Renting a Kimono in Tokyo with YAE Japan Asakusa

What’s your favorite travel memory?! I can’t wait to travel again!!! My friend Michelle + her hubby and I stopped into Yae Japan Kimono Rental in Asakusa for a traditional kimono experience before walking to Senso-ji temple. 👘 ⛩ Seeing the meticulous and thoughtful process to properly dress someone in a kimono was absolutely awe striking to me.

BOOKING THE RENTAL

We did the group package since there were 3 of us (ya Scott was a party pooper and didn’t want to participate) for 5280¥ pp tax included (~$49 USD), the regular package for a woman is 5980¥ and 5680¥ for a man so you save ¥ by booking as a group. I easily made an online reservation through their site and received an email confirmation - you don’t have to pay until you arrive. I chose this location because it came highly recommended, we could wear our kimonos for almost the entire day (return at 17:30), there’s a variety of kimonos, hair styling and accessories are included and it’s a 2 min walk to the temple. You also have the option to hire a photographer or rickshaw! I was tracking the weather a couple weeks before our appointment and it was forecasted to rain that day - so I reached out with my concern since I didn’t know the rental shop’s policies on if there is rain (and if they allow rentals in the rain). They got back to me quickly and let me know that the rental would still be on even if it’s raining and they provide umbrellas for our use.

ARRIVING AT YAE JAPAN

Along with google maps and the instructions included on the YAE website, we easily found the shop. Although the entrance is located down a smaller street, there’s a sign out front, so keep your eyes peeled for the sign. The rental shop operates on multiple floors of the building, but you will know which floor to go to first to check in.

FINDING MY KIMONO

Right as the elevator door opened, we were greeted by the a couple shop girls at a counter. Although we all could have gotten by with limited communication, to our surprise most if not all the shop girls were trilingual in Japanese, English and Mandarin (and it was mind blowing to see the girls switch off between multiple languages to seamlessly accommodate customers). We confirmed how many people were in our party and each paid for our rental. Then got to picking out which kimono we wanted along with a purse and faux fur stole. We were each given a storage bag to place all of our items into. After everything was packed, and we selected our styles, we headed to another floor to get dressed.

THE DRESSING & HAIRSTYLING

After arriving on the dressing floor, we handed off our storage bags, then were directed into an area of the floor divided by various hanging curtains. From there, we separated into our sectioned off areas and I had two ladies work on dressing me. I’m so excited that I got getting dressed with a time lapse, but also to witness it in person was quite the the experience because of every single detailed step that it takes to style the whole look together. It’s so many layers! And even something like how the obi belt is tied on the back as well as the rope design created on top of the obi belt is so intricate and beautiful. I believe it getting fully dressed took about 30-40 minutes, then about 15-20 minutes to style my hair. I selected a hairstyle off of a menu, and finished up with my choice of flower clips.

WALKING TO and Spending time in SENSO-JI Temple

We all walked through Nakamise Shopping Street to get to Tokyo’s oldest temple, Senso-ji Temple! It’s spectacular to get to take in such a historical and scared place, while being dressed traditionally. We paid 100¥ to pull Omijkuji - Japanese fortunes inside the temple; this temple had a container with sticks, we shook it and pulled out a stick that had Japanese characters on it, which we them matched up with a particular drawer that held our omikuji. If we didn’t get a great fortune or we didn’t like our fortune, we were able to tie it onto an area that has a structure of metal rods called musubidokoro. There’s so much to see in and around the temple grounds; there were a ton of street food vendors set up and there’s lots of great restaurants, souvenir shops and animal cafes around! After we returned to YAE, we got dressed and headed out for a late lunch at a spot on Nakamise street - we attempted to get into a shiba inu cafe but couldn’t get in because it was packed, but we were able to pop into a hedgehog and bunny cafe…so fun!