Parent's Visit, Part I: Tea Ceremony

Since my parents have come here, I have taken a ton of photos. (Or, perhaps more truthfully, my mother has taken a ton of photos.) I'm going to start a series of photo-heavy posts to show some of the moments I had while my parents are here.

First up is me being dressed by my kimono teacher, Okamura-san, for a demonstration tea ceremony for my parents. Tatara-san was also there, helping me get dressed.

Okamura-san, my kimono and koto teacher, is tying my bow. Tatara-san, who takes tea ceremony with me, is helping hold strings and sleeves and general moral upkeep as I'm going crushed and tugged and hit by Okamura-san (obi's, the big bow/belt, are nearly bullet-proof, and thus teachers like to hit them as they tie them because the wearer {me} can't feel it {much}).

Tea Ceremony lessons at my teacher's, Shimamoto-sensei, house.

The orange of the fukusa looks good against the green of my kimono, and Shimamoto-sensei and Tatara-san wanted to get pictures of the contrast.

The Three Musketeers-- Tatara-san, me, and Shimamoto-sensei.

This is a knot/bow for a young person, older women tend to have much simpler bows.

My obi is handwoven, and the weaver uses her fingernails to get the threads in place. Thus, it is more expensive (rather than applique-ing the flowers on), and I think it's an excellent piece of art.

I'm really glad my parents got to see my kimono, as one of my tea ceremony lessons, since it's been such an integral part of my life over the past few years. I'm also glad they got to see my kimono in action, and got to meet some of the dear friends I have made since coming to Saga.

I love you guys muchly.

*all pictures taken by my mother.

Kimono and koto

About a month ago, I purchased a kimono and started learning the koto. Two days ago, both came together in a performance celebrating spring and the Spring Equinox.

So, first and foremost, Happy Spring Equinox, everybody! I have the day off today, since it is a national holiday. I might do some research to see what the Japanese people do for this holiday, but I know that the concert I was in was a free concert put on by the city as part of a week long 春まつり、or Spring Festival.

[will be adding more throughout the day, but right now I'm going to go grocery shopping! :D ]

Click here to hear a version of the song I played.

February Update

February has been an interesting month. Let's go through the major events:

-I gave myself a mini concussion by head-desking. [Not too long of a story on this one, actually. A student said something hilarious, I bent over laughing without realizing the desk was quite as close as it was.] That had me with a slight headache for about three days, and tired for five days.

-I had my interviews for re-contracting with JET, and heard that I got my second year. YES!

-Tea Ceremony is going beautifully.

-I had a week long cold that knocked the snot out of me. Literally. About 3 lungfuls of it. After just getting over the mini concussion thing, I was rather tired of being sick and tired, but what can you do~

-I have started "cooking lessons" with Okamura-san, which is basically I offered to help her chop vegetables one night when I was over for dinner, and since we have hand made gyoza (awesome stuff!), and made this chinese vegetable called "taasan", which looked like a cross between spinach and cabbage. Think a thick, dark-leafed cabbage with all the leaves shooting out to stand freely rather than wrapped around themselves. It is really helpful to see different tips for cooking various Japanese vegetables I don't see often in the States, and it's really nice to just be cooking with someone. Not to mention helping my cooking vocabulary, and talking about food is always awesome.

-I BOUGHT A KIMONO, OMG!!!! *dies* I. Am so broke.
BUT IT IS GORGEOUS. I'll upload pictures in a bit.

-I am going to be carrying tea at a large tea ceremony meet at a temple. I'm super excited!

So, basically, I feel like I have broken into the community here, and am being invited to all sorts of traditional events. I have seen ginei, (吟詠) or recitation of ancient poetry which sounds a lot like this, in person, and one of my friends sang one of the songs. (Actually, as I listen to this song, this is a lot more varied and musically involved than the ones I heard in person.) I am going to be playing koto on March 18th, and probably again in May when one of my friends will be accompanying the songs with traditional dance. I will be taking kimono-wearing lessons to learn how to wear the kimono I just got. It's very good for my Japanese, and it's also good to be making friends and learning about Japanese culture and joke around and eat good food.

Life's pretty awesome. Love you guys.

Mary out

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.

poem

We are singing to the Earth
the hands of the Rain

What Miss Mary Did for New Years

Okay, so the rest of my winter vacation:

After Dana left, I spent a few days hanging around in Saga. I reigned in the new year with oysters on the half shell and beer (and delicious meal and an excellent combination to get nauseous on), watching music shows on TV, and talking with a bunch of young Japanese folks. It was pretty excellent.

After midnight hit, we hopped in the car with the intent to go to Yuutoku Shrine. When we hit mostly stop and no go traffic 10 kilometers out from the Shrine, we decided no way, and then proceeded to wait 20 minutes before traffic moved enough for us to turn around. We went around Saga dropping people off, and I got home at around 2 and passed out.

Then, on New Years Day, I went to a Shrine. I turned in my old omamori (Literally, "honorable protection", usually they're in the shape of little square silk pouches with a piece of holy writing inside of it, but they can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes) and bought new omamori for the new year. Then I had a delicious meal with Emiko and Okamura-san and Tai-kun, and went home and slept soundly.

On January 2nd, I went across Kyushu to Oita. On the way there, I SAW SNOW!!! 8D I was on the train passing through Tosu, and the other commuters must've thought I was crazy because I kept snapping pictures and pressing my nose to the window and grinning like an idiot. But I don't care. I SAW SNOW. So there.
(Most of the pictures are blurry because the train was moving so fast, but I got to see it, and I got one picture that came out decently to prove I saw it, and I'm still super happy when I think about it, so all's good.)

I spent two days doing ne-shogatsu (Literally: "sleeping New Year." It works something like this: Sitting at what looks like a coffee table with about 12 other people, you eat traditional new years food (called osechi) and then watched TV, and if you feel like it you can lay down and nap (hey, you're sitting on the floor anyway, it's not that far), and then you wake up and watch more TV, then you go take a long hot bath in the family bath, and then you lay down some more and watch some more TV, and eventually the night passes an the host brings out a traiditonal Japanese breakfast, and you crawl over in your pj's and eat some more and then watch some more TV and talk, and then take a midday nap, and then lunch is brought out... Yep. I love ne-shogatsu!)

I decided in the middle of this that I had to get outside and walk and get some fresh air or my body and joints would murder me, so I did.

And then this cat decided it'd climb on me.

She was adorable and small and super affectionate. She also had fleas, so I kept the snuggling and rubbing to a minimum.

But, man, I miss cats.


Thank you, Saori and Saori's family, for your generosity! I really enjoyed all of the food (it was super delicious), the funny TV shows, the conversation, and the relaxing.

Winter in Saga

明けましておめでとうございます！

I saw these pretty frost-rimmed leaves on the walk to school earlier this week, and thought I'd take a few pictures to share with you. <3

I've been sick this past week, so not much energy to go around. Hopefully a restful weekend will get me prepared for next week, which is full of lessons, conferences, job interviews, and other exciting things!