Our appointment was for 09:00 which is right when they open. We were a few minutes early, so after finding our way from the Asakusa subway station, we had to wait outside. If you need to navigate from the station, walk towards the large Don Quixote!
Upon checking in, we were quickly ushered to pick our kimono. This shop had a pretty similar selection to the one in Kyoto but just less. Since we went with the cheapest plan, I wasn't surprised this was the case. However, there's still many different options even with the casual plan.
Once we made our choices of kimono and obi, the upstairs area is the dressing room. You pick a bag/purse to use while you're in kimono and transfer your necessities to it. There is at least one staff member who will help you get dressed from inner garment all the way to tying the obi. No pictures of us getting ready because there were lots of other people there and you need to fully change!
The second part of the reservation is the hair arrangement. J and I both opted for the Premium hair set after my great experience last time. There was about 8 different options. (We actually got our hair done and got dressed at two separate times because it seemed like there was only one staff who did premium sets!) You also need to pick a hair ornament to complete the outfit!
Meanwhile, my husband went through the same process as well (pick color, get dressed) and then just had to wait for us on the side. He was actually done prior to my hair even starting while J was still getting dressed FHL lol. He probably had to wait close to an hour.
Finally all done!
Picked out our footwear and then we were ready to leave the shop.
The weather report had forecasted rain and we had been lucky on the walk over, but when we were all done, it had fully started to pour! I had my one small umbrella, but that wasn't going to cut it for all three of us for the rest of the day.
We quickly scooted over to Don Quixote and picked out a clear umbrella each so we could stay dry a bit more independently!
We went right over to Sensoji and got a quick menchi katsu snack.
And then we continued to walk around the area and started taking a bunch of pictures despite the bad weather! This whole post is mostly going to be a photo dump of us in the kimono :)
We stopped occasionally to try some snacks.
Like this single fresh senbei. We got one salt and one "wet" salt!
Sensoji was crazy crowded and hard to move around, especially in the rain. We decided to catch the subway to Ueno Park where I was hoping it would be a lot less congested.
Sure enough, we were able to walk around and take our pictures much easier! There were even a few moments when it just barely drizzling and we could put the umbrellas down for a bit.
We made our way to Shinobazu Pond.
And then we exited the park somewhere on the west side after the pond and trekked our way towards Nezu!
About 15 minutes of walking later, we finally got to the entrance of Nezu Shrine.
The grounds are actually quite expansive, but we were miserably cold by this point. With the dreary weather and rain plus us not having our accustomed to items for warmth, we had just about enough and were ready to return to Asakusa. My fingers could barely hold my phone and I was having a hard timing even changing my facial expression wtf. Definitely not wanting to walk all the way back to Ueno, we made our way to Nezu station instead.
While we were waiting for the next train, got some premium hair set shots lol.
And cheesy selfies because we were so ready to change back to our warm clothes. Our tabi sock feet were soaked and dirty after so much talking in the rain wtf.
Overall, this experience could have been a lot better! It's obviously not the kimono rental company's fault, but the weather was just awful for this activity. Cold and wet in less warm layers is not a recipe for a great day. Unfortunately, this is just when I had made the reservations based on our other plans, so there wasn't much we could do about it. I'd still like to think we did the best we could under the circumstances and still got to explore a little bit. I would definitely consider going back to Nezu Shrine when I can actually feel my fingers!
Our before and after transformation just outside the shop ~
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