We woke up and I cut off all the tags of my new suit. I tried to iron my new shirt but the iron was not getting hot enough and I realized I didn’t really know how to iron either. MP went to the old portion of the house to get his kimono on. I was also informed I would be backing up the primary photo guy which was just a worshipper at the temple. They had rented a Nikon D60 with a Tamron lens. He didn’t have any special experience with an SLR either. Having the bar set so low gave me confidence in my own kit and abilities.
MP was fitted with a black kimono by his new father-in-law and then an uncle came to fix some of it later. He looked like a real badass. Like the U.S. Marines dress blues uniform inspiring kids to enlist, this black kimono made you want to have a Japanese wedding. Everyone converged on the temple for the religious ceremony. From what I could understand the religion that SF’s family’s temple is for is an offshoot of Shinto. I took photos throughout the ceremony and setup my Flip camera on a tripod in the back. I was getting good mileage on that tripod. As part of the ceremony, guests drank sakura blossoms which tasted like really salty water, some pastry, and then some really great sake. MP’s family and I had regular chairs while everyone else sat kneeling for 45 minutes. Oww.
The ceremony was about as traditional as you could get. MP had to read some stuff in Japanese and perform some ceremony and offer some thing to the gods. The traditional music and eerie chanting just completed the experience. After the ceremony, MP took a traditional wedding photo in front of the temple with all the relatives. It was straight out of a drama. I setup my tripod next to the pro photographer’s 6×9 format camera. He broke out the light meter and had the push-pin shutter release. It was pretty cool and it reminded me of Sekai no Chuushin.
Everyone jumped into buses and vans and headed to the wedding hall for the reception. I had never been to a reception during lunch so this was a bit weird. I was sitting at the friends table. Yoko was there and then two other girls and finally a guy they called “Tencho” (I think it means manager/owner/chief?) and his girlfriend. I had heard stories about him. He was the owner of a restaurant in Osaka that SF used to work at. He was also a big drinker and likes strip bars apparently. The last time MP drank with him, MP swore off alcohol (as usual) and threw up all over the place (relatively rare I guess). I knew I was in some trouble after he started pouring me beer right away and was the first to go to the wedding table to start pouring beer for MP also. The food started flying out of the kitchen and with all the photos I was taking and talking I was not able to keep up with all the courses that kept coming out. I don’t think I was able to try everything. Oh well. I had never seen so much Japanese food come out that fast. The beer was a special wedding beer from Sapporo which was cool. I should have taken a bottle since the label was cool – it didn’t taste any different though.
Before the reception MP showed a DVD that he made titled “What is Canada?” It started off with clips lifted from a tourism video with some majestic soundtrack but then it changed to a highlight reel of big NHL hits – just players getting slammed. It went on for awhile for a pretty long time and by the end the Japanese audience was silent, probably really confused.
Two of SF’s cousins were going to translate my speech and they insisted on looking at the speech beforehand so I gave them my netbook since I never got a chance to print it out. They worked diligently on the speech for the first few courses of the meal. I felt pretty bad. They were really into it and wanted to do a perfect job though, such devotion. heh. By the time they called me up I think I had enough beer to be only slightly nervous. All that prep work went out the window and my Japanese introduction was pretty bad. Sigh. With the speech over, I felt a big weight lifted though.
There were a few other performances throughout the reception which were pretty cool. A really old man performed a karaoke song which was pretty funny. Then one of SF’s friends from Regina performed a traditional Japanese dance which really was amazing. I got that on video and that should be up soon. I’ve never had a wedding reception during the day so it felt weird leaving the hall in full daylight. Everyone piled into vans and we went back to SF’s home to change and relax until another massive home-cooked feast. There was fresh karaage (fried chicken) and really great raw tomatoes. I guess I can understand why the vegetables are so expensive here. There was also homemade oden (stew) and loads of other goodies. After dinner, the alcohol started flowing. First it was beer, then sake, and then finally the whiskey started. We managed to finish the Suntory Yamazaki 10 Year Single Malt bottle that night. There was some Suntory Royal Whiskey in a bottle the shape of a sheep which was really rough. I had never seen it before so I tried it. Tencho was drinking mixed Chu-Hi drinks until we convinced him to start drinking whiskey. He didn’t like it very much but he was determined to take us down with him and started chugging the whiskey as we poured it into his glass. That was the beginning of the end.
About 20 of the young folks came out to karaoke after dinner. We booked a huge room for 3 hours – unlimited drinks. What a disaster. I really don’t remember much. We were chugging gin and tonics there in the beginning. I had to do the obligatory Queen song, “I was Born to Love you”. It sucked so bad. I really need a go-to karaoke song that’s easier to sing… I ended up puking outside and then coming back to the room and just drinking water for the rest of the night. Ugh. One of SF’s cousins started singing Evangelion’s opening song and she was really awesome. I think we started talking and she said she liked Macross Frontier. I think I made her sing a song. She was my very own little Ranka Lee. She had a little dance and all the arm motions too. She was awesome – as were all the Japanese people there. Tencho chose some really badass songs and he nailed it of course. Time to take some karaoke lessons or something…
It was a long day and I think I was really lucky to be able to experience so many new things. It was really a once in a lifetime (or many lifetimes) experience. I wish I didn’t drink so much so I could remember more!
Very nice post…I could totally visualize it. Once in many lifetimes is right……….Ichi-go Ichi-fucking-e…that’s all there is to it.
Haha yea it was pretty epic. the karaoke was awesome.
James did an superb job on his speech.
he did such a great job, Sayakas family loves him, they told him he could come back anytime. prob wanna set him up with Sayakas cousin, the anime singer. lol!