Tea Ceremony gets interesting :)

Monday, January 27:

This morning we had slices of French baguette for breakfast (the same bread my mom buys in America! :) ). We also had salad and the DELICIOUS mikan jello stuff Yuko made.

We watched tv while we ate. It's so funny how much American news Japanese news channels broadcast considering America broadcasts almost no Japanese news. But I got to see Taylor Swift at the Grammies!!!

And the they had Chris Hemsworth (squee!) as a guest on their news show because the new Thor movie is just coming out in Japan (Jess told me it came out in America in November!). Anyway they have these cute soft hammers they use on their show with the Zip (the news channel) logo on them and decorated in Zip colors. So they gave one to Chris, since he's Thor and has a hammer and all and he taught them how to throw it like Thor. Then they made him do this little dance with the hammer to that Pon Pon Pon song that's so popular here right now. OMG it was hilarious. His face was just like "wtf is this" the entire time!

On the train to school, I finally studied for the test I had today haha. I didn't have any homework this weekend because the workbook pages due were ones I'd already done in Kumazawa sensei's class at Tech.

Before class today, we all registered for classes. I officially signed up for the Japanese folklore class, so I really hope Tech approves me taking it for credit.

This girl in my Japanese class, Marino san, who is also the one other girl in my Friday project work class, decided to drop project work. I was like, are you effing kidding me? So now I'm the only one left in project work! They'd better not cancel it now.

Today in Japanese class, Marino san was telling us how her bonsai had bloomed and showed us all a picture of its flower, and I was like fuuuuuckk, my bonsai!

Guess who's forgotten to water her bonsai since the day she brought it home? Fml. But I watered it when I got home tonight!

The test was a sinch. I'm pretty positive I got a 100.

Today we finally started kanji. We had to write them over and over again. Then we learned how to say the days of the month, which I already know, but it was a nice review of the irregular ones. I have to go look up that video Lindsay and I found on YouTube last year of the kids doing a rap of the days in Japanese. That was so catchy and helped me remember them.

At the break between classes, I was eating my chocolate chip melon pan in the hallway when one of the CJS faculty found me and told me to talk to my project work sensei to tell her I still want to take the class, even though I'm the only one in it.

So at lunch I went down to the teacher's lounge, but you have to say the teacher's name into a microphone for them to come out, and I chickened out lol.

Plus, I didn't have much time before calligraphy so I just went to lunch. I got this awesome meal at Lawson's!

Ah it was soooo good! That vegetable that looks like a wheel is one we eat at home all the time. It's really good!

And I got this orange juice which was a little expensive and tasted watery. :(

I went to my locker to get my paintbrushes for calligraphy, only to find my locker key wasn't in my wallet where it usually is! I remembered finding my wallet open when I hadn't realized it when I was riding the trains this weekend, so I was freaking out, thinking my key had fallen out at the one of the stations somewhere.

I was going to be late for class, though, so I left, figuring I could borrow sensei's brushes and ink block. And I could. She had a bunch of extras set out on a table.

So I got to do calligraphy today! Even though I failed miserably again. It's so so hard!

Normally I wouldn't post such shitty artwork, but I've gotten requests, so here it is:

(I'm pretty sure this is the one I turned in as my best)

And then it was tea ceremony! Tea ceremony was SO fun today!!

I died when I saw this sign in the CJS office telling the tea ceremony class to meet in the "CJS Robby" today. Major fail!

So we all met in the lobby and one of the CJS ladies walked us over to the tea house! Yaaaay we got to have class in the tea house! It's what I'd been waiting for!!

We had to take our shoes off when we walked in because it was all tatami mats and rice paper sliding doors!

(That pot in the ground is what the tea is made in)

(Our sensei is the one in the kimono)

(That tall dude came up to me after class and talked to me because he was from Texas, so we talked about Texas stuff like Whataburger and mums lol)

We had a short lecture and demonstration first by our sensei and another lady in a kimono and then we were split into two groups to practice tea ceremony. I was in the first group!

We all had to sit in seiza (on our knees) and then we got to eat wagashi!! Yaaay! Another thing I'd been waiting for!

We had to bow when the wagashi was brought to us and then again afterwards when the tea was brought to us. And also when our dishes were cleared.

(The adorable pink ume (plum) blossom wagashi. It's hot pink with a yellow center!)

The paper the wagashi is on is wagashi kami (paper) and we use it to clean off the chopsticks and hold it under our wagashi when we eat (to catch crumbs).

Inside the wagashi was red bean paste. 

It was soooo good!!

Then tea was brought to us. It was really dark green. I suppose it was matcha. I thought the light green tea I drink at home with my host family was matcha, but I guess I was wrong? Idk help me, Nihonjin reading my blog!

After our turn, it was the next group's turn and it was my group's turn to be hosts and hostesses. I got to carry in a plate of wagashi and then serve tea. The lady who wasn't our sensei was in another little room making the tea. She put dark green powder in the bowls first and then poured hot water in. 

Then I cleared the tea bowl, always bowing with whoever I was serving.

It was so fun!

The bit of Japanese I caught at the end was that next week we're having a different type of okashi (snack), yay!

We got out of class about 15 minutes early, which was awesome! 

(Lol these Japanese girls were doing a photoshoot in the golden light from the sun outside the CJS office)

So I went to the CJS office and asked how much I would have to pay if I really did lose my key (I was hoping it maybe fell out into my purse) and they told me 850 yen. Less than I was thinking, but still a lot. :/

It was almost 5, so I headed home. 

When I got home, first thing I did was search my purse, and there it was! My key!!! Yaaay. I've had too many near losses of my keys, I really need to watch over them closely.

I went in to say "tadaima" to Yuko (she was the only one home) and ended up scaring the shit out of her lol. She told me from now on to ring some doorbell intercom thing to say I'm home... Agh idk. I have an irrational fear of talking into things when there's not a person talking back to me on the other end (as shown earlier with the microphone in the teacher's lounge) because I don't know if I sound retarded or not haha.

Anyway, I sat in my room and studied nihongo until dinner. Everyone came home for dinner tonight. I talked about the wagashi and tea ceremony. We had corn in our salad, so I asked if Japanese people love corn or something? Since I've been seeing it everywhere!

And Yuko told me that it's the only yellow vegetable, so they use it to create salads with a variety of colors (and kids like it on pizza). I was like, "what about squash?"

And they were all, "what's squash?"

And I was like ummm, are you kidding me right now? Only the best vegetable ever!

Yuko asked what we put it in, like salad? And I told her pasta and stuff. Then I told her about my favorite squash, spaghetti squash!!

And she was like, yeah, squash definitely doesn't exist in Japan.

And I was like holy crap, mind blown!

After dinner, I "did homework" aka updated my blog and Skyped my mom for the first time since being here! The wifi in my room is too slow for skype :(

So I went into the living room after everyone had gone to sleep. So if any of you guys wanna Skype me, it is possible, just hard lol. But we can make it work!

But I do have another one of those effing dialogue things tomorrow, so I memorized that.

It was funny because Mutsukawa sensei asked us in class today how long we studied Japanese each day and the kid with the bad breath who sits next to me (he's studying to become a seminarian) said 21 hours lol.

Everyone was like, yeah right.

Obviously he did the most. I did the least. I said 10 minutes haha. Which is a lie, it's more like zero.

But I learn better by experience, not by staring at a book.

Here's a picture of my bonsai!

(It has little buds! I hope it blooms soon! And I hope I didn't kill it...)