Our Home, Aosagi - Part 2

To continue last week's post on our home sim of Aosagi, this week I took some pictures around the region to show off this beautiful place. I hope you enjoy this quick look around Aosagi!

A partial view of the Gion Kobu Hanamachi
home of the Karyukai Teahouse. One of the senior
maiko just became a geisha here!

One of the two shrines at Aosagi. Not pictured is
the Buddhist shrine and the large zen bell nearby.
We did a fun Setsubun performance here and threw
beans to the people gathered.
We should make a tradition of that!

The village; this is usually the quietest part of the
region, but we should really make more use of it.
Did you notice the capsized fishing vessel on the left
side of the picture. Wonder what happened there? 

Finally, the largest structure in Aosagi is Ookuma-sama's
castle. I have only been inside once, but the building
is amazing and fits a Daimyo's needs.

Our Home, Aosagi - Part 1

Just over a month ago, I attempted to start a series of posts concerning the different locations that Shinmachi calls home or holds performances. This post will restart that series beginning with Our Home, Aosagi - Part One.

From the words of Ookuma-sama, the Daimyo of Aosagi, the sim is themed as a region of Japan in the Edo period (1603-1868 AD). It is designed to support a number of cultural, educational and roleplay groups for the benefit of all. Aosagi is divided into four regions: Gion Kobu Hanamachi, Minato Machi, Ronin no Kuni and Shiro Yama. The next post in this series will look more around Aosagi as a region, but for now we will focus on the area we call home.

The Yukaku Ryukin building, a gift from Ookuma-sama

The Yukaku Ryukin building is a two-level building; the bottom floor is reserved for entertainment and contains our ozashiki room. In the hallway leading to our ozashiki room, you will find a board with the names of all the courtesans in our group. Upstairs is our meeting area, changing space and a private room for formal ceremonies.

The outdoor stage designed by Jinchi-san

The ozashiki room is rather...intimate and not the best place for large formal events. Pictured above is our large outdoor stage, which the kabuki actors utilize for the performances needing more space. As I mentioned above, our next post will look at the larger region of Aosagi. I hope you enjoyed this series restart!

Changing Seasons, Kimono and Realities

By the old calendar of Japan, summer began on May 5th. We courtesans and apprentices of Shinmachi have already begun wearing our summer kimono and yukata. I personally have been aching to wear a bright red kimono I recently purchased from my favorite store. I have always found shopping to be cathartic, so after I learned the news below - I spent a good chunk of my reserve L$.

You may not have heard, but our home sim of Maruyama recently closed its doors. The sim was amazingly beautiful, but such are the realities of SL that RL finances often prevent the continuation of such splendor. From all of the various locations Shinmachi has called home in SL, the loss of this sim affected me the most.

Officially, our home is now Aosagi, in the Kurogawa Machi district near the Gion Kobu Hanamachi. Here, we have our teahouse, the Yukaku Ryukin, and a formal stage which was designed by the head of our kabuki program, Jinchi-san. We will continue to provide a home and RP area for oiran and tayuu in Second Life.

We haven't forgotten this series...

No, we have not forgotten about posting on this blog. Shinmachi has been experiencing a few transitions and I (Aisya) have had to deal with the last three weeks of my master's degrees in RL (so happy that's over). Starting next Monday, the regular series of posts will resume and soon we'll start getting back on track with our regular performances and events.

Thank you for your patience.
- Aisya