A day for Samurai

I will end today's series of November 11th anniversaries with "Samurai Day". As I wrote earlier, there are more than 75 "day of x" on November 11th annually. Today, I introduced about twenty of them. And of the ones I chose to share today, I wanted to save "Samurai Day" to last, because it is an "Only in Japan" anniversary. 

However, its not quite what you might be thinking. Established by Japan Kisho Holdings, which operates kimono dressing classes and acts as a sales broker for kimono sales, Samurai Day is a day to promote men's kimono! "SAMURAI" is the name of a men's kimono specialty store operated by the company's group!  The reason for the date is that "11" as a kanji numeral combines "ten" and "one" that together make "shi" which is another word for samurai.

The purpose is to re-recognize the coolness of kimonos among Japan boys, who have fewer opportunities to wear kimonos on a daily basis, and to promote the inheritance and spread of Japan's proud kimono culture. The feature photo was taken in Kawagoe City - check out the City-Cost post about this samurai walking down the street!