Hanami Picnic in London

Last weekend I went to my very fist Hanami picnic in London. After living for almost 2 years in UK, I just now realized that there are whole bunch of cherry trees around! Call this a very DUUUUUUH moment, but I'm glad that I figured it out later than never. Now I see them everywhere, and even around the area where I live. If I wanted to hold Hanami locally, I totally could! Maybe this is something to consider for next year, because even on base we have a lot of them :)

For our April Kimono de Jack meetup we decided to hiJACK Japanese Conversation Group's  annual Hanami picnic in the Hyde Park. Being the polite person I occasionally am, I emailed them to warn them about our coming. And even got a reply and a promise to send out email to all members, in case anyone wanted to wear kimono too.

We arrived at the Hyde Park a lot earlier than anyone else, and promptly set up under the cherry trees because we were hungry and anxious to try out all the food  we cooked the day  before.

 When Japanese Conversation Group people started showing up, they stopped by our picnic first asking if we were Japanese Conversation Group, but when finding out that we were not.. they kept walking. Apparently there was some confusion, (and I suspect the organizer guy I emailed didn't show up early enough to explain everything) but they set up in a different place, NOT under cherry trees and didn't want to join us even if we offered several invites. Can you tell I'm just a LITTLE BIT bitter about that? Oh well, we got the best spot in the place and we had more fun! We did get 3 people that decided to sit with us though, I hope we'll see them again at some other events! :)

Chantal inviting conversation group people

For the picnic I decided to wear my green komon, which I bought a long time ago (I think it went through 2 springs without love?) but never got a chance to wear. Actually I did wear it few weeks ago for Japan Day in Cambridge, but since that turned out to be a fiasco of a kind... I never took any photos. And if there are not photos, it doesn't count right?

Originally I was going to pair it up with my trusty purple nagoya obi, but the day before Hanami I had an A-HA moment when I saw this kimono next to my newest cotton fukuro. I thought they were perfect together, and the simplicity of this obi balanced out the business of my kimono quite nicely. Plus, I wanted to match with my husband who at the last minuted decided to wear hakama after all... and his grey striped hakama matched my grey striped fukuro quite nicely. :)

I don't know what I'm laughing about here lol

Goofy husband :)

For obiage and obijime I choose one of my favorite dark red ones because it matched the back of fukuro perfectly. And of course I had to wear my sakura tabi :)

After we were done eating, we started taking pictures and all kinds of goofing off. :)

Hong gets smacked by a branch, and I love my hair here

Overall, I would say this was our most successful Kimono de Jack event up to date, and I think we should definitely make this an annual thing!

~Lyuba