When Aya turned three, I considered bringing her to the photo studio for the traditional shichi-go-san photos – a perfect opportunity to take souvenir photos of her wearing a traditional Japanese kimono. But on the day when we finally went to Studio Alice, a photo studio near our place, it was full of people and the staff were too busy entertaining their customers. We decided to just leave and come back next time.

Days and months passed by, and I completely forgot about the shichi-go-san.

Days before Aya’s 5th birthday, I realized that two years had already passed since I last thought about bringing her to the said photo studio. I didn’t want to wait like we did last time, so I called the store and made an advanced reservation. A smart decision! 🙂

Well, as you can see from the pictures above, it was a rather successful photoshoot. You may view the rest of her pictures at our Flickr album.

So what is the shichi-go-san, anyway?

According to Wikipedia:

Shichi-Go-San (???, literally “seven-five-three”) is a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Japan for three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys, held annually on November 15.

Here is a more detailed description found at Kids Web Japan.

What I couldn’t figure out, though, is why this “rite of passage” does not seem to include five-year-old girls. Would anybody care to enlighten me why? However, it seems to me that the photo studios are not really that particular about a kid’s actual age. Having photos taken at a studio to mark the occasion is different from actually observing the tradition at the temple.

Well, personally I’m not so much concerned about the tradition as I am about taking home those wonderful photos to gawk over and treasure for years to come. The whole deal didn’t come cheap, but I didn’t mind at all. I’m a parent, so don’t blame me for splurging on my one and only daughter once in a while. And it’s for her birthday, after all. 🙂

Aya’s lovely photos now adorn the walls of our living room. The package includes blow-up photos of her wearing a traditional Japanese kimono (my choice, so it’s red!) and a Western-style gown (her Lola’s choice). And because we went there on her birth month, we also got a few extra goodies.

Next time I’ll write about our experience at the photo studio. The whole experience is worth a separate blog post, believe me. 🙂