Yukata Quotes

I couldn't exactly sit in the dripping yukata. The ink had stained all the embroidered cherry petals black. "It's totally ruined," I said. "I hope Yuki won't be mad." "It's not your fault. Well, it might be," he added with a grin.

Will you put this in my hair?

One day, I went to a soba restaurant outside town, and while I was waiting for the zarusoba I opened an old graph magazine. There was a picture of an exhausted, lonely kneeling woman who wore a checked patterned yukata after the tradegy of a large earthquake. With the intensity of my chest ready to burn up, I fell in love with that poor woman. I also felt a horrifying desire for her. Maybe tragedy and desire are back to back to one another.

So I pulled the ridiculously small, unwrapped, box from the sleeve of my yukata (as they don’t have pockets) and rather overly self-consciously handed it to her. She took the pitiful little box, held it up to her ear and gave it a cautious little rattling shake. -You didn’t just put a couple of dried old beans in here, as a joke, did you? She suddenly glared at me suspiciously. I heard a stifled bark from Yumi at that, and a deep gasp from Uncle Suzuki and Aunt Anda, followed by a moment of silence. -Of course not, you silly old goose, I snapped back, -just open it and you’ll see what’s inside!

Can I make you a cup of tea?” He says that would be wonderful, and she smiles handsomely; then her face darkens in terrible sorrow. “And I am so sorry, Mr. Arthur,” she says, as if imparting the death of a loved one. “You are too early to see the cherry blossoms.” After the tea (which she makes by hand, whisking it into a bitter green foam—“Please eat the sugar cookie before the tea”) he is shown to his room and told it was, in fact, the novelist Kawabata Yasunari’s favorite. A low lacquered table is set on the tatami floor, and the woman slides back paper walls to reveal a moonlit corner garden dripping from a recent rain; Kawabata wrote of this garden in the rain that it was the heart of Kyoto. “Not any garden,” she says pointedly, “but this very garden.” She informs him that the tub in the bathroom is already warm and that an attendant will keep it warm, always, for whenever he needs it. Always. There is a yukata in the closet for him to wear. Would he like dinner in the room? She will bring it personally for him: the first of the four kaiseki meals he will be writing about. The kaiseki meal, he has learned, is an ancient formal meal drawn from both monasteries and the royal court. It is typically seven courses, each course composed of a particular type of food (grilled, simmered, raw) and seasonal ingredients. Tonight, it is butter bean, mugwort, and sea bream. Less is humbled both by the exquisite food and by the graciousness with which she presents it. “I most sincerely apologize I cannot be here tomorrow to see you; I must go to Tokyo.” She says this as if she were missing the most extraordinary of wonders: another day with Arthur Less. He sees, in the lines around her mouth, the shadow of the smile all widows wear in private. She bows and exits, returning with a sake sampler. He tries all three, and when asked which is his favorite, he says the Tonni, though he cannot tell the difference. He asks which is her favorite. She blinks and says: “The Tonni.” If only he could learn to lie so compassionately.

I couldn't exactly sit in the dripping yukata. The ink had stained all the embroidered cherry petal black. "It's totally ruined," I said. "I hope Yuki won't be mad." "It's not your fault. Well, it might be," he added with a grin.

From where he lay on his tatami mat, he could see her in profile. Her dark hair was down, spilling around her tiny shoulders, and she was dressed only in one of the snow white yukatas or kimonos that the ryokan (a Japanese inn) supplied its guests. She was beautiful, he decided, yet she was a contradiction.

In the real world, the Ocean Turtle, where Asuna and others are located, is under attack, and most ominous of all, Kikuoka changed from a yukata into a Hawaiian shirt…

People who believe in themselves can be anything they want. That's the truth.

Vi ha mandato il locandiere?” Chiese, quasi sorpreso dalla fermezza della sua voce. Lo sconosciuto sorrise nuovamente in modo misterioso, inclinando la testa da un lato. “Non proprio. Ma spero che la mia visita sia comunque di vostro gradimento. O samurai-dono trova la mia presenza importuna?” Si sporse in avanti e la stoffa della sua manica sfiorò le dita di Hajime, poggiate sul tavolo. “Certo che no,” replicò all’istante Hajime. Il profumo del ragazzo lo avvolgeva, dolce e inebriante, facendogli ribollire il sangue. Delle immagini gli fluttuavano nella testa, riscaldandogli il corpo come una lenta tortura: il ragazzo, con lo yukata in disordine; le sue lunghe gambe esposte al tocco di Hajime; la sua pallida gola tesa mentre gettava la testa all’indietro, ansimando e gemendo sotto le mani di Hajime... Hajime non si rese conto di essere balzato in piedi finché non ebbe fatto tre passi indietro, incespicando sul tatami, con il cuore che batteva all’impazzata.

Before heading to our respective baths, Laurie, Iris, and I went to the food court and got lunch. I loved this food court, not because the food was especially good (although it was seventeen times better than the average American food court) but because it was such a perfect microcosm of the Japanese dining landscape. There were three noodle stands (udon, soba, and ramen), a sushi stand, a dessert shop selling soft-serve sundaes with fruit jelly and mochi dumplings, and a Korean stand specializing in rice dishes. I went straight for the Korean place and got myself a dolsot bibimbap, a hot stone bowl of rice topped with beef, assorted vegetables, and Korean hot sauce. Laurie and Iris returned with ramen and gyōza, and we sat together in the main hall in our yukata.