The day before the festival I went shopping for better sandals to wear with the Yukata since I knew I'd be walking a lot and my old geta were plastic, which is not so great for walking on pavement. At first I was just looking at various cute summer shoes in pink or white, but then I noticed of geta-like shoes. In fact, they were geta! I had no idea you could buy those at a regular shoe store.
The selection probably dwindled quite a bit from earlier this year, unfortunately. But oddly enough, among the ten or so pairs in the that particular store, there happened to be one with black soles and purple-ish, sparkly straps. My thought process went like this, "Now, I could look around Parco or even go to Sogo to find the best shoes possible, or I could just buy this pair now that I chose from this limited selection and which sorta matches...Nah, who wants to walk all the way to Sogo?"
So I paid 35 dollars for shoes I can only wear a few times a year and took them home to try with my Yukata. Lo and behold, they matched the pattern much better than the shoes that came with the set! I wore them all over Ushita, and though the strap chafed a little my feet didn't get sore.
Which is just an example of that I shop entirely by instinct over method. My shopping philosophy is rather Platonic in that I believe you carry the form of what you want to buy inside of you whether you know it or not. And as soon as you meet the manifestation of what you want you can recognize it. Which means you can go out with not particular idea of what you're looking for and still point to one thing and say, "Ok, that one! In purple!" and be totally content.
No wonder I tend to drive my mom crazy, because she actually looks at things and tries them to judge their usefulness. And to get a better sense of her options, she likes to go to several stores to compare prices and selections before making a final decision. Instead of buying the first thing one sees at the first store. Which is all very logical and I cannot understand it at all.
During the festival it rained on and off, which made everything a bit more exciting. Periodically everyone would pull out umbrellas, and luckily I had my higasa from earlier in the day. That thing is a lifesaver. You can carry it when it's hot, and if it starts raining unexpectedly you have an umbrella too.
I realize that I didn't write about the JLPT. I won't get the results until September. Until then, studying for the N3! Besides me, it was almost entirely college students at the test site. Ugh. Feeling so glad I've moved on from that phase...
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