Yesterday I spent time photographing my sister Suzuko-san, our okiya’s newest geisha. Notice her formal kimono, black color with the white crests (dots). This kimono is worn for eri kai (meaning, a change of collar from maiko to geisha) and misedashi (maiko debut). She will have her eri kae soon. I took photos in the ochaya and in the garden. I hope to photograph my new Onesan as well.

As I see a sister being promoted to geisha, I’m reminded of the things I must still accomplish just to advance to maiko. In learning the way of the geisha, you learn of many subtleties. I think my biggest concern is learning more of the Japanese language. I’ve never been good at learning languages, but I’m hopeful that the “100 words” will enable me to communicate with us fluently. I know about 10 so far, hehe.