, but I didn't mind too much as we were finished pretty quickly anyways.
As we returned a bit early at Aya we were allowed to take some more photos in their cute backyard, as far as I've understood this is where you get to take photos if you do not book the outdoor plan.
Taking everything of also took a lot of time, and soap.
After some waiting I received my photos and a CD with all photos (I ordered this separately).
After leaving Aya we went to the Teramachi market, which is a big market mainly focused on food, but there are a lot of different stores in the neighborhood.
I didn't buy anything here, but we had a delicious meal. There were a couple of Japanese men trying to have a conversation with us, though it wasn't that successful they gifted my mom and me their folding fans, I thought it was pretty cute.
In one of the streets in front of the market I bought a nice, and cheap, yukata and matching obi.
Back at the hotel we collected our suitcases and took a taxi to the station to catch a bullet train. We got reserved seats from the ticket boot and took the bullet train to Tokyo.
In Tokyo we were staying at the Tokyo Plaza hotel, which is conveniently located between two train stations on the main Tokyo tracks.
We also ate our first conveyor belt sushi here, fun, delicious and cheap!
All photos can be found at my flickr page
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