Japanese food: Not Sushi - Homestyle!

There is a very cool lady at the office. She is a tea ceremony instructor, and loves to share her culture with the rest of us bumbling baffoonish bampots from the High North.

Some time ago, she invited me and another guest over for Saturday lunch and tea and other nice things, which was very nice.

Look at us all posey!

She taught us to make rice balls (even though I kinda sorta did it before). Hands + water + salt + rice -> ball-shape -> poke hole -> stuff filling + optional cover hole + optional seaweed wrapping

I am actually an onigiri tsukuru natural talent. Just fyi.

THEY ARE ADORABLE. I AM PRIDE.

Can you see the umeboshi poking out of the front one? :3

We cooked up a lavishly healthy traditional-style lunch, consisting of whole grilled river fish, sweet potato miso soup, the aforementioned rice balls, and a butt-ton of vegetables.

Healthy health.

After eating we had tea ceremony in their tea ceremony room (awsome!) and my feet fell off even though I had a cheat-cushion for my bum.

I mean, this position is nice-looking and stuff. But I swear, after 15 minutes the
only thing convincing me that I still have legs is the clear visual evidence.

This does not help as much as it should!

My consolation price was that I got the best next-day left-overz brekkie ever. Which I ate sitting. On a sofa.

Yum!

Tea Ceremony

A Monday Morning Bonus Blog!

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As a reward for my shameless plugging, the school let me join one of their traditional culture classes for free last week.

Short explanation: GenkiJACS offers a variety of course things, of which I'm taking the simplest (and cheapest!) one; just four hours of straight up language class per day. If you want to, you can supplement by having additional conversation classes or some level of culture class (traditional or pop (yes, pop culture does indeed mean what you think it means. Otakus of the world rejoice!)).

So I went to a "n00bs introduction to tea ceremony" last Thursday. This involved borrowing a yukata (simple summer Kimono thing),

The pretty colours are pretty! <3

taking a shoji screen selfie (of course),

Votes are up: Do I love selfies too much?

making tea,

I am apparently something of a tea-whisker natural talent. Who knew!

and then drinking it.

Very carefully crafted yum!

And yes, this did involve me sitting like that (in traditional "seiza" position) for 45 minutes. No I did not give up. After the first 20 it didn't hurt anymore anyway, because I completely lost contact with every sensory organ below my waist. Although admittedly, when the ceremony was done, my process of standing up was not the most graceful moment of my life so far, nor was it a particularly expeditious affair.

But in all seriousness, this was a very cool experience. This tradition is (I think) uniquely Japanese, and very fascinating. As this class was a primarily explanatory thing, I would love to do it again in a more organic fashion to really get into the spirit of the thing.

There is still so much I don't understand about Japan, but I really enjoy learning a little bit more every day. And on that sappy note, I wish you a very happy Monday.