The Tale of Cone

December 14-23 - Thailand and back to Kyoto

2009-12-23T05:44:15Z

December 14th:

Off to Thailand! My first time on the Asian continent! My first time in a country where I have absolutly no concept of the language whatsoever! My first time CouchSurfing abroad! Woo hoo! Adventure! God I was exhausted waking up that morning. As per my previous post, I was working pretty much right up until the moment that I left and then had to get up at 5 to get my flight. It turned out that I misjudged the time a bit as well, and I ended up getting to Kansai Intl a little more than an hour before my flight. My international flight. Haha...ha. Luckily I was in Japan and this meant that everything was very well organized and it took me approximately 10 minutes to get through check-in, immigration and security...but still...panic. This was the theme for the day. The flight itself was very nice, I like having that time in the air where I am not required to do anything or think about anything. I have noticed that in the past couple of years I am getting more anxiety on planes though, which coincides with my general anxiety about a lot of things. I just wonder where it comes from. I never used to have any anxiety being on a plane, I've never had a bad experience on one, and yet every time I try to fall asleep on one I start thinking about the fact that I am hovering several thousand feet in the air. Anyways...

I get to the airport in Bangkok and turn my phone on. My phone that was supposed to work in Thailand. The phone that I checked and re-checked to make sure that it would be ok outside of Japan three times. Didn't work. Awesome. Thanks AU. So I start looking for a payphone because I need to call my host and let her know I am on my way. I was already nervous because she hadn't replied to my last message and I was worried that she had forgotten about me. All of the payphones in the international terminal were for international calls only, I literally looked up and down for 20 minutes and could not find a normal pay phone. I don't think people use them anymore. I don't think I have used one in 10 years. Some nice people let me borrow their phones, but although I tried to call twice (two different numbers...four times total) I wasn't able to get any answer from the girl that was supposed to host me. Cue panic. I hung out at an internet cafe and sent her a message as well as a couple other panicked emails, and ended up making a hotel reservation because at that point I was ready to be in a quiet place.

Damn crowded loud airport when I'm already freaking out. Damn me for freaking out. I suppose the constant stress of the last month and lack of sleep didn't help, but still. I wish I was better at keeping my shit together in public.

Go to hotel, cry for a while over my inability to deal with life, try to call the girl (Fang) again and get a hold of her this time! Apparently one of her phone batteries had died and something happened with the other one, but she only saw that I called once and assumed that I would just go to her house. Ah well. Made plans to meet up with her the next afternoon. It was already getting late and I was exhausted so I just went to sleep.

December 15th:

Wake up, breakfast, cry a bit more, get over it, and start the great adventure of sightseeing in Bangkok. Damn this city is big and crowded and full of cars! I started with the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. It was an awesome way to start the trip, and I was overawed by the lavishness of the buildings. I guess Japan has gotten to my sense of aesthetics, but I am not used to seeing that much gold everywhere! My pics from the trip are at picasa here.

For the record...Grand Palace buildings:

Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha):

After spending a good part of the day wandering around these two huge complexes, I went back to the other side of the city to meet up with Fang. Despite the confusion from the previous day she was very nice when we met, we took a bus towards her neighborhood, stopped to get some noodles as a snack and then before I knew what was happening she plopped me on the back of a motorcycle to get to her house. Motorcycle taxi that is. I've never been on a motorcycle before, definitely not while carrying many bags and without any idea how to hold on or where I was going. Hahaha! New experience! Well, I didn't die, and the breeze felt nice. She showed me to the room where I would be staying and introduced me to her mother and gave me a bit of time to regroup before we went out for dinner. I was feeling a little drained by this point. After being so flat out with school for so long, my brain hadn't quite caught up with me being in Bangkok. A shower and then going out for food helped. Chicked with thai basil. Classic. That night I made tea for her mother with the travel set that I brought with me. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in tea, which was kind of sad...but I was happy to make tea all the same!

December 16th:

I went to brush my teeth in the morning and there was a gecko in the bathroom. Tee hee! :) Fang's sister drove us into the city, and I first went out in search of breakfast. THEY HAVE AU BON PAIN IN BANGKOK. Ok, I know that I am in Thailand and should be eating delicious Thai food etc. etc. etc, but you are not going to stop me from getting my morning coffee damnit. I hadn't had ABP since Boston, and I was really happy to get an iced coffee and plan out my day. From there I took a train to the river, and then took a boat ferry to Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn)

I think this was my favorite place on the trip. It was completely beautiful, and quiet and I got to climb obscenely steep stairs and get a magnificent view of the city.

In the afternoon I spent my time museum hopping, going to the National Museum and the Museum of Siam. History Nerd. Both had a lot of interesting information on the history of Thailand and Thai art, which was a fun learning experience for me :) In the evening I met up with Fang when she got off of work and we ate more food. I ate a lot of food. I can't even remember everything I ate on this trip, but this night I had a fish and rice dish with cilantro, a pineapple smoothie, and mango with coconut milk and sticky rice for dessert. Oh man it was good.

December 17th:

I woke up in the middle of the night when a gecko jumped on my pillow. Hee hee! I like them! They are cute! I left Fang's house to spend the last two nights at a hotel, as a birthday present to myself. Fang and I rode the bus to the train station together and had an unforgettable experience when our bus driver started fighting with the bus driver in front of him for taking too long at the stops. He pulled up alongside him and both busses came to a full stop in the middle of the road (taking up two lanes in three packed lanes of traffic). Our driver (no joke) grabbed a METAL FREAKING BAR and started stalking up and down the aisle of the bus screamng at the other driver. Once we started moving again the other guy (now in front again) started swerving in traffic refusing to let us go by. Good times, thought I was gonna die.

After that lovely experience, I went to the Jim Thompson house and enjoyed the architecture, and gardens. I wish I had seen more places like this. At this point I was starting to get overwhelmed with the city and how crowded it was. The public transportation is crazy! No bus maps anywhere, and everything is only in Thai. I got a lot of help from Fang who wrote down place names in Thai for me so I just started asking people at the bus stops which bus I should take to get to a certain location. Mostly I avoided riding the busses as much as possible...because I am stubborn. In the afternoon I checked into the hotel, relaxed for a long time, and spent a long bit of time sitting by the pool. Nice.

In the evening Fang and I went to Sirocco (worlds largest open air bar, 63rd floor) with awesome views of the city. We chilled at the bar and had a drink and just hung out and enjoyed the view. It was pretty awesome :)

December 18th:

My day of nothing. I went swimming, followed by a two hour Thai massage, followed by more swimming. It was nice, but I kept feeling guilty that I wasn't out doing something. I was tired though, and it's not like I am going to get to go swimming in Kyoto anytime soon!!! I met up with Fang and her friend Ou in the evening and we got a bite of food and some drinks at a local hangout. It was cool to meet Ou, who is studying Japanese. We had fun chilling out and enjoying the evening.

December 19th:

My last day! I went to the Vimanmek Mansion Museum and Arts of the Kingdom Exhibition at the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall. The Arts of the Kingdom exhibition was exquisite. There were so many handcrafted objects from metalwork to fabrics and embroidery...everything was incredibly beautiful. I was really surprised to see the art involving beetlewings. I didn't know people did that, but it was really interesting to see and learn about how this craft is done.

I was kind of annoyed at Vinmanmek for a rather arbitrary reason. Ok, this is just me being anal, but in Thailand you remove your shoes to enter a building. This is fine, just like Japan, right? The thing is, in Japan people are very sensitive about there being a separation between where you wear shoes and where you don't wear shoes. In Thailand I found that you would have to take your shoes off about 20 feet from the entrance, and then walk in your barefeet (or socks) across that 20 feet where you just had your shoes on. This irritated me more than I can possibly describe. And there are about a dozen buildings at Vinmanmek for which this was the case. Other than that, I really loved seeing the mansion, which was used by King Rama V (same time period as the Meiji Emperor). It was a nice way to end the trip.

I was pretty tired at the end of all of that. I wandered around the markets in the evening, and then headed back to the hotel to pick up my things and then go to the airport. My flight was at 11 PM...tired Cone.

December 20th-23rd:

I arrived in Osaka at about 6 AM, in a zombie-like state. I sleep-walked my back back to Kyoto and into the dorm by about 9 AM, and haven't moved much since. I bought a lot of food the day I got back so I wouldn't have to leave again, and yesterday (22nd) I went to Lush to get nice smelling things and Uniqlo to get microfleece PJs. Both of these things, combined with Rome DVDs and the ability to make veggie omletttes and having all of tea and french press coffee I want in my room, means that I am a very happy, relaxed Cone and unlikely to socialize anytime soon.

Except that tonight I will go to my host fam's house, as I think we are celebrating my birthday tonight. I can get up for that. :)

December 6-13 - Christmas Chakai, End of Semester, Peace out Japan :)

2009-12-13T07:16:55Z

December 6th:

Day before the Christmas chakai. As with the 5th, everyone pretty much only did things related to the chakai. We cleaned at Chado Kaikan in the afternoon and then went back to the dorm in the evening, ordered Domino's and worked on sweets and packing presents. I begged out around 9 PM in order to keep memorizing the kaiki so that I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself in front of everyone when I was hanto. For those of you who don't know what that means, I had to memorize every utensil that was used in Japanese and talk about it to the guests all day. It's even worse than it sounds.

December 7th:

Up at 5:30 AM. Let boys into the dorm to get buckets for water, and we realized that we needed to call someone to drive all of the sweets and presents to Chado Kaikan because we couldn't carry them all. We arrive at Chado Kaikan by 7:30, clean more, set up, and Hamana-sensei receives a call to let us know that Oiemoto-sama and his family will be arriving at 9:30 AM. We got ready FAST. Luckily, although we were working frantically all through the weekend, we managed to get to Monday morning fairly well prepared. It was definitely stressful the morning of, but everyone knew where they were supposed to be, everything got done, and generally I think that part went well. I was trying not to terrify myself about speaking in front of Oiemoto, and trying to remember all of my lines.

When they arrived, they ended up spending a lot of time in the machiai, which was awesome because one of the tokonoma was decorated with my Swedish decorations from home :) We had three tokonoma to decorate in the machiai. One had the Swedish decorations and a handmade wreath (me ad Johnny), one had a German village and another wreath, and the ryurei room had "The Heart of Tea" as drawn by each of the Midorikai students. We had pencil and paper set out in that room and invited the guests to draw their own heart of tea, but we didn't get too many takers. Oiemoto-sama did draw one though! We were excited and put his drawing in the tokonoma after he left. Machiai picture below:

Once they had finished looking through the machiai they entered the tea room. After everyone was seated it was my moment. Everyone was sitting in the mizuya watching me, waiting. It was the moment. All of the preparations from the last two months came down to these few minutes and I was feeling the pressure to present a good atmosphere as the hanto. I went in, said my opening lines, and Oiemoto-sama said it was a very well-prepared opening. Haha...I did practice. That was obvious. I had to pause for a minute before I told them about the sweets and explained that I was a little nervous. After that...it went pretty well :) I remembered all of the dogu, I explained, my conversation wasn't brilliant but it was adequate (I SMILED!), and Oiemoto-sama is, of course, a perfect shokyaku. He knew exactly how and when to comment on the different utensils and just what to say to make everyone comfortable. It was a very wonderful start to the day. They were very happy with the sweets, which we spent so much time on! He was pleased with out utensils and the decorations in the machiai and the use of the chashaku Toshin (lamplight) as well as the name of our sweet Tomoshibi (light in the darkness) and how it matched the scroll (Ko Ro Jo Itten no Yuki) and the theme (kokoro - ここ炉) well. I am still in awe that I was able to serve tea to both Oiemoto-sama and Oku-sama AND my raku chawan was used in this seki so they were able to haiken my bowl!!! I was so so so so happy at the end. So so so happy. I can't remember the last time I was so happy. The best part was when I was leaving the room for the last time. I said "Shitsureshimasu" closed the door, and looked over and EVERYBODY was sitting in the mizuya watching me and smiling. It was the best moment ever. You can see all of the pictures at picasa here, but I will post one or two below.

Oiemoto-sama said that he liked Martina's tea:

Of course, after this we still had SIX more seki to go through. I ended up being hanto four times, and the rest of the time I was in the machiai. Everything is a blur. The second seki where I was hanto included several of our teachers as well as the Akanegama (Kyoyaki) and Katsuragama (Raku) sensei whose studios we went to to make the bowls for this chakai. This seki made me really nervous and I was at a loss for what to say, and it was rather uncomfortable. I was supposed to talk about how Oiemoto-sama had come in the morning and give his feedback, but I wasn't sure how to do it in Japanese so it was a little stressful for me. The third seki where I was hanto was one of the gakuen seki, which was fun. The second year student who helped me practice my lines was there and I was a little embarrassed to speak in front of him! Hahaha! However, it was nice to have all of them there since I knew them a little better. I was a little more comfortable and joked around a bit and didn't feel foolish when I forgot where one of the kashibachi was from.

After that Matsumoto-sensei and Tanaka-san arrived for the next seki. I was able to entertain them in the machai and I was so glad that I was able to invite them to this event. Matsumoto-sensei was so happy to be there and see our group and everything that we were doing, she started crying a little...it made me a little emotional. She is such a wonderful woman and I will always be thankful to her for giving me my first introduction to tea lessons :)

The last seki that I was hanto for included the some of the Kokusaibu and Gakuen office staff as well as 18 students from Ritsumeikan. The Ritsumeikan students had been touring that day, and after Oiemoto-sama came in the morning he invited them to go see our chakai to get a feel for our life in the tearoom. Luckily we had prepared extra sweets and were even able to give them gifts as well. It was a nice ending to the day, but I was completely exhausted by the end.

Once we finished and cleaned and stopped by the Gakuen to see about our cleaning for the evening (they were nice and allowed us to skip cleaning since the 3rd floor hadn't been used that day) we went HOME. We had received a ton of sandwiches as Mizuyamimai so we all gathered in my room and ate a lot of food and drank a lot (or at least I drank a lot) and celebrated the day. It was an excellent day.

December 8th:

Sadly, we still had to wake up and go to class the next day. Hahaha! We had Zen meditation in the morning and I am afraid that I was working harder on napping than satori. Ah well...

In the afternoon we did tabidansu, which I only vaguely remembered how to use. It was a nice calm class. Calm.

December 9th:

Our last Noh class! Teele-sensei will not be coming back to teach us next semester so this was our last class with her. I rather liked Noh classes, but that could be because of all of the background information that I get from Hanna-chan. Today she brought in many masks that told us about some of the differences with them and each of the roles they were designed for. We asked many questions and had a pleasant discussion, I think it was a nice ending class.

Afternoon, I did tanausucha. Strange to say, I've been doing so much koicha that when I did usucha again I was shocked at how weak my right hand has become. Christ. I need more practice. Always more practice.

December 10th:

Regular koicha and usucha in the morning. I was really sad thinking about it being our last class for a month. I need my tea fix! I'm an addict!!!

In the afternoon we had cleaning at Gakuen, and then back in the girls dorm we cleaned out Dogubeya...which was a mess. It feels nice to have a cleaner house. I was running around like mad that evening getting receipts from people and trying to balance the Midorikai fund books, because I needed to get the report to Hamana-sensei on Friday before the holiday.

December 11th:

Closing ceremony in the morning, followed by McDonalds lunch with Mecca and Mamahen, followed by finishing the report, handing over to Hamana-sensei, feeling completely drained and exhausted, and having ~30 minutes to rest before getting ready and going to the Bonenkai. Naturally I was seated next to Murata-sensei. NATURALLY. He is a very good teacher. I will not make any other comments here regarding my rage towards him every time I see him.

The Bonkenkai overall was fun, and once again I drink a lot. I don't drink so much in my normal life, Midorikai definitely gives me reasons to though.

December 12th:

I did still wake up at about 7:30 AM. Ran around most of the day running errands to prepare for Thailand and trying to finish balancing the Midorikai fund and pay people back before everyone leaves. I GOT A WATCH. Thank god. My watch broke about a month ago and I hate not having one. Finally got the one I want, it looks great and I am really happy. I also got an adorable traveling tea set so that I can make tea for people in Thailand! Wheee!

December 13th:

Tired tired tired. So tired. I am stressed about this vacation because it feels like more work. I just want to sleep. I cleaned all morning and ran more errands and packed and now I am finishing this post because I needed to write this before I go. So ha! They are going to try to drag me to karaoke tonight and I just don't know if I have the energy. When does vacation start again? Two days ago? When did that happen?

I still don't have a place to stay for the second half of my Thailand trip, I have a few people I am supposed to call while I am there. I am debating just making hotel reservations somewhere today so I know I have a place to stay. Considering my current level of exhaustion, it might not be a bad idea to stay somewhere and have some time to myself.

Wish me luck in Bangkok, I will be back with more pictures in a week or so :)

December 2-5: I can't think about anything except the Christmas Chakai

2009-12-05T02:32:09Z

December 2nd:

We had a lecture by Murata-sensei in the morning. I hadn't been sleeping the last two nights because I have been thinking about things for the Christmas chakai and getting the money toban in order (just took it over) so when he walked in and looked at me I knew it was going to be a bad class. I could not translate to save my life, and thankfully Johnny took over as much as possible. My brain reached maximum capacity. The lecture was about hai, but other than that I don't know what was going on.

After that we had a lecture on tea history with Tanihata-sensei. I really enjoy his lectures, even though he goes so so so fast! He is the kind of person that I wish I could sit and pick his brain forever because you know that he knows everything. I love history teachers. It's a thing. Hamana-sensei told us later that Tanihata-sensei's book on kugi-cha was the first of its kind published. That baffles me, and also continues to make me think about what kind of research I should be doing next year. So many thoughts. Yesterday the focus was on the lifetime of Sen Sotan and Kobori Enshu. I find this to be a really fascinating time period. Must study more.

Chaire kazari. Not too bad. I felt like I could exhale during the kazari's since they were all pretty much the same except for how to handle the special items. Once you know how to handle the special items its pretty much the same as regular koicha. Which is good because I really needed to not think this week.

December 3rd:

Hamana-sensei lecture in the morning continuing the New Year's events theme. Waaah. Lots of information. Afterwards was the Principal's meeting with Oiemoto. During his lecture I kept thinking "I am going to serve him tea in less than a week. I must do this well."

At lunch Sylvain and I met with one of the 2nensei who was the hanto at the Gakuensei's Tsukimi chakai in October to ask him tips for how to be a good hanto and ask for typical opening lines. Even when I know what it means it is hard for me to remember that much keigo, so it was helpful to talk to the gakuensei and write down information to practice later.

Class was held in Chado Kaikan that day since all of the other practice spaces were booked. Murata-sensei was teaching us and reminded us that when he was in Gakuen he never entered Chado Kaikan except for entrance and graduation ceremonies. It's an interesting paradox to me that we receive such special treatment, but we are the lowest ranking students in the school. We are in an extremely fortunate position to be able to use these spaces for practice. Chawan-kazari, and we ran out of time before I got to go. Ah well. Murata-sensei was giving me a bad time about being hanto, saying that he wouldn't be able to handle it and implying that he was scared for me. JERK. DAMN MURATA-SENSEI.

December 4th:

Christmas chakai meeting in the morning. My toban for the day was "cho" and I forgot to soak Hamana-sensei's shibori before steaming it and nearly started crying as a result. I am always on the verge of tears these days. Between planning for the Christmas chakai, preparing to be hanto, preparing for classes, I am having a hard time keeping it together. I wish I could sleep at night, I think that would help. I've been having terrible headaches for days. Overall I think we are in decent shape, although there is still a lot of work to be done this weekend. Sweet making is the biggest job, and then packing etc. Dogu are pretty much set.

Nagao. Oh dear lord I cannot tie a knot to save my life. I still have problems with a standard chaire. Now nagao!? NOW!? WHY NOW DEAR GOD WHY?! They couldn't save this until after the Christmas chakai?! *cries* I struggled through it, and I honestly just don't have the mental capacity to go practice right now. After the Christmas chakai when I have my brain back I will practice how to tie knots. Right now I cannot tie knots.

The good news is that we got our raku chawan today! Whee!!! I am so pleased with how mine turned out! I have an ame raku chawan! :) Here is a picture along with the Kyoyaki bowl that I painted earlier this year:

And the bottom (note the cone):

December 5th:

This morning I got up early to let Johnny into the dorm to begin the sweets making process. We had some tea in the new raku bowl and since then I have been ironing and doing online things. I need to get the final dogu list and start practicing, and eat something soon. Let us all pray that I don't lose my mind before Monday. Encouraging messages are welcomed.

November 24th - December 1st: Breakdown, Silliness, Christmas Planning

2009-12-01T11:29:58Z

November 24th:

Tuesday after a long weekend feels like Monday. Also, since a lot of the weekend was involved in Christmas chakai planning it wasn't completely a break...even if it did have its nice moments :) In the morning we had the first part of our monthly lecture by Hamana-sensei about December/New Years events. There are so many things that happen at Urasenke at New Years time aside from just Hatsugama. I've always wondered about traditional New Years though. I wonder how everything will go.

In the afternoon I did Gozumi for the first time and it went...badly. Hamana-sensei asked me to use my left hand, because he wanted to help me be able to pick up the heavier Ro sumi. Unfortunately, I've only practiced sumi demae with my right hand so far and trying to do it with my left hand made everything feel backwards and just confused me more. I MUST PRACTICE MORE WITH MY RIGHT HAND. I WILL DO THIS. I WILL. Thus begins a frustrating week for me.

November 25th:

Noh in the morning. Teele-sensei brought a mask for us to practice walking with. It's amazing how much the senses are changed once the mask is put on. Because of the change in vision and the closeness of it, it's as if you are in a different world. I can't even imagine how to perform in that kind of environment, let alone costumes, etc. It was a fun experience :)

Kininkyotsu Koicha. It was my first time to ever do kininkyotsugu in any form (usucha/koicha, ro/furo). I didn't do a particularly good job of it continuing my frustration from the day before. After class I rushed over to Matsumoto-sensei's place to give her an invitation to the Christmas chakai, and watched MORE kininkyotsugu! Quelle coincidence! After that I rushed to change and head back to gakuen with no time for dinner, because I had to do rochu (cleaning out the ro for class the next day). AND THEN there was practice for kagetsu which was our lesson the next day. My brain was completely fried at this point, and I could only watch and get really, really confused. I don't know if I will ever understand kagetsu. I have a terrible fear of it now. I got back to my room around 9:15 and wrote a report for Hamana-sensei on our status for the Christmas chakai for the meeting the next day, proceeded to have an anxiety attack, and drugged myself to sleep.

November 26th:

Woke up the next morning migrainey from the consistent lack of sleep and drugs from the night before. Missed class for the first time since coming here. Spend a lot of time in my room crying. Clearly needed a mental break. No kagetsu for me.

November 27th:

Mittwer-sensei lecture in the morning on the different levels of study at Urasenke, which made me think about how long I will need to study before I feel like I resemble proficience in tea. This both terrifies and excites me. Honestly, I think I could be happy doing nothing but hakobi usu/koicha forever...and chabako. I really like chabako.

Chasen kazari with Hamana-sensei. The temae itself wasn't that difficult, I just could not recover myself. Every day this week I got angry with my temae and just wanted it to end because I did so poorly. Could not stop crying. Mereca was also crying so we were a lot of fun to deal with, two crying girls in the corner. It was a very sad class :(

Once we got home it was decided that we needed to blow off some steam, and me, Finland and Poland proceeded to play very loud music, drink a lot of sake and laugh a lot. It felt good. I needed it...badly.

November 28th:

Slightly hungover, but managed to get out in the morning to run some errands and generally spend all day in various places (Starbucks, etc) reading books. Reading makes me feel better about life. That was pretty much my day.

November 29th:

Pancake origami folding party! More prep for the Christmas chakai, followed by Mecca and I going to Subway for dinner, then to the boys dorm to help Johnny make wreaths, finally back to the girls dorm for second dinner with some of the gakuensei. Drank whiskey. It was fun to hang out with the gakuensei, it doesn't happen often.

November 30th:

Vice-Principal's meeting in the morning (Oku-sama). It was interesting to hear her talk about all of the things that the family does at New Years time. A straight month of New Years events...I can't imagine keeping up with that schedule. Such a busy life! Afterwards we had a history lesson on the Nara period and learned a lot about imperial drama and the rise of the Fujiwara's, which was fun. I always enjoy history.

Finally starting to feel sane again after last week. It helped that the temae was Unohana. Chabako is always fun for me, although it was my first time doing it with haiken. If I buy anything while I am here I hope to get a chabako set. We shall see how I come out after Winter Break. Probably broke.

December 1st:

I can't believe it is December already. Time flies. Less than a month until my birthday! For the first time in a long time I am excited for my holiday birthday, and I plan to spend that day at the last Kitano Tenmangu flea market of the year :) Hamana-sensei finished his lecture on December/New Years today, there is so much to talk about here I could come back a dozen times and not do half of it. I'm trying to figure out which things I will do at New Years time. If anyone has suggestions let me know :) I will probably do Hatsumode at Kitano Tenmangu again...you know, good luck in studies and all that.

Chashaku kazari today. My temae was fine, but I made the absolute worst koicha ever. The end result wasn't too bad, a little think but ok. However! I added about half of the water I needed the first time, and all of the tea stuck to the chasen even after I added extra water the second time. When I took the chasen out at the end there was a HUGE ball of tea at the end, which promptly plopped into the bottom of the chasen when I put it back. It was my worse nightmare. *sigh* Ah well, there is always tomorrow...

I am currently trying to figure out schedules and money things for the Christmas chakai. T - 6 days. I will be a basketcase until this is done. And then I will drink. And then I will go to Thailand.

November 21-23 - So much food

2009-11-23T12:59:54Z

I ate a lot of food this weekend, which means I spent a lot of money this weekend. I will be fine until we get the scholarship next month, but it is still rough :)

November 21st:

In the afternoon I went with Johnny and Mecca to go buy items for the Christmas chakai, and we stumbled upon a baked cheesecake store. I had pumpkin cheesecake with black tea, which I am pretty sure was rose tea. Oh it was so, so good. Johnny was meeting up with a friend for dinner that night and I tagged along, and we ended up finding a nice Spanish restaurant which was great. Lamb stew, crunchy bread with olive oil, red wine, coffee, how can this possibly be a bad thing? The only bad thing was that I cut it really close to curfiew and ended up having to SPRINT from the store to Oike to get a cab to take me back to the dorm...I arrived at 9:58. I am a lucky Cone. Also, running on a full stomach is rather unpleasant.

November 22nd:

Met with Ben in the morning to go over Midorikai finances (ramen lunch) and then later went back downtown to look at watches and meet up with Hanna-chan for dinner. She knew an Italian place run by a Hawaiian couple that makes awesome lasagna. More crunchy bread with olive oil, more red wine, more coffee = happy cone. I also bought my tickets for THAILAND. Ohh...Thailand. Sweet. Now I just need to find a place to stay.

November 23rd:

I decided to chill today and stayed around the dorm until lunchtime, and Mecca and I were leaving at the same time with the same Starbucks craving. Caramel Eclair Latte. Afterwards she went off for some sightseeing and I walked down to the Gosho to enjoy the momoji and read until the sun went down. It was nice. In the evening they were testing sweets for the chakai so I went down and worked on some expense spreadsheets while they were cooking shiro an.

Some pictures from the Gosho:

Biggest gingko tree I've ever seen...

Momiji

Close Up!

November 12-21 - Christmas Chakai Planning, Ben's Chaji, Raku Chawan, Sotanki

2009-11-21T06:18:08Z

November 12th:

Meeting with Hamana-sensei in the morning about our Christmas chakai planning. Sadly, he didn't check his email before the meeting and didn't see all of the tables and spreadsheets I had sent him. SAD! He got to see them later though, and I think he apprecaited the organizational skillz. That's right. Skillz. During the lecture with Imagawa-sensei later in the morning we discussed the theory that all tea people are OCD. It involved looking up the term OCD in a denshi jishou and then explaining the difference between the actual illness and the coloquial English use of the term. Very funny.

November 13th:

Lecture by Hamana-sensei on the different rooms that make up the Konnichian structure. It was very interesting since we were going to be visiting the following week for Sotanki!

November 14th:

I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the evening I managed to drag myself out of my room and head downtown and spend too much money on some books in English. It is important to me that I have something to read! I got a book by Dumas that I haven't read yet...I always love Dumas...

November 15th:

Yuichi, one of the gakuensei, had a tea down at the Kamogawa delta. Mecca and I went down at about 3 and enjoyed him doing WaKei outside. It was really nice, the weather was perfect and there were a lot of people doing various things on the delta. Afterwards we felt energized enough to bike down to Shijo in search of sweets. Unfortunately, that seemed to be everyone's plan and all of the good places had hour long lines. Why do people wait in line that long? So we ended up at Haagen Daas. Not a bad ending, and we did see maiko-san while walking through Gion!

November 16th:

Kaiseki quiz, followed by the principals meeting (the principal of the Gakuen is Iemoto). So we were able to listen to his lecture. I had a bit of a clothes crisis in the morning when I realized (20 minutes before I had to leave) that I should wear iromuji kimono to the Iemoto meeting instead of my normal practice kimono. I managed to put myself together in time, but it was a little hectic to change that quickly...especially on Monday morning :( Kinindate usucha at class today, I think I had done a fairly decent job of it. I felt much better about my performance this week compared to last week.

November 17th:

Ben's chaji! I had to make him an omlette for his mizuyamimai which I did first thing in the morning. It is difficult to cook when the only thing I have in my room is a little hotplate that only kind of works. I seem to have pulled it off though. We cleaned in the morning and went back for the tea in the afternoon as usual. His chaji was really, really nice. Ben is from Wisconsin and makes ceramics, so it was really interesting to see what he came up with for his toriawase. His main bowl was by one of the Gakuensei, Kei-kun, whose father also makes ceramics. Also, I was really impressed with the fact that he actually ground the koicha himself. Damn. Interestingly. he used Eisho no Mukashi, whch we normally drink as koicha for class, as the usucha. It was funny because Martina normally hates this koicha and makes faces when we order it, but she said it was much better as an usucha. The jiku was kansai no "kan." Mostly what I will remember from Ben's chaji is the feeling. The feeling was so simple and honest and kind. It was really lovely.

November 18th:

We spent the day at Katsuragama making raku chawan! How cool! It was really a lot of fun. The interseting thing about making raku chawan is that you actually carve them. First you turn out the basic shape, let it partially dry, and then you actually use a scraper and carve out the bowl and make the design and carve the dai (foot). It was a really interesting experience. Having almost no experience with ceramics I needed a lot of help, I carved a hole in the bottom which sensei had to fix :( There was also a point where he tripped and almost dropped it when handing it back to me. There is speculation that my bowl is cursed and will crack in the kiln...but we will see. I chose an amegusuri for the glaze because I am super obsessed with Ohi bowls ever since the visit to Kanazawa six years ago, so we will see how it comes out :)

November 19th:

Sotanki. Oh my god I don't even know where to start. So, Sotanki is one of the three big memorial services of the year at Urasenke pay respects to Sen Sotan, the third generation grand master and founder of the Urasenke line. It was easily the largest event I have ever been to. It encompasses the entire Urasenke complex and there were different seki in each of the buildings. First we met at the center and changed our zori to the shoes that everyone wears around (so there is no confusion over whose shoes are whose when walking around to the different buildings) and then we headed to Chado Kaikan to watch Okusama perform the ryurei seki on the second floor. I got to see Okusama do tea! Cooool. One thing I thought was really interesting about this day was the fact that the dogu that were displayed were different from what was actually used. The "main dogu," the things that were displayed were amazing. I wish I had a photographic memory and could tell you about every single piece. I remember the look of the hanaire, which Hamana-sensei really appreciated, it was made by one of the four deshi of Sen Sotan and the name was Shigure. The chashaku was Unkin and made of kaede (maple wood). I can't even remember so far as the jiku or chawan because I was so overwhelmed with the presence of so many people. The sweet was ginan mochi, with gingko nuts from Sotan's tree. The second floor of chado kaikan is a huge room and there were tables lined up all the way around filled with people. It was staggering. The Sumirekai girls were going tatedashi at this seki, and it reminded me how lucky we were to be guests, since these girls and all of the Gakuensei were working.

Next we were taken into Konnichian through the Kabutomon! Gah! On the rare occasion that we are allowed into Konnichian we do not use this entrance since we are not guests. It was an experience, and I wish we had time to stop for a moment and look at the gate since Hamana-sensei had been explaining it last week, but no such luck. More rushing, and then we sat down in the waiting room for a while and I got to listen to Johnny trying to learn Chinese from the ICI students. Oh my... We were taken into Totsutotsusai, which had been completely opened up, and in walked Iemoto-sama! Hello! Hikae! We always seem to have a problem with this. When do we do it? Everyone always looks around and makes sure it is ok before we move our hands to the hikae position. It seems a little strange to me. First there was a presentation of certificates to several high ranking members, and afterwards there was a presentation of tea. I was sitting directly across the room from Iemoto-sama. It was intimidating and I tried not to look him in the eyes. I wonder if I am allowed to. Haha! I am not sure what happened here, but there was some kind of kagetsu perhaps? I watched and it was interesting, but I didn't really follow what was happening. Sadly, we we were not able to look at the dogu as we were rushed off again.

Where did we go next? I can't remember? I think we went to look at more dogu? Or did we go to gakuen next? There was another seki at gakuen done by the Gyotei sensei. The sweet was joyo manju in the shape of an icho leaf, with Daitokuji natto inside. I really enjoy Daitokuji natto. Once again, all of the main dogu were separated from what was actually used and I find myself unable to remember a single thing. THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING. At the time I remember feeling so overwhelmed with the sight of so many rare objects, and now I can't remember anything. Brain overload.

After gakuen we had udon lunch at Tankosha followed by the last seki at Kenshu Kaikan (our dorm!). The only thing I remember from this seki was someone trying to explain the scroll to me and me completely not understanding, even after I heard it in English. Everything was so fast and there were so many things to see and not enough time to see any of it. The sweet was another joyo manju, korin giku. I am sad that I can't remember anything better. After the last seki we went back to te Center, got our zori and gift and went back to the dorm. Mecca, Talon and I went to get re-entry permits in the afternoon and then I slept. For a long time.

November 20th:

Gyotei sensei lecture in the morning. I woke up and realized that I was cho and didn't have enough time to get dressed and get there on time. I managed to pull it off, which made me realize that I am getting better at this getting dressed thing. Both Ishikawa-sensei and Hamana-sensei gave lectures on the rooms at Konnichian, fresh in our minds from Sotanki. In the afternoon we had kinindate koicha, but I think everyone was so overwhelmed from the events of the week that none of us could concentrate very well on temae. I am afraid we were all a bit loopy by the end...sorry Ro-sensei!

At dinner we had another meeting about the Christmas chakai. Only 2.5 weeks away! There is so much to be done. We planned a schedule and I sent out more emails last night.

November 21st:

This morning I made omlettes (which ended up being scrambled eggs) for Elena and Mecca. It was nice :) We had eggs, real orange juice, and awesome Ethopian coffee and kaki. All while listening to Om Shanti Om, and then classical. Then we made each other tea and had some of the higashi that we received from Sotanki. It was a really lovely morning. For reference, here is "Cone tea" in my room:

And one with the background:

The bowl is the Kyoyaki bowl that I painted last month. The design is susuki and the moon, very autumn. It's not very good, but whatever. I like it anyways. We have had good tea memories together.

In case you were wondering, here is the current weather in Kyoto (taken at the Kyoto Prize Teicha):

Pretty soon I will be going out to run errands for the Christmas chakai. Wish me luck! Three day weekend this week. I need to finalize plans for Thailand and start looking for a watch this weekend too. So much to do! Ahhh!!!!

November 9-11: Kyoto Prize Teicha...Wall

2009-11-11T13:01:32Z

November 9th (Monday):

The day started out with a quiz that I did poorly on, which I started right after I got last week's quiz back which I also did poorly on. I had a little cry in the bathroom and started dwelling on being a failure and tried to stop thinking about it for the afternoon. Class in the morning was history, which I always enjoy. It's a pretty basic history class so I'm not learning anything new, but it's nice to have a little refresher and it's kind of like story time for me. Koicha in the afternoon with Murata-sensei. I continued thinking I was a failure and did REALLY BADLY during my lesson. Murata-sensei always makes me nervous because everything I do is wrong. Awesome.

November 10th (Tuesday):

We did a teicha for the Kyoto Prize award ceremony. I got to wear a new obi so I was excited (no pictures yet). There was a misonodana setup, and my sempai got to do the temae. However, the place was such a madhouse that I'm not sure anyone actually saw any of the temae. Anyways, the scroll was by Daisosho and said "Wa." The hanaire was from Damascus and I can't remember what flowers were in it (tsubaki kana...). The main bowl was the same raku chawan from the Kokusai chakai (sennen no midori by Kichizaemon) and the chashaku was carved by Gengensai (13th generation). The natsume was Iemoto konomi "chitose" and the mizusashi was in the shape of a well bucket with a handle. I believe it was blue and white porcelin with a black lacquer lid. The tea was from Ryuoen, but I can't remember the name at the moment. The sweet was called "tatsuta" and it was in the shape of a red and gold maple leaf. Honestly, about all I can remember from the entire afternoon is piles and piles of those damn sweets. I was on hakobi duty, but it was a complete madhouse. There were about 400 guests and there was no order to it, everyone just came as they pleased and we served anyone who looked like they hadnt had tea yet. We had about 10 trays of sweets prepared in the mizuya which needed to be constantly refilled, so I found myself in back refilling each tray and placing kuromoji and arranging most of the time. The rest of the time I was bringing out tea and sweets and bringing back empty bowls with the rest of the Midorikai and Sumirekai kids. I actually enjoyed the madness a little bit. Every time I stepped out of the mizuya it was a little bit of chaos and I had to take a breath and figure out where the hell I was going and what I was going to do. The ultimate organizational challenge. The good part about being that busy is that it was over pretty quickly, so that was nice.

November 11th (Wednesday):

Zazen in the morning. Its really nice to have the opportunity to practice Zazen every month, especially in this stressful environment. I like not thinking and I don't do it enough.

I was praying that Hamana-sensei wasn't going to teach my class this afternoon, but no such luck. I did poorly in my temae again. I really feel like I have hit a wall. It's been two months and I feel like I have taken a giant step backwards. Even simple things that I know that I have known for years are completely lost on me now and I am being corrected on every single little point. I feel like an idiot. I DO NOT WANT TO BE A FAILURE. GLENN-SENSEI WILL KILL ME IF I DO NOT SUCCEED.

Tomorrow we have a meeting with Hamana-sensei about the Christmas chakai. Being the super OCD person that I am, I have created several tables and summaries and sent them in advance. I have earned the nickname "tiger shark" among my classmates because I am a complete organizational control freak. Is anyone surprised?

October 26th to November 7th - Omogashi, Tenryuji, Robiraki

2009-11-07T12:09:44Z

I've been avoiding writing this post because of the number of topics I have to cover. If I wrote everything I wanted to this would turn into a book. A really poorly written book.

October 26th:
Morning lesson as usual (kininkyotsugu koicha!) which I didn't get to do but I did get to do gozumi for the first time. Sumi demae during furo season is not so terrible. Ro on the other hand...I will discuss later. In the afternoon we went to the sweet shop Oimatsu in Kamishichiken, one of the hanamachi which is located right next to Kitano Tenmangu (my favorite shrine!). It's funny because I have walked down this street in Kamishichiken dozens of times and never realized that I was walking past Oimatsu, where we get a lot of sweets for class each day.

Sweet making class was pretty awesome. We made kinton (made from a type of potato, passed through a sieve and pressed into a shape) and chakin shibori (shiro an, the shape is made by wrapping a chakin around it and twisting, hence the name). I had fun with the colors for the chakin shibori sweets and you can see a couple of the results below:

One for America, one for Pride

It's a little early for Christmas, but that's ok. I am always thinking about Christmas.

Since the sweets don't last very long we pretty much spent the next day eating as many as we could and giving away even more. Tasty tasty sweets. I'm not going to lie, this is part of the reason why I do tea. They feed me these things on a daily basis. It's lovely.

October 27th:

Class as usual. We did Unohana chabako for class today, and there was some arguing among classmates over who would have their lesson in what order. Again, this makes no sense to me. Everyone should be prepared for class every day, why should it even be a topic for discussion? Anyways, I really like chabako. I would really like to become well-versed in chabako temae before I leave here. It's so ridiculously, unnecessarily complicated! How can I not want to organize all of these little pieces???

October 28th:

Class as usual, we began to learn the seasonal information for the month of November today. Shimozuki (month of frost). It's true too, since the temparature dropped about 10 degrees in the space of a few days this week. Madness. Most importantly, the beginning of November means Robiraki! The opening of the Ro! For lesson today we did regular koicha, and it will be our last time to do furo koicha until the spring! Oh my!

October 29th:

Lesson in the morning, which was regular hakobi usucha. Our last furo temae! It was actually a little sad, but I was excited about using the ro again. Ro time! In the afternoon we had cleaning of the entire gakuen in preparation for the opening of the ro. Fortunately, we were able to end the day early and I got a little rest.

October 30th:

Tenryuji Kenchashiki Sanretsu. We took the baby train (baby train!) to Arashiyama to spend the morning at Tenryuji for the Kencha performed by Iemoto-sama. The weather was absolutely beautiful; cool, crisp fall air and the leaves are just starting to turn slightly, so the atmosphere at Arashiyama was gorgeous. On the ride over I probably spent too much time playing tourguide and telling my classmates about the temples along each stop of the train, but I can't help it. I rode that train every day for a year! I love that area! Anyways, we arrived a bit late (having received our scholarship from Iemoto-sama first thing in the morning) so we didn't have time to go to any seki prior to the kencha. We sat in the very back of the hall for the kencha, and I couldn't help but notice that the tourists kept taking pictures as they walked by. It makes sense, it's unusual to see that many people in kimono for such a formal event...but it still bothered me a bit. The one photographer that did not bother me was one of the Tenryuji priests who had the biggest camera of anyone there (including the official photographer). The two of them were almost falling over each other to get the best angles for shots of Iemoto-sama presenting tea and it made me want to laugh. Ironically, I wish I had been able to take a picture of that!

After the Kencha we were able to go to the Nodate seki, which was chabako. Iemoto-sama and his wife joined us in this seki so we all tried to be on our best behavior...but I realized as we stood up at the end that I forgot to take my fan out of my obi! Gah! The chabako set itself was very interesting, with a colorful carved design that I have never seen before. The furidashi was a type of chocolate that looked like small pebbles, and the omogashi was a roasted chestnut. Also, I think the kekka was in the shape of a ginko leaf. Unfortunately, there was so much to remember this day that everything is a bit of a blur.

After Nodate we went to another seki and laughed because there were bugs on the fusuma that disappeared when the door was opened. I wonder if they got squished or if they were alright? Sensei joked that the paintings on the fusuma were extremely realistic. Oh my...I have a hard time remembering this seki, except that I didn't like the combination of the tana (tamenuri?) and mizusashi (shonzui) and natsume (can't remember). For me, it seemed that there were too many competing colors...but that's probably just my preference.

In the Honseki we were served koicha. Wonderfully delicious koicha. Once again, I was seated in a location where I couldn't see the temae very well (sad) but was able to haiken very briefly afterwards. The most striking part about this temae was the very small chashaku (what was the name? something about wind?) and the very hugely large chaire. I've never seen such a large chaire before! The scroll in that room was done by Ennosai and was a very simple message about drinking tea, but I can't remember the exact wording.

After so much amazing tea, we had an amazing teicha as well (temple food! no fish, no meat!). See a group shot and a picture of the food below:

Tourists kept taking our picture. It was kind of annoying. I didn't like pictures before I came here, now I am turning positively spiteful every time I see a camera.

As if this wasn't enough for one day...we were whisked off immediately after the teicha to head to the other side of the city to help host the Finland-Kansai Association Chakai! Mereca was lucky enough to do two of the three temae...you know....being the Fin and all. It was her first time doing temae for guests and she did awesome! Everyone was really excited for her, and I liked the energy of the afternoon. I was working mizuya and not greeting people for a change. The mizuya makes me nervous because there are so many people in such a closed space. I don't do well in closed spaces. I was a little jealous that one of the chawan being used was an Ohi bowl. I still have this love affair with Ohi bowls, ever since that visit to Kanazawa so many years ago. One day... Another one of the bowls used was the Kyoyaki bowl that Mereca painted. It is adorable and I got to drink from it before the chakai! Even the sweets had a design of the Finnish flag, it was really cute. Daisosho-sama stopped by to greet us towards the end, and was wonderful and kind as always! How lucky to be able to talk to the family so many times in one day!

Afterwards we were whisked off again to go to the Finland-Kansai Association dinner, and Mereca got to be tray bearer while they handed out awards. We were all pretty much exhausted by that point, and dinner was a standing dinner. However, there was red wine. And a plate of MEAT. Some things never change, and you can imagine that I ran for both of them, ate and drank to my hearts content, listened to the lovely violin piano duet, and then just about passed out on the couches outside from exhaustion (and a bit of wine). Keep in mind I am still wearing kimono at this point. The wine got to me a little bit, and when Arita-san told Hamana-sensei we could leave, but then made a comment about maybe it would be better to wait because everyone was having fun my response was "Who's having fun!?" Followed by a "I mean...umm...this has been really lovely, and it was a lovely dinner and we really appreciate everything you've done and ummm..." Oh lord. Why do I open my mouth at all? Honestly I think they were secretly amused...despite how INCREDIBLY RUDE that comment came out. I had a moment, what can I say?

So yeah, that was last Friday.

October 31st:

What? Another event? Of course another event!!! Today was the "Moon Viewing Chakai" that the 2nd year students put on that was not actually a moon viewing because it had been rescheduled from the day of the fake typhoon. Today I learned that the Midorikai students are always the loudest in the machiai (whatever, Hamana-sensei is not at all quiet during these conversations). I have no problem with this. During the tea itself there were several indirect references to the moon, but nothing over the top. Hamana-sensei liked it a lot. There were susuki outside of the window. The mizusahi was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. It was shaped like a mushroom! Mushroom! And then the chawan was like red raku but it was giant, and it got me thinking of Alice in Wonderland. The chawan that were brought out to each of the guests were mainly made by the students, and they were all different. I was extremely impressed by the hanto and his ability to remember who made each chawan and why and the story behind them. Since we each got two bowls of tea we got to see two different bowls, so it was fun. The first one I had had a design that was almost African, it was strange. The second looked more like a standard black raku. There was a simple teicha at the end and I practiced eating with my right hand. Always everything with my right hand. It's driving me a bit crazy.

That night was the Halloween party! I was John Dillinger from Public Enemies and I got a little toy gun from the store that shot plastic bb's at people. You can imagine that I had too much fun with that. Mereca was my Billie, Johnny wore my kimono and was one of the most creepy cross-dressers that I have ever seen...but nothing can compare to the horror of Ben's scarecrow. He literally scared me. Frightened. We drank and danced around and had a good time and had to go home by 10 for curfiew :( Damn curfiew. However, when we got back we heard voices upstairs so we went to Trick or Treat some of the Gakuen girls and ended up chatting with them for about an hour. This marks the first time that I have had a conversation with any of the girls that I go to school with. Despite seeing them every day and living in the same building. *sigh*

November 1st:

Sleep. Lots and lots and lots of sleep. And ramen.

November 2nd:

Robiraki at school in the morning, koicha. We thanked the second year students in the machiai for their chakai on Saturday. I can't remember anything about this temae. Oh dear...I think my brain stopped.

November 3rd:

Bunka no hi! For my day off I actually went wtih Matsumoto-sensei's class on their fall trip! It's been so many years since this fall trip...it's interesting that the things I wrote then are not the things that I remember now. Huh. I wonder if that will happen here too. Probably. Anyways, today we all boarded a bus and headed out to Shigaraki. First stop, making chawan! What!?! Awesome! It was fun, although I was completely terrified by the constant looming tanuki that surrounded me all day.

Is it not terrifying?!

Chawan making was fun, even more difficult than I thought it was going to be, and apparently I wasn't terrible at it? The guy that was helping us was really surprised that it was my first time making a bowl. I will post a picture once it is done! For lunch we went to a barbeque place outside (by the way, it was the coldest day of the year) and and the most amazing lunch ever. They were well known for their shiitake, so the first thing we had to do was go and pick our own mushrooms to grill. WHAT?! They were amazing. Then they handed each person a big plate of meat to go with it. How can this possibly get any better? By sensei pouring me beer and three different kinds of sake. It was a good lunch, I was pretty happy by the end. Afterwards we climbed back on the bus and headed out to a park area to see a ceramics exhibit and do a nodate tea seki outside. It was a bit chilly, but fun. I was quite tired by the time I got home, and really happy to walk in the door and see everyone gathered around the table on the first floor eating chili to celebrate Martina's birthday. I had gotten her a little Owl in Shigaraki as a present, since we had previously decided that she is owlish :) Ben was jealous that I went to make a tea bowl and demanded and explaination as to why I didn't take him with me! It was a really great day. I got some tea cups for sencha and a little sake cup at a store on the way home too, lots of shigaraki ware!

November 4th:

Was not my best day. Started out with a really painful quiz on the full names of the 16 Iemoto in order, the names of all konarai temae, and the full names of the Senke Jishoku. That's a lot of memorization. I didn't do full names. Bad Cone.

Then we get to lessons and I did Ro Shozumi for the first time. Ro sumi is much larger than furo, and I had a really difficult time trying to grasp some of the pieces with my right hand. I got so frustrated while trying to pick up the sumi that I actually started crying in the middle of class. How humiliating. I felt so badly for Hirota-sensei who had to deal with it, and I tried to apologize several times afterwards. It's interesting how something so minor can trigger me like this. I did manage to do a pretty good hakobi usucha at the end, especially since we only had about 5 minutes left of class when I started.

November 5th:

Class as usual, tana usucha. Hamana-sensei was scaring me in lessons today and I took more time with my temae than I usually do...and probably made twice as many mistakes. I get so nervous around the teachers! DAMNIT! IT MAKES IT HARD TO FOCUS! I NEED TO FOCUS!!!

I practiced late with Elena and Martina for Shoza keiko for Friday

November 6th:

Glorious Friday. All kaiseki practice all day. Shoza keiko in the afternoon consisted of a practice on how to serve and receive a kaiseki meal. It is extremely involved and I was glad that I had practiced the night before. I was really happy that it was Friday. Unfortunately, I had to go talk to the Gakuen Chief again about whether or not we had to do cleaning on Friday, since we normally don't during furo season. He asked us to do it so I brought the bad news to my classmates at dinner. Sadness, rochu and tatami cleaning on Friday evening. Imagawa-sensei came up and kicked us out at 6:36 and let us know that we have to finish by 6:30 on Friday. Lovely.

November 7th:

OH MY GOD I FINALLY GOT A HAIRCUT THANK THE SWEET LORD I WAS SO SHAGGY AND AFRAID I WAS GETTING A MULLET!!!! Talon took me along to a barber that he found. He seemed to do a good job of it, my hairstyle is pretty much a boys cut at this point anyways. The only awkward moment was at the end when he asked if I wanted my neck shaved, I said sure, assuming that they were just going to buzz and clean up the back. I was wrong. He had his assistant take the straight razor and actually lather and shave my neck. That was a new experience. Then he asked if I wanted my face done too. I don't think he was joking, and I honestly have no idea at this point if he really thought I was a man. Dear readers, can you please confirm that although I have short hair I AM STILL IDENTIFYABLE AS FEMALE?! Thanks. ike I said though, he did a pretty good job so I will probably go back and just let them keep thinking I'm a dude. It's easier that way.

Afterwards I grabbed Mereca and my scholarship nagajuuban and headed to Hinodeya to ask if it could be adjusted since it was way too wide in the back. Why do people assume that if you are taller you are wider as well? Also, shouldn't this be avoided for a kimono and nagajuuban that I was freaking measured for?! The woman was not kind. She told me that kimono were not made for slender people and I needed to wear more towels and thats why it seemed so wide. Bullshit. I do wear towels to get rid of curves, but I am not about to wrap myself in 20 pounds of towels every day because you can't take measurements properly! I said "well if there is nothing you could do I suppose I should just leave then..." and started to fold up my things and go and then she tried to help me. I have no idea what shape it will come back to me in, but hopefully I will be able to wear it someday.

Anya was supposed to meet us there, since she had the same problem, but she was late as always :) I dropped off my kimono back at the dorm while she argued with the lady at Hinodeya and then afterwards the four of us went out for AMAZING OKONOMIYAKI LUNCH!

Jealous yet? You should be, we had three of those. And beers.

Good lord I think I finally caught up. Tomorrow is kimono lesson and kimono sale at Izumiya and hopefully more planning for winter break. I am strongly considering a tour package to Thailand and a trip to Tokyo.

October 22nd to Present - Kaiseki, Chaji and Illness

2009-10-24T10:00:53Z

October 22nd (Thursday):

We had a short morning jitsugi today, and once again I was unable to do my keiko again because we ran out of time. It is extremely frustrating to me that I keep missing my lessons because of time issues, and it doesnt seem to matter if I try to explain to my classmates that we all need to work on time management...the slow ones still go slow. I have only been able to make tea four times in the last two weeks. This is ridiculous people. RIDICULOUS. I also received a demand from a classmate to run an errand for her because she can't speak Japanese. I have no problem helping people out from time to time, but the constant demands (not requests) are getting to me. I receive them on a daily basis. It baffles me that people who make a conscious decision to live in Japan for a year expect me to translate their life for them and then get angry with me when I question them about it. Ahh, frustrations.

In the afternoon we had a kaiseki lesson, which was AMAZING. Basically, we got to watch someone cook amazing food, and then eat it. How could this not be incredible? The class was taught by Yamamoto-sensei of the chakaisekidashiya Sanyukyo. He focused on teaching the two most basic and possibly most important parts of kaiseki (and and Japanese?) cooking: rice, and dashi. Both require few ingredients and a minimum of steps (dashi is water, konbu, katsuo and maybe some shoyu/shio to taste) but the subtlety of flavor that he was able to bring out by knowing the correct balance of flavors and how to draw them out was impressive. I suppose that makes sense though, he is a master of the art!

Sensei's talking about katsuo.

Class is enthralled.

So I have learned how to make dashi! I will try it sometime and hope that it turns out half as well as what I had on Thursday.

After we had our lesson we all sat down to a full kaiseki meal:

Of course rice (ichimonji shape, which I attempted myself)

Mukozuke (sashimi course): tai (sea bream)

Shiru (miso soup): kaki (persimmon), shiromiso jitate (white miso), wasabi (actually mustard)

I confess that I stopped taking pictures after this because I was so enthralled with the food in front of me, but if you can picture about 7 more courses that all look and taste that good, then you get the idea. I had absolutely no intention of going to the shokudo after that, but I did get dessert at Starbucks in the evening and finally buy a coffee press so I could make real coffee in my room. Realcoffee is a requirement for my continued existence.

October 23rd (Friday):
Each Midorikai student gets to do a chaji while they are here, and today was the first one given by one of our sempai. Johnny was lucky enough to be the first and I was lucky (?) enough to be his last guest. I woke up that morning with a nasty cold and felt like I was going to fall over at any second. It was great. However, this did not stop me from making a cup of delicious coffee a la coffee press (thanks Starbucks!) and heading out in samuei to clean in the morning with the rest of my classmates. The chakai itself was very nice, and you could really see Johnny's style through his toriawase.

The machiai held a painting made by his tea sensei in America, as well as a collection of some objects he has found while in Japan (interesting stones, driftwood, etc.). The air was crisp and it is really starting to feel like autumn, although the afternoons are generally quite warm, Friday was overcast so it was very pleasant all day. I wish I could remember the scroll, I know we've seen it in class and I remember asking Ro-sensei about it once...it had to do with the moonlight reflecting on water. The omogashi sweets that were served tasted like pumpkin pie :) I love pumpkin pie! I had a hard time remembering anything because I was so nervous about being the last guest. The last guest is responsible for closing doors (which I always forgot), piling up enzo (which I didn't do properly), taking dogu back to the main guest once it has been haikened (which I messed up nearly every time because I CANNOT WALK!!!!). I was a nervous wreck through the entire tea seki. I can't remember the names of either of the teas except that they were both from koyama-en. The first bowl was washibari (like...paper mache?). In the dark of the tea room from a distance it looked like a raku bowl, but when you held it you realized it was made of paper. Iiiiinteresting :) The second was a bowl made by Ben, since he was not there to be part of the chaji he was there with us in spirit. The chashaku was carved by Daisosho and the name was "Ichi-e." The natsume had a bundled cordwood (?) maki-e design. The chaire for koicha was tanba katatsuki, and the shifuku was Soshoji (?) kachomon ungen nishiki.

October 24th (today): Since returning from the chaji I went back to my room, laid down in bed and haven't gotten up since. I feel kind of terrible. Tomorrow I am supposed to meet Matsumoto-sensei, have a kimono lesson and celebrate Mereca's birthday. Unfortunately, I think I am going to have to cancel one or more of those plans if I am going to survive next week. Monday night is another Noh performance!

October 17th to Present - Really, really tired

2009-10-21T11:12:19Z

Many events, no weekend, too tired to write...you get the idea.

October 16th: Class in the morning, cleaning for the International Chakai in the afternoon.

October 17th (Saturday): We had the International Chakai which was hosted by Daisosho-sama and Iemoto-sama at Chado Kaikan. It was a really interesting event because it was mainly aimed at non-Japanese living in Kyoto who did not have any background in tea. The purpose was to share tea with other international students/professionals living in the area and raise interest. We worked this chakai together with the other two international Urasenke groups, ICI and Ichiukai so we all got to meet each other for the first time. There were two different seki, and the Midorikai students mainly did tatedashi and hakobi, although in ours two of my sempai were able to do temae as well. I was in the Ryurei seki and I thought that I was just going to be helping with tatedashi and hakobi, but when I got there Hamana-sensei asked if I would be the liason as well. This basically means that I was leading the guests back and forth from the machiai to the tearoom and back out at the end. Also, since one of my sempai ended up doing temai, I ended up being the one to determine timing to start tatedashi and help with that...so you can imagine that at the end of 5 seki I was pretty exhausted. Between the two rooms we served over 300 guess, by far the biggest chakai I have ever helped out with.

The pictures of both seki including captions can be found in picasa here. They are worth looking at. Preview:

After the chakai I was completely exhausted, but I did manage to go home for dinner (finally!). Naoki was there with his family, and they surprised me by having an AKPer! Otoosan and Okaasan had told me before that they weren't going to have a student this year because they would be so busy with Mikie's new baby, and Sota (Naoki's son) is still so young. When I asked Otoosan what happened he said "Oh, we just picked her up yesterday!" Apparently there one of the children of the girls previous family had gotten sick so they weren't able to continue providing a homestay. I told her she lucked out because she actually just got the best family ever. She seemed pretty pleased, and her Japanese is way better than mine was when I started AKP...not that that is saying much ;)

Anyways, they fed me well and Sota only cried when he first saw me but was pretty happy after that. It was a lovely evening :)

October 18th: Kodokai! Incense ceremony! It was fun and even more difficult than I remembered. There was a tea seki and two separate incense seki, and the iemoto of the school was in the first one with us. There are so many iemoto in Kyoto...the weather was fantastic. It was cool and bright and sunny. We got to spend a lot of time walking around the temple and the garden before the tea seki and enjoyed all of the fresh air. Its one of my favorite things about Kyoto. Even when you are in the city there are so many little corners where you can feel completely isolated and feel like you are outside in a natural setting...its so nice. Also, I realize this trend where people take many pictures of my but I never get copies of them. I haven't taken as many pictures myself here because everyone around me is constantly taking pictures...I should work on trying to get my hands on more of them so I can post them here.

Anyways, on to the incense. The first game was relatively simple. First we smelled an incense called tsuki (moon). Then three un-named containers were passed and we needed to guess if it was "tsuki" or "kyaku" (other). Each combination of three had its own poetic name which we wrote down at the end with brush and ink on a slip of paper, and then the answers were tallied on a scroll that was written by one of the hosts. The winner of the game is awarded the scroll, which is written in lovely calligraphy. In this case, the Iemoto wrote the scroll himself so it was quite an item...I guessed them backwards :( Hahaha! One of my classmates, Martina, got them correct but since she was not the first guest to get it right she didn't get a scroll. Sad!

In the second game we listened (remember, in Japanese you "hear" the scent...kiku...you dont smell it) to four different scents tsuru (crane), matsu (pine), yama (mountain), take (bamboo). After that we had nine containers that each contained one of these scents and we had to guess each one. We were sitting at the very end of maybe 30 people, so it was very difficult to get each of the scents...especially by the time they got to us. I managed to get three right on this one and felt better about myself. The overall winner in our group got 7 and the average was probably around 3. After the games we ate fantastic food. See below:

October 19th-21st: Classes as usual. It was extremely difficult to wake up and go to class on Monday morning. I honestly didnt think I was going to make it. It doesn't help that I have had evening toban (cleaning tatami, etc) every night this week. Today we had a Noh lesson, which was nice. This morning was also a meeting with Oku-sama. She was very pleasant, but I think the kohai (myself included) were very nervous so the conversation was a little stiff. Tomorrow we have a kaiseki class and Friday is Johnny's chaji! Whee! After the chaji I plan to shut myself in my room and not come out until Monday. I need a break.

October 14th and 15th - Moving Along

2009-10-15T11:24:25Z

Things are starting to get to the point where it seems like everyone is settling into life here, for better or worse. It's kind of the stage where the honeymoon period is over people start to realize that we really are stuck together for the next year. I've been pretty irritable the last couple of days, without any really good reason for it. For me its the same inability to deal with people for any extended period of time, so after class yesterday I ended up skipping dinner (made pasta in my room) and sat and read books all night, took a bath and went to bed early. It helped. I woke up at about 6 (an hour earlier than I needed to), fought with my kimono less than usual, and had time to eat breakfast and drink some tea before classes. I have been completely unfocused all week, which is partially due to my fear of an upcoming shozumi lesson (placing charcoal) and partially because my mind has been otherwise occupied. The fear behind shozumi is that I have never done any charcoal before, and I have to do everything with my right hand. As far as tea goes this is nothing new, everything is always done with the right hand, but charcoal is heavy and needs to be placed exactly on things that are already burning. Burning things + right hand + first time = nervous Cone.

Yesterday and today we had morning lectures on tana (stand) and jiku (scroll) respectively. In both cases I find it interesting that it links back to the use of items that came from China, the tana was derived from the daisu and jiku are still jiku, but the types of scrolls that are displayed and how they are displayed changes over time. One interesting thing that Hamana-sensei mentioned today was the original kazari (display) that as used in "Daimyo-cha," tea practiced by Daimyo back in the Muromachi/Edo period. It would be very interesting to research how tea was practiced by the daimyo and what crossover exists between this and the wabi-cha that we all know and love...if any. Hmm...ideas for grad school.

This weekend we have the international chakai all day Saturday and I am going with a few classmates to a kodokai (like a chakai, but with ko! Incense ceremony.) on Sunday. Do you know what this means? It means I will be in kimono for 13 straight days. Ouch. That's going to hurt. Wish me luck.

October 12th and 13th - Dealing with Anxiety and Putting on Kimono

2009-10-13T11:44:46Z

Monday was a holiday, and I continued with my kimono lesson from Sunday. Glenn-sensei was there and he dressed me, so that he will know how to help dress the ladyfolk back in Boston. That evening I was still not feeling well anxiety wise so I ended up taking some meds and watching TV on my computer until I passed out.

This morning I was determined to put on the damn kimono (including obi) by myself. I did it. It took me several tries and involved me crying hysterically, hitting various inanimate objects and nearly being late...but I fucking did it. No more asking for help every morning. We received our quizzes back from last week and Hamana-sensei wrote "I know that you know the answers to these..." as a comment to my not perfect results. To be fair, he's completely right and there isn't a good reason for me to be getting questions wrong other than I get confused thinking about the placement of dogu described as an object on paper. Ah well, what are you gonna do?

Murata-sensei did our morning lecture today, continuing the previous discussion in Chado Kaikan. This time he discussed various points in the tea room including how and where to hang the jiku, what kind of board to use under the hanaire and fusuma things. I was on translation duty again, but due to my poor mood I did a rather bad job of it. I relied on Johnny unless he really didn't know what was being said. One more time kids, not a translator. *sigh*

Our lesson this afternoon was shozumi (placing the charcoal after kaiseki) and koicha, and it was the first time for both. One of my classmates refuses to go first every time we have a new temae, despite having more experience than everyone else. Some people in my class had never even seen koicha before, so it made sense for someone with background to do it first so everyone could watch. She refused. Just like last week. And the week before. Lets remember that we are IN SCHOOL. TO LEARN. NOT TO KNOW EVERYTHING PERFECTLY THE FIRST TIME. As a result, me and France end up going first for every new temae because she won't. I think this is really dumb.

It was cool doing koicha again though, I don't have nearly enough practice with it. I need to learn how to make good koicha with a nice consistency. I don't want to be one of those hosts whose guests are sitting there with the bowl in the air for 5 minutes trying to get at the tea. Ew. Right? Who wants that?

I'm still working on the kimono situation. I'm up to 4 awase and 2 hitoe with 3 obi. I spilled tea on my kimono today and had to rush over to my sensei's place so she could teach me how to clean it properly. So many things to learn....

October 4th to Present - Summary!

2009-10-11T13:20:46Z

So...ummm...a lot happened this week. I am not even going to try to describe all of it because there is way too much.

October 4th: I wandered around Kyoto with the CSer all day, from Sanjusangendo (first time for me!) to Ginkakuji, Testugakunomichi, Heian Jingu, Ippoudou, and then Shijo....not bad for one day!

October 5th: Business as usual. I had a new obi to wear with my zebra stripe kimono: dark, brown/red solid color tsumugi. It looks awesome and I am super pleased with the combo. Once I get a picture I'll post it.

October 6th: Kencha by Iemoto-sama at Iwashimizu. Glenn-sensei came with us! It was beautiful, and if I had more time I would sit and try to explain the dogu at Iemoto's kencha and the 3 seki we attended...but that would take a really long time and there is simply too much to remember.

October 7th: Zazen. Awesome. Also Wakei, our first chabako (stuff in a box) lesson! I really like chabako, and I had never done this one before so it was exciting.

October 8th: Typhoon! We all managed not to die, and although they told us on Wednesday afternoon that our morning classes would be cancelled on this day we received a phone call at 9 AM saying that we had class at 10:40. Awesome. Keep in mind that it still takes an hour or so to get dressed in the morning. But! Poland and I did finally get our scholarship kimono on this day and that was awesome, so I finally had something formal to wear for Friday.

October 9th: Kyoto International Community House Teicha Tetsudai! We all had separate roles and I was greeting the guests at the main entrance, chatting with them for a while and leading them to the genkan (entryway) once their seating was supposed to begin. Basically I stood around and got to chat with people and I was happy that I wasn't stuffed into the mizuya because it tends to get really hot and cramped. The weather was really lovely. I was pleased that we got to wear our Midorikai green fukusa on this day too! Wheee! Also, all of the girls mysteriously choose purple/blue shades for their scholarship kimono. It makes things interesting:

Cone in Purple

Finland in Purple

We are adorable. :) That night we all went to karaoke and lost track of time and had to literally run home to make it home before curfiew. Running on three chuhai = unpleasant feeling.

October 10th: We painted kyoyaki bowls! It was lovely except for the part where I was apparently planning how to get the girls there and ended up being 10 minutes late. Between this, not knowing what to paint, and being generally exhausted from the week and tired of dealing with people I kind of lost it and cried a lot. Umm...yeah. It's not a part of my personality that I appreciate, but it happens. I ended up going back and curling up in a ball for a while, followed by kicking around a soccer ball in the afternoon and a FANTASTIC italian dinner with sensei that night.

October 11th: Starbucks, kimono lesson, SUPER AMAZING CHINESE DINNER IN GION. SUPER AMAZING. It was sensei's farewell dinner with his Japanese family and I was invited and I must day that they are the sweetest people I ever met. They gave me their phone numbers so that I could call them if I ever had problems, since my sensei is so far away. Aww...

Now I will settle down for more drinks and chatting time with Finland. Whee! Goodnight!

October 3rd - Moon Viewing at Toshodaiji and Yakushiji (Nara)

2009-10-03T14:06:28Z

I did not get out of bed until about noon today. It's not that I wasn't awake, mostly I just wanted to be lazy and sat on my computer watching TV all morning. Then I finally got up, finished ironing the kimono things that dried overnight, got dressed, and tossed down some food before running off to Nara for a moon viewing hochashiki (ritual tea offering) at Toshodaiji, outside of Nara.

We had some time to wander around a bit beforehand, and we got to see the grave of Ganjin, the founder of the temple.

You can see the rest of the pictures at picasa here.

The ritual tea was performed by one of the gyotei sensei, and unfortunatly it was hard for me to enjoy it even though I was in the front row and had a perfect view. Everyone was crowded around the veranda, packed in as tightly as possible, jostling and talking everywhere, and lots of flashbulbs. I don't do well in crowds. At all. I almost ran out at half a dozen points during the ceremony. Afterwards we all enjoyed looking at the moon while we were served tea and sweets in a different part of the temple grounds. We were being led by the Nara Urasenke Tankokai group, and they were very nice to us and invited us to watch a nodate seki (outdoor tea) that was being held at Yakushiji nearby. They brought us to Yakushiji and first served us bento (lunchboxes) and then we went to have tea. It was really lovely, and they had some very interesting dogu. For example, the bowl was an akaraku Ohi chawan with a rabbit design, and the futaoki was bamboo, but made to look like an insect cage and when you looked closely you could see that there was a suzumushi (bell cricket) made of metal (silver?) inside. I thought it was really neat :)

The weather was really perfect in Nara and although we were all worried about it raining the sky ended up being clear so we had a nice view of the full moon. Overall it was a very pleasant experience.

On the way home we were all joking around on the train, and I was teaching some of my classmates about the awesomeness of Cooking Mama (on my ipod)...when we noticed that the two guys across from us were looking at us. Not really unusual. But one was also drawing. Us. Ummm...ok! So we watched them drawing us and made a joke of it and continued having a good time, and when we got off the train (same station) the guy that was drawing us handed us his sketch, but said that he didnt have time to finish the last person. It was the funniest drawing that I had ever seen. We showed it to the rest of our classmates and our teacher and laughed for a long time. It ended up that we had the same connecting train (Karasuma sen) and so we asked the guy to finish the sketch. He kept drawing, and then his friend started drawing Ben....so Ben started drawing him...and then we asked if they were art student (yes, manga). And they kept sketching us until we got off at Kuramaguchi. I am going to have to get a scan of the picture and post it here because it is awesome.

All in all, good day. Also, I had three strangers tell me I looked good in kimono. Awesome. Sadly, it doesn't make it any more comfortable to wear.

October 2nd - sigh

2009-10-02T13:37:56Z

Today started out with helping out a classmate translating how to send postal money orders at the post office. Fun fun. Afterwards I ran back home, changed into kimono, ran off to class. Class today was on the schematics of the tea rooms at Gakuen, where we study every day. I actually found the lecture very interesting, although it isn't a topic I would normally choose myself. It was really funny when Hamana-sensei asked us to draw a sketch of the entryway into the tea rooms at Gakuen. Even though we pass through this place every day I had absolutly no idea what it looked like, nor the amount of effort that went into making every detail of this and every other part of the rooms here. I need to spend more time looking at things.

Keiko in the afternoon was a little rough. I was feeling exhausted all day, and had reached a point of not wanting to be around people anymore. Cone time required. It didn't help that its still raining, and although it was extremely pleasant to have the windows open and see and listen to the rain falling in the garden outside, it was very humid and I was dying in awase. Every day I feel like I am going to faint...gross. When I was sitting in front of the furo doing temae I felt like I was suffocating in the heat, which combined with my exhaustion and general lack of energy on a Friday afternoon completely shot my focus. I was almost in tears by the end because I was so frustrated with myself and my seeming inability to do anything correctly. At this point, since we are only doing things I have practiced before, I feel like I should be concentrating on the details of smoothing out movements and postures...and yet it feels like I haven't made any progress at all. Oh yeah, I was also translating for the class again...everyone in class (hi if you are reading this by the way!) has different Japanese levels so its sometimes difficult to know when someone needs help understanding something. Anyways...tired. Not wanting to deal with people. I booked it after class and ran back to my room for a while to chill.

But instead of holing up for the night I ended up drinking hot toddy's with the rest of the group...it was a good way to unwind. Tomorrow we have Moon Viewing in Nara so I will be gone most of the day, and then Sunday I'll be showing a CS'er around....hopefully followed by kimono lessons. Busy busy busy.

October 1st - Christmas meeting, scholarship, Glenn-sensei!

2009-10-01T13:17:54Z

I woke up this morning to the sound of my phone ringing. It was Hamana-sensei letting me know that there was a mix-up with the kimono lady and she had come to the office too early, before we had a chance to drop off the mixed-up kimono. He let me know that she was on her way and asked me to meet her in the lobby in one minute. I calmly replied "Sure, of course! No problem!" Hung up the phone, and realized I had slept in until 9 AM! What?! I scrambled to put some clothes on and run downstairs in a mildly presentable manner and then had to explain to the woman what had happened and apologize profusely for causing so much trouble (despite the fact that it was her mistake)...in Japanese...while half asleep. I'm getting better at this kind of thing.

One thing that I am still not used to is how late classes start. I am so used to being at work by 8:30 at the latest that it is really strange for me when I sometimes have nothing scheduled until 10:40. That's almost lunchtime!!!! Of course, a lot of that morning time is still spent putting on kimono, but what are you gonna do. It is very nice that I haven't had to set an alarm since I have been here, except maybe 1-2 times.

So this morning we had our first meeting with Hamana-sensei to talk about the Christmas chakai, I think he liked the theme...whee! It will be interesting to see how the dogu situation plays out, as well as to find out who is going to be assigned to which roles. When he mentioned that the hanto should speak Japanese since most of our guests don't speak English people looked at me. I think I know what I will be doing. It's good practice!

Lunch was noodles, which is an absolutly terrifying meal when you are wearing a motherfucking silk kimono. *sigh* I really need to get a washable kimono that fits me ASAP. Like yesterday. Like two weeks ago. I still have so much work to do when it comes to my wardrobe here, it scares me.

After lunch we went to Konnichian to receive our scholarship from Iemoto-sama. Hi Iemoto-sama! Thank you :)

During class we started tana usucha. Ohh...tana. We were running a little behind so by the time we got to my turn there were only 15 minutes left. I decided to do the fastest temae ever and actually finished when the bell rang (including haiken!) Go me! Also, the sweet was KINTON again. KINTON! Two days in a row! Lucky! I helped Martina with the sumi again today. Yesterday was the first time I did it myself. Basically, you have to heat the charcoal in a pan before putting it into the furo...so its burning nice and hot. You heat it, and then carry the glowing red hot sumi into the tea room and place it with heavy iron hashi while yelling at everyone to move out of the way because you are carrying fire. I am so scared of fire, but I did a good job.

In the evening I had haigata...again. Can I say how much I hate haigata? HATE. I mean, I like it for what it is...mostly I hate it because I'm bad at it and I find that really, really frustrating. Got that done, went home, called Glenn-sensei and we went out for second dinner. He took me to a tonkatsu place on Shinkyogoku that was really tasty and we ate a lot of food, drank beers and chatted a lot about Midorikai life and the upcoming chakai in Boston. He was describing the toriawase and how the room was going to be used and I noticed that the guy sitting next to us kept looking over and staring. Finally at one point he hands sensei this sheet that had schematics for different types of tea rooms, and explained that he heard us talking about tea.

Sensei: Are you a chajin?
Guy: I'm Nihonjin (Japanese)
Sensei: Yes, I know that. But do you study tea?
Guy: Oh! Yes! I am Omote!
Sensei: Oh, we are Urasenke! *whips out flier for the chakai that prominently displays his name (including his tea name)
SenseI: See? This is me! :)
Guy: Oh my goodness! I had no idea I was talking to such an elevated person! Oh my! I am having a chakai in November but I am not on this level, I had no idea!

And then we all laugh. I'm sure he thought we were just two funny Americans who were interested in tea...cute :) Finished the evening at Haagen Daas...so tasty. And how its after 10 PM and I still have to iron everything. The really frustrating thing right now is that I only have one wearable kimono, and every night I have to wash everything, dry, and iron...all of it. And then put it on the next morning and go through the whole damn thing again. I need more clothes. Fuck. I am going to swear more. Fuck fuck fuck.

Oh well, it was a lovely day :)

Too Long!!!

2009-09-30T14:11:41Z

I need to figure out a better schedule for updating, because this is sad and the amount of things I have to write down right now is scaring me a little bit.

September 25th:

Lecture on different furo and haigata shapes, all in Japanese. Most of my notes are not in English and I'm honestly just too tired to write it all down right now. Maybe I will update this later.

Okeiko was our first day of hakobi usucha, and we started with warigeiko (practice) using the hishaku (ladle). It was a little tricky for Murata-sensei, who was teaching both groups simultaneously...but you know. Things happen. That night I had haigata...and I am still terrible at haigata.

Weekend (26th/27th):

Not too much on the 26th, spent some time at Kamogawa, and bought a book from Tankosha (essentially the Urasenke store) written by Daisosho.

On the 27th I went to Hieizan with some of my classmates and we spent the day hiking around and looking at different Enryakuji temples on the mountain. We made tea outside one of the temples in the middle of the afternoon and it was really lovely. A couple of pictures are below, you can see all of them at picasa here. Unfortunatly, during the course of the day my camera more or less died so I have to see about getting it fixed. It's less than two years old! What is that?!

At the end of the day we hiked down the mountain and ate tasty, tasty ramen and gyoza before returning back to the dorm for the first meeting about our Christmas chakai. Despite the many (sometimes conflicting) personalities in our group, the meeting turned out to be very collaborative and productive. I hope it stays that way :) I won't go into details about it now, I'll save it for December...

September 28th:

Lecture on tea history during the lifetime of Sen no Rikyu. Honestly, despite the (fascinating) subject matter, this lecture didn't really do it for me. We mostly discussed Rikyu's earlier life, and only at the very end got to the time when Nobunaga first employed Rikyu (1573) as well as his own role in tea development. I wish we could have heard more on that.

September 29th:

In the morning all of the gakuensei (including Midorikai) had a lecture from Daisosho (retired grand master). It was my first time seeing him in person! Even in a lecture hall in the back of the room when he was speaking a language I only mostly understand...he is an extremely inspiring person. He talked about many topics, from his recent trip to Rome (met the Pope!), to the Abu Dhabi group (see below), how it doesn't matter where we come from we are all tea people...I wish I could remember everything he said and put it in my brain.

After the speech, Murata-sensei gave a lecture based on his time in the gakuen and how things in the tea room and mizuya are organized and how everything is cleaned. He started the lecture by saying he would speak in Japanese and someone could translate. Everyone looked at me. I laughed nervously. Johnny Fogg ended up helping out, since he is a lot more verbal than I am...but in the end I think I did alright with the translation. TRANSLATING IS HARD. I can't make my mind work between langauges like that. Gah.

We continued with hakobi usucha in class, but it ended early so that we could get ready for dinner with the Abu Dhabi group! The back story is that the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi is very interested in tea and Daisosho recently gave him a gift of a tea room. A delegation was selected to come and study at Urasenke for two weeks with the intention that one or more of them will be responsible for taking care of the tea room once it is complete. Wow. So we all (including Daisosho) had dinner together last night! Actually...I sat next to Daisosho and one seat away from the leader of the Abu Dhabi group. Again...wow. We all had a lovely time eating and chatting about tea and they presented Daisosho with The Book of Tea translated into Arabic and a Rolex box that I don't even want to speculate on the cost of. All in all, we had a good time.

September 30th:

Oh, I am getting caught up! We had the second part of our lecture on October things today, including all of the events we are going to this month. I have events scheduled on the next three Saturdays! Again, I might add information later on October highlights but I am getting tired! I was still very sleepy from the night before and had a hard time staying awake. I think it's the weather too...its been raining all week. I've been paranoid since I have to walk around outside in a silk kimono that can't get wet (not to mention white tabi!)

The Abu Dhabi group came to watch our lesson in the afternoon. The sweet was so good today! "hatsumomiji" (first turning leaves) made of KINTON! Kinton is my favorite. White bean paste strained through a sieve to make funny noodle like shapes (with regular red bean paste inside). So good. I still can't believe I live in a world where I get to enjoy tea (and sweets!) every day. In the city that I love. It's a dream...

ALSO. We got our scholarship kimono today. Sadly, they mixed up the order and I received the wrong color...so I will not be wearing it tomorrow to receive my scholarship money from Iemoto as planned. *sadcone*

BUT! Glenn-sensei is here from Boston to visit for two weeks! I hope I get to see him soon and chat and gossip! :)

I think that is enough for one update.

Long Weekend...September 24th - First Kimono for Class

2009-09-24T11:16:08Z

I didn't end up doing too much during the long weekend. I was feeling a little down and wasn't really up to doing anything touristy, so I mostly chilled out, ran in the mornings...oh yeah, and spent a lot of time in kimono lessons. I had two lessons (three hours each) and spent one day looking at kimono at different stores around the city and received information about fabric types, formality levels, prices, etc. By Wednesday night, when we gathered to celebrate Elana's birthday, I was pretty much exhausted and really happy to sit back and drink a glass of wine and eat many sweets. Here is a picture of where I am running on Kamogawa...it looks a little different from the Charles River, yeah?

One thing to note though, I did get to go to Naoki's house on Wednesday afternoon to hang out with him and his wife (Megan, do you remember meeting her when we all had dinner at Capricciosa back in the day?) and their son Sota! He is ten months old now and I swear his face is EXACTLY like Naoki's. Too funny. They made me okonomiyaki and showed me videos from their wedding in Hawaii and I was happy :)

September 24th:

The reason why I am rushing to take so many kimono lessons is that my class had decided to begin wearing kimono immediately, instead of waiting until we received out scholarship kimono. So today was the first day that we wore them for class, and it was also the first day that we are doing toban (chores) by ourselves instead of being partnered with our sempai. Luckily my toban today was simple cleaning, so there weren't any problems on that end. I allowed myself two hours for kimono, just in case. Thanks to the lessons I am able to dress myself as far as getting the kimono itself on (I promise this is actually a lot of work...three layers of clothes with about 6 different ties involved), but I need some help with the obi (sash). Unfortunately, there hasn't been any time for me to have any hitoe (unlined kimono for summer) made so I am wearing awase (lined kimono for winter) right now, its also my only silk kimono which I would really prefer not to wear to class. It is still really warm in Kyoto. I was DYING all day. DYING. When lessons were over and I went home to change into samuei for cleaning...I don't think I have ever been so happy to wear samuei ever.

This morning's lecture was the first part of October seasonal information, but since it's not yet October and we only got about halfway through the lecture, I think I will wait to post information about it until later. It was pretty funny though, when Hamana-sensei kept asking if we had been to various places (Kurama, Mibu-deru, Heian-jingu, Tenryu-ji, etc.) and I kept raising my hand over and over again. Eventually he said that he would stop asking me. I can't help it! Actually, I think we went to many of these places in the Nature and Place in Kansai Literature class on AKP (at least Kurama...). Hanna and I were talking about that class last time she was here and how wonderfully relevant it was. At least it made really excellent use of the surrounding area! Even though its warm I think I am going to take a yuzu bath...I am sore and have really nasty bruises on my knees from scrubbing tatami all the time. More kimono tomorrow. Ugh. It would be so much better if I had the clothes that I want to wear.

September 18th - Welcome Chakai

2009-09-20T11:01:56Z

September 18th:

On the 18th our sempai held a Welcome Chakai for us in Shin no ma at the Chado Kaikan. Start to finish, it was completely beautiful and the atmosphere was lovely. Within our group, it was the first time that we wore kimono. Niether Mereca nor I can wear kimono by ourselves, and since there was not a lot of time to get ready and I didn't have appropriate kimono for summer (or anything formal enough for a chakai) a friend lent me something to wear and helped to dress me. There were some timing issues since we were also expected to bring lunch for our sempai and there had been some confusion over who would bring the food at what time, but everything turned out to be fine in the end. Sempai got food, we got dressed, and everyone enjoyed tea. I think that this is the most important part.

This was our first chakai, so it was a lesson in and of itself for us to learn about proper order and etiquette. We sat in the machiai and were served o-sayu (hot water from the kettle). The scroll in the machiai was a line from a Chinese poem with a picture of a chrysanthemum, an auspicious sign. There was some confusion about who wrote this scroll. We made our way to view the garden and watched as Martina refilled the tsukubai before we purified ourselves on our walk to the tea room. The hagi were blooming beautifully and it was a very nice touch as we walked through the garden.

When we entered the room, the first thing that struck me was the light coming through the sudare screens that were up to let air come into the tea room. I thought that the room was illuminated beautifully, especially around the tokonoma. I still need to ask about the scroll as I can't remember what it said just now, and the kogo was “和” or harmony. The flowers seemed very special to me. There were seven flowers used, mostly from the 秋の七草. There was nadeshiko, kikyo, susuki, otokonaeshi, hotogisu, and two others that I cant remember. They were all arranged in a bamboo basket.

We entered, said our abbreviated greetings (I blame nerves) and the serving of usucha began. There were so many sweets! I have no problem with this. There was an amazing omogashi that was made by our sempai that was called “mayutsuki” which means quarter moon (literally eyebrow moon). So tasty. There were also two higashi which we ate with our second bowl, one was kikyo and the other was susuki. For the main bowls, the first had been made by Ben in Korai (Korean) style but with a Shino glaze, it was very pleasant to hold. The second was made by Johnny in Virginia and was very red, I wished I could have seen that bowl with tea in it because I think the colors would have made a very pleasant contrast. I appreciated the idea of using the bowls that they had made themselves, highlighting the experiences we all bring with us.

The natsume was a black lacquer with a hisago maki-e (embossed goard design). I was pleased since my kimono also had a hisago design, we matched! The chashaku was carved by Daisosho and the name (I can’t remember in Japanese) was “broken zori” which refers to a story about traveling pilgrims going so far towards their goal that their shoes are worn out. A reminder to work hard. The tea was from Tsujirien and the mizusashi was “Hideyoshi no Daichakai”. I particularly like this since Kitano Tenmangu is my favorite shrine and I appreciate the history of Kamishichiken.

That evening we got together as a group (with the sensei as well) to celebrate the successful chakai. It was entertaining, I got to drink gin. Good times were had by all. The girls came back to my room for additional drinking, chatting, and sitting on the roof time. I think I got to sleep around 2 AM.

September 19th:

I sat in my room alllllll day and did not speak to anyone. It felt fantastic.

September 20th:

I woke up early and went running for the first time since I got to Kyoto. It was a little rough, but it felt good. I ran along the Kamogawa up north between Shimei Dori up past Kitaoji. In Boston I used to run along the Charles River at lunchtime, so I think it is nice that I have found a similar running place here in Kyoto. Somehow when I run along the Kamogawa I don't feel like I am in a city at all, its a very different feeling from Boston. Maybe I will bring a camera next time. Three butterflies touched me while I was running. Why do they like me so much?

In the afternoon I met up with a friend and we toured various kimono and dogu shops, both local and downtown (Shijo). She explained many things about kimono to me that I vaguely knew before but had never really paid attention to since I never really had to worry about kimono. Now that I will be wearing them every day I want to make sure that what I am wearing is appropriate, affordable, and will last me a long time. I'm lucky to have found someone so knowedgable!

I think I will clean tomorrow...

September 14-17 - Busy Week!

2009-09-17T13:47:16Z

Wow...I haven't had time to write all week. I still have things to do tonight so I am going to have to summarize.

September 14th:
First quiz! It was on Ryakubon and tokonoma information, not too bad. After that we had our first Japanese history lesson with a professor from Kansai Gaidai. Something about his lecture style reminded me of Lipman-sensei from MHC, so that was nice. :) We covered the Jomon and Yayoi periods, which I am fairly familiar with from previous art history seminars. I still find any information on the topic fascinating, and he gave us some reading material which is always welcome. One thing that I need to research more is the mention of differences in blood types by region in Honshu from North to South, and the theory of different origins of the Jomon and Yayoi people. I should keep a list of things that I want to look into once I get to Michigan.

There has been a lot of discussion this week on when we will start wearing kimono, as some of my classmates are very eager to start wearing as soon as possible. Monday night we had a practice session with our sempai...and in the end decided to wait until we had more chances to practice. Thank god. Personally, I would prefer to wait until we had scholarship kimono...but that is (apparently) just me. Got back to my room at 10 PM.

September 15th:
Had a lecture from one of the sensei at Urasenke center about chadogu and their origins, mainly the differences between earthenware and porcelin, uses and timing in Japan, and origins and uses in orther countries (China, Korea, Vietnam). This is one area that I definitely need to know a lot more about. I need to buy books on different ceramic types.

After lessons ended I went to Matsumoto-sensei's place and met up with Hanna-chan and the two Swedish girls that she was showing around this week. It was lucky, because I ended up signing up for one of her events later this fall and will have a chance to visit a Shigaraki kiln and make a chawan there! Whee!!! :) :) :) I have a lot of fun going to keiko at Matsumoto-sensei's place, it is a very cheerful atmosphere and I can relax after my regular lessons, but still keep learning about tea. Also, no one speaks English so I get more chances to practice Japanese. Special bonus! I managed to get home 10 minutes before my 10:00 PM curfiew! Good job Cone!

September 16th:
Alright, as soon as I get pictures of this I will post them. Today all we did was sumikiri (炭切り - cutting charcoal), which is cutting charcoal into the precise shapes required for sumi-temae. I sat in samuei (monks informal clothes, what we wear for cleaning every day), with a face mask and a huge straw hat, saw in hand, cutting sumi all day. 9-3. I cannot tell you how badly my hand hurt afterwards or how much black dust was covering different parts of my body. Overall it was pretty fun though.

That night I went to talk to a friend about kimono and figure out what I am going to need and determine what to wear on Friday, which is the Welcome Chakai that our sempai are hosting for our group! Got back about 15 minutes before curfiew.

September 17th:
This morning we met Oku-sama, the wife ot Iemoto (Grand Master). She is a member of the imperial family, making Iemoto a cousin of the Emperor and their children relatives as well. We presented a slideshow of our various areas and I showed many pictures of the sweets that Glenn-sensei makes for us in Boston, because he is awesome. I was very nervous when speaking to her and I'm pretty sure she couldn't hear half of what I said...*shrug*

Today's lecture was on...sumi! History, uses, types. I am sumied out. Done. I will not write about sumi right now.

For keiko we started chitosebon, which I haven't done since I was at MHC (2004). It's pretty basic, so it wasn't bad, but I had forgotten that you only use the left hand when taking the fukusa...as opposed to every other temae ever where you use the right hand (except kinin date usucha...I'll get to that at a later date). You would think that as a lefty this would come naturally to me...no. Old habits die hard I guess, I reached for the damn thing with my right hand every single time.

After class the 1A's (my group) did the toban (cleaning) so that 1B's (sempai) could prepare for the chakai. We rallied and finished in record time so that we could still get dinner and have a super secret meeting about what we were going to prepare for lunch for them tomorrow, and then we all went shopping together. Aside from a couple differences of opinion it was pretty fun, and we stopped at Starbucks for some much needed REAL COFFEE. Sometimes a girl just needs a fucking latte. And to say the word fuck.

Once we got back I took off to go finalize my preparations for what I am wearing tomorrow, since I will need outside help getting dressed tomorrow. It promises to be a busy day, and there will be pictures. Then I will most likely sleep through my entire 5 day vacation.

No seriously, I can't decide what do to...but I have 5 days in a row coming up (old people day and culture day are monday and wednesday). Anyone has low key ideas let me know. I'm open to suggestion. Also, thank you for the comments that people enjoy reading this, I am glad I am just spamming people's friends lists ;)

September 12 and 13 - Parfaits and Noh

2009-09-14T00:01:55Z

September 12th:

After I spent 2.5 hours explaining the address situation (I did get my phone!), I went to meet Hanna.

Rainy. Eating sweets with Hanna in Gion in a tatami room, watching the green maple leaves drip water into the rushing Shirakawa stream below, smelling the byakudan (sandalwood) incense. I'm not going to lie, this is at least 10% of the reason I came to Japan:

Hanna had a standard matcha/sweets set:

I had a matcha parfait:

and iced coffee:

September 13th:

Nicer weather. Went to see the Noh performance at the Kongo theatre by Odaka sensei (Hanna and Teele-sensei's sensei) and his family. His two sons performed first, Chikubushima, about a court official who goes to pay tribute at a shrine on an island at lake Biwa. He is taken there by an old man and woman on their fishing boat, only to find out that they are the goddess of the shrine and the dragon god when they transform themselves. The play itself was very nice, but I felt that I noticed the taiko performer more than anyone else on the stage. I thought that his performance was really powerful.

The second performance was Omu Komachi, about Ono no Komachi as an old woman, who was played by Udaka-sensei. A courtier from the palace seeks her out with a letter from the emperor who would like to know if she can still write poetry. She surprises him by changing only one character in the emperor's poem to make her reply. Normally actors do not play old woman roles until they have passed their kanreki (60th birthday celebration). For me, although I can imagine all of the subtleties of the role, I found it a little slow, but beautiful all the same.

So that was my weekened. Sweets and Noh.

September 11th - First Tears

2009-09-12T01:05:20Z

Friday morning class didn't start until late (10:40) so I had time to run down to the Kamigyo Ward Office in the morning to get the certificate that I need to hopefully get a cell phone this time. I've tried to get a cell phone three times already using various combinations of documents without success. The issue now is going to be that each of my official documents (certificate in place of Alien Registration card), student ID, address that we were told to use and the actual address where I live and would like to receive bills are all differen. The certificate address is actually Konnichian, which is the private property and residence of the Iemoto and his family.

...

I'm going to have a really fun time explaining this. I can tell.

Back to class. Friday we had a lecture by one of the Gyotei (highest ranking teachers within Urasenke Gakuen), Fujita-gyotei-sensei. He teaches about the "science of tea" and gave us a lecture about the properties of different types of tea due to different processing methods and allowed us to taste three different types (green tea, oolong and darjeeling). Being a science nerd, I enjoyed the lecture a great deal. Actually, I think a lot of the general information he gave can be found on the wiki tea page here. He also went into great detail about the different processing methods for different types of Japanese green tea, specifically the shading techniques used for matcha and gyokuro vs other Japanese green teas. I found this very interesting.

I think the most important lesson that he taught was to point out how much time we spend during tea ceremony thinking about everything except the tea. It's very true. We are so concerned about the scroll, the sweets, the bowl and all of the rest of the dogu, and we spend comparatively little time thinking about the tea. So far I think sifting tea is my favorite of all of the toban jobs, because I love the texture and the smell. I hope that all of this exposure helps me to learn more about the differences between the different tea blends.

In the afternoon lesson we continued Ryakubon and warigeiko with Hirota-sensei, who will be leaving us for Africa and NYC soon! Although we have only known her a short time, I think we will all miss her a great deal. It is nice to have a female sensei around...I think by the time we got to Friday afternoon everyone was a little stressed and ready for the weekend. Friday is nice because there is no cleaning, but Martina and I had haigata (ashform) so we still had to go change into samuwei (work clothes) as usual. So far, I am very bad at haigata and got very frustrated at my lack of skill and I started to cry for a minute when I had to start over again because I did so poorly the first time. Haigata is decidedly the most frustrating job, and I must practice a lot so I am not so terrible. I am embarrassed to have such an ugly thing in the tea room. I went back to the room that night and curled up and enjoyed the silence of not having to speak to anyone for hours before I fell asleep. It was lovely.

Now to go try to get that phone...

September 9th and 10th - Kiku no Sekku, Noh, and More September Themes

2009-09-10T12:26:04Z

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday because all of us girls were feeling a little stressed after our first day of real temae yesterday and getting used to the busy student life, so we rocked out in my room and I drank tasty tasty cocktails. Brilliant.

September 9th:

菊の節句！Kiku no sekku! Chrysanthemum festival! Is one of the five festivals that fall on the same day as the month (see previous choyo post). To celebrate, the sweet of the day was "kisewata" (着せ綿), which means cotton placed on flowers at night. This comes from an old tradition from Heian period where cotton floss was placed on chrysanthemum flowers at night so that they could soak up the dew , which is thought to retain health and youth. The origin of this legend is from the story of Kiku Jidou (菊児童), a young servant of the Emperor who was sent into exile and was kept young by drinking the dew of the chrysanthemum. He wrote the Heart Sutra during his exile. There is also a Noh play based on this theme called Makura Jidou (枕児童) which is performed on this day at Horen-ji.

Kisewata:

This leads into...we had our first Noh lesson! Teele-sensei, who is teaching us about Noh, studies with the same sensei as Hanna-chan! I was actually able to see her at the practice performance last weekend. Their sensei has a big performance this Sunday (I have my ticket!) so we spent a lot of time in class going over the background of this performance, the poetry, and we even practiced chanting. (I cannot sing...or chant) I will go into more detail about Noh after Sunday!

For the lesson, we had our first day in Ryakubon! Whee! All of us were nervous and made some silly mistakes, but not too bad overall. I realize how many bad habits I have picked up over time that I will need to correct while I am here. In some ways I think it would be easier to come here with very little knowledge of tea because there is nothing that needs to be unlearned. Unlearning is difficult.

Points to practice:
-Walking (always)
-Holding things higher
-Proper hand positions when folding the fukusa
-Chasen toshi

September 10th:

The morning lecture continued the previous conversation about season information for September. The focus for today was about different events in Kyoto that occur during this month. There are many events related to moon viewing and I remembered the hagi matsuri from when I was in AKP! I think the only time I have been to a moon viewing in the past was when I lived in Akita, but it was quite beautiful. It was held in a rustic shrine which I think was near Hinai town. The atmosphere was dark, and peaceful but with a quiet energy. The gagaku (traditional court music) that was playing was almost haunting. I hope that we have a chance for moon viewing this fall, as I think it would be quite beautiful in Kyoto.

More Ryakubon lessons in the afternoon, I actually got to do it twice! Yay practice! I know the steps for this temae, I know exactly what needs to be done when. The issue is perfecting the movements and the timing and the atmosphere. This is much more important. Since I am still getting used to how things are done here, sometimes I find it difficult to concentrate properly as well. There is so much to learn, so much I don't know. I feel like I could write pages just about the information I heard today, but I would never know when to stop. How can I possibly write all of this down?

鈴虫 - suzumushi - bell cricket

September 8th - First Zazen Lesson and Last Warigeiko

2009-09-08T11:05:42Z

Not too much to report today. Class started with Zazen with Matsunami-sensei who is a priest at one of the subtemples at Daitoku-ji. He came to the Center and lectured us for a little while on the history of Zen Buddhism and the relationship between tea and Zen and then we went to the top floor of the center for practice. I would not have imagined that there was a designated Zazen area in the top floor of the Urasenke center. It was pretty amazing. It looks like a mini temple on the inside! We practiced sitting and walking meditation for about an hour? I lost track of time to be honest. It was the only time I can remember that my legs have fallen asleep sitting seiza. Interestingly, I think it was because I used a pillow between my legs. The second time we sat I didn't use any pillows and I was fine...weird. For me the hardest part (aside from making my brain stop) was breating properly. I am not sure why, but I am having a hard time taking deep breaths. I noticed this before I left as well, when I received similar breathing technique advice during a massage session. I suppose my allergies don't help, but I can't help but wonder if this is stress related?

Lunch lasts an average of 10 minutes, in which I have to stuff as much food into my body in as little time as possible because we have less than an hour between lecture and afternoon lessons and we have to do all of the preparations. Thankfully, I had some practice during the days of teaching in a middle school since it was about the same situation and no matter how fast I ate I could never compete with the students. My sempai's toban (prep work) today was "fire," so I watched her prepare the charcoal for the furo (brazier). My group isn't allowed to touch fire for at least a month. I did get to carry some kama (made of iron...heavy) and do some of the water things though so good for me!
During class we continued warigeiko, adding more and more steps so that we are ready to start ryakubon tomorrow. I like to call ryakubon the "starter temae." You bring everything in on a tray, and you don't actually use the kama, you use a little kettle to pour water from. It's very cute. We continuted to practice walking, and I continue to think too much about it. As I currently understand it, the highest position in the room is the shokyaku, and if you are walking from the shokyaku position to the guest door you are moving lower. The area where the temae takes place is the other high point which become lower as you move towards the host door, which is the lowest point in the tearoom. This essentially puts the entire room on an axis from highest to lowest point. This is important because what foot you walk with (that is, what foot you step over the heri [line] of the tatatmi with) represents whether you are walking to a "higher" or "lower" point of the room. If you are walking to a higher place you walk with your right foot. If you are walking to a lower place you walk with your left foot. However this changes when you are receiving a bowl of tea from the host where you actually will walk opposite out of respect (essentially "lowering" your place in order to raise the position of hte host). This is what I am thinking about when I try to take a step. Which is why I keep stopping and asking myself if I am walking to a higher or lower place and then before I know it I have made a mistake and then everyone probably wonders why I am the only one having trouble with this despite the fact that I have studied for six years. Ahhhh....

Other than that...I am frustrated that I don't perform better in class both in terms of my movements and remembering the terms that we are taught. When we have lectures in the morning we take notes so I can go back and review. However, during lessons notebooks are not allowed in the tearoom so all of this vocabulary slips out of my head before I have a chance to write any of it down. Here are the only two words I can remember for today:

退席 - taiseki - leaving the tearoom
席入り - sekiiri - entering the tearoom

Non-class related - other things I have noticed upon my return to Japan:
1. Shiso flavored Pepsi exists. WHAT?! I love anything shiso flavored always. I also like any pop that is green. Leaf flavored pop...who knew?

2. KFC is good in Japan. I can't eat it in the States anymore. Maybe it's because they only use Japanese chickens, I don't know. All I know is I love me some fried chicken.
3. The bus still costs 220 yen! Six years later!
4. When I was first a student on AKP, almost no one knew what visual-kei was (except Aimee of course! but she wasn't in my class...) Now both of the girls that are in my group seem to be big anime/v-kei fans. Ironically, I don't listen to much anymore (aside from DEG).
5. I had forgotten about the towels before meals. I smiled the first time I got one.

September 7th - Long Day, lots of Vocab

2009-09-07T11:25:38Z

Lecture today was held at Chado kaikan, the same building where the Entrance Ceremony was held. We learned about the different tea rooms and mizuya in this building since the 1B group (my sempai) will be having their chakai here. During the course of this lecture I almost fainted, which was fun. Today was a very warm day (it is still summer in Kyoto), I hadn't slept well last night and I walked around a lot on Sunday without properly rehydrating. All in all this means that when I had to stand up for ten minutes I started to get dizzy and my vision went black. During lunch I downed a sports drink and a lot of other liquids and felt much better after that. It was a good reminder that I need to take better care of myself...as usual.

Anyways, during the lecture we learned the names for pretty much everything in the mizuya. Do you want to know the names too? I thought so.

炭筆 - sumihitsu - box for sumi (charcoal)
簀子 - sunoko - bamboo grate used for water drainage
釘 - kugi - hooks for hanging hishaku, etc. made of bamboo with skin on top
水瓶 - mizugame - basin for water
差し通し - sashitoshi - ladle with a bamboo support on the inside of the cup, which is only used for certain temae.
安め結び - yasumemusubi - cords on shifuku tied in a relaxed position to indicate that there is no tea inside
煤竹 - susudake - dark stained bamboo chasen only used in kinindate
白竹茶筅 - shiratake chasen - standard light colored chasen
釜据え - kamasue - used to rest the kama on top of sunoko
板釜敷 - itakamashiki - wooden trivet used to rest the kama while lying sumi
水漉し- mizukoshi - ladle with a chakin over it used to strain water
かいげん - kaigen - ladle for mizugame
茶巾洗い - chakindarai - basin to rinse (rest) chakin
腰黒薬缶 - koshigurokyakkan - "medical" kettle which is used as a mizutsugi. water is filled to the bottom of the mouth of the spout
片口 - katakuchi - type of mizutsugi that is generally wooden or ceramic. water is filled halfway up the mouth of the spout
茶通箱 - satsubako - a box for a chabako procedure involving two different kinds of koicha
茶掃箱 - chahakibako - box fir sifting tea
茶合 - chago - cup used to measure koicha for one person
枝炭 - edazumi - white twig charcoal
管炭 - kudazumi - one of the cut pieces of charcoal used in sumi temae
花台 - kadai - flower tray
炭台 - sumidai - charcoal tray
綴じ目 - tojime - seam "maru mae kaku mokou"

So, as if that was not enough to fill my little Cone brain for the day, after lunch I helped my sempai Martina fill the natsume (I need more practice) and write down information about the room we were using before the lessons began. We continued warigeiko today, adding chasen toshi and wiping the bowl with the chakin. I realize that some of my movements are ok as they are, and others are still very clumsy and need practice...like me and the chasen. I don't know what is up with me and the chasen but I cannot make it pretty. GAH! Cleaning began after lessons (and after I downed another bottle of water) and our job today was to clean the toilets. I hope that I never have to go near a urinal again after this year. Not to say that they are gross, they are cleaned by the students every day...it's just not something I would ever do voluntarily.

They had mabodofu at dinner and it made me happy. I am eating a lot here. A lot a lot. Hopefully I can get adjusted to my schedule soon and fit in some running time. Although I am exhausted at the end of each day, its not really the same as serious exercise. After dinner Martina and I went back to the gakuen (school) to do haigata (build the ash in the brazier). I didn't really need to do one since our group is still doing warigeiko and one had already been prepared, so I just practiced on a spare one for a while. I am really, really bad at haigata. I kept going until the end when one of the pieces fell over and destroyed the entire shape. At that point I was done, so I watched Martina to try to pick up some pointers. Once we were finished we finally headed back to the dorms. I am a tired little Cone.

Tomorrow is zazen, I wonder how that will be...

I need to think of a mon design, I wonder if I can get any additional information about family history....hmm...