A Good Saturday: Walking, Arita-yaki, Tea Ceremony, and Study

I had a good day today. In the morning I went on a walk with Jono around Arita. It was refreshing to get out early in the morning and walk. My weekend mornings tend to slip buy trudgingly, with me situated in front of my computer calling all the people I don't usually call during the week (like my folks), and it was surprisingly exhausting getting out and walking. I kept yawning, despite having slept for nearly 11 hours (10:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m.). Yet more proof that I should get out and walk more regularly.

Anyway, the reason I went to Arita with Jono was to see his student's ceramic exhibition, so we went to the 文化館 (culture hall). There was all sorts of ceramics, and, golly, I love looking at ceramics. I kept pausing to admire amazing craftsmanship or to wonder how they had done something. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I can't show you anything, but there was one bowl that looked like the design was made by mashing together different colors of clay, and I have no idea how they did that and then shaped it into a bowl and then fired it without the many different pieces expanding and shrinking and different rates and then cracking and falling apart... it was gorgeous, and I was captivated, and I really want to get back into ceramics.

I came home and went to Tea Ceremony, as usual for a Saturday. Apparently I have good poise and remembered a lot of the steps, because they kept talking about how elegant I was after the lesson, even though I had forgotten so much. It was slightly embarassing, because I had to have my teacher demonstrate how to handle the whisk and hot water scoop for me, and I felt like I had forgotten so much. Oh well, it was very nice to sit with calm, kind ladies, listening to their soft Japanese, and handle their gorgeous tools elegantly. It's meditative and calming, and I find myself wishing I could go more often than once a week.

Then I came home and studied kanji, read ONEPIECE (a children's manga in Japanese), cleaned my apartment, finished all the dishes that have been sitting around in my sink, and video chatted with my boyfriend and my cousin. Then, I decided to take myself out to a celebratory dinner tonight-- yesterday I got my reviews from all my schools during my interview with my JET supervisors, and I received all positive feedback! Basically, they told me I was doing great, and the only thing I need to work on is not worrying (or 頑張る過ぎるing), especially when I'm sick. It was awesome to receive positive feedback, because sometimes it's hard to receive any feedback while on the job. So I bought myself a curry dinner (yummm, spinach curry), and I'm excited to finish the rest of this semester and go into the new school year in April.




*All images taken liberally from Google.