In the evening we went to an Izakaya where a crowd of Ryota’s old friends gathered. I met many of the people I got to know at Megu’s and Ryota’s wedding last summer, and had a great time.

Sumo-wrestler food and Ryota

Happy reunion

We sat next to this guy and his son for most of the evening. They were so much fun. The guy was doing magic tricks and I was getting “moya moya” because I couldn’t figure out how the magic worked.

Then we went home and I got to lie in the hot bath for a good while, after which they made me wear some kind of traditional coat-blanket thing and we sat under the kotatsu (warming table with attached blanket, don’t ask…) and we watched the annual Johnny’s new year’s countdown concert LIVE on TV!

In the morning we ate New Year’s food. The customs/symbolism/traditions of the New Year in Japan are so complex that we’ve had several lectures on the topic in school.

Special chopsticks called yanagibashi

Decorative food~

Then everybody went into the room with the family altar. I was utterly mystified (especially since I had just woken up) when Hiroyuki-papa started chanting a long and incomprehensible text by heart. Later the others told me that they didn’t understand the chanted words either.

Picture of (a small part of) the text, which I got to see later

Megu by the altar

All of us (almost awake)

Offerings to the ancestors

We also drank red wine for breakfast.

I got to talk to Keita and Misato on the phone and later we met them on Skype. I can’t wait to see them in the summer! Even little Yuika seemed to remember me – oh my heart… At least the shouted “Moomin!” when she saw me.

Then it was time for Hatsumode, the first shrine visit of the year. We went to the same shrine where M&R got married last year.

By the torii (shrine gate)

Here Megu is explaining the contents of my omikuji paper, since I can’t read Japanese very well. The omikuji is a fortune-telling paper that you receive by shaking a wooden tube so that a thin rod with a number comes out – then you get a paper fortune corresponding to that number. Mine was really good and in short  said something like things have been very hard but will gradually get much better.

Here I’m happily tying the paper in a knot and leaving it by the shrine.

And some bonus pictures:

For boys who want to cut their hair exactly like Johnny’s idols

I know that bowing is common in Japan but…

And last weekend (?!) I was in Osaka at Tsubasa’s concert with Junko and Ciara. The ticket situation was unprecedented and we almost didn’t get in, but in the end we got two tickets for Ciara and me, and Junko went the next day. We got in there one minute before it started. The show itself was incredible and intense, and one person near the stage passed out after the first couple of performances and was taken away by ambulance – and that was before the flamenco even started!! And the screaming was so loud that we were deaf for a while afterwards. I’ve heard it usually gets like this in Osaka… Anyway, after the show we found out, little by little, that there was a special surprise arranged: Tsubasa would personally hand out a wristband to every person who pre-ordered the new DVD. We somehow managed to fill in some papers and got tickets, and in the queue we started to seriously freak out. This kind of chance is really rare, after all – I’ve only been hoping for it to happen for… seven years? We managed to not pass out from hyperventilation before we got behind the magic screens and the otherworldly presence of Tsubasa himself, and managed to say what we had planned (during a couple of seconds, before a staff person pushed us away). I thanked him for everything (something I’ve wanted to do for years) and told him to please come to Europe (in Japanese), and Junko, who went before us, said that Tsubasa looked extra happy when he saw us, two foreigners. Afterwards for a long time we couldn’t stop screaming and jumping around like maniacs and hugging, no matter that we had never met before. I was outside wearing a t-shirt and couldn’t bring myself to put my jacket on because I couldn’t feel the cold at all. That was that in short.

Tokyo post coming up when I have time even though I don’t have time…

Christmas came and went without much ado.

Christmas tree (long before Christmas) at Kyoto station

People looking at Christmas tree

Kyoto Tower illuminated

We went to a fancy dinner with endless sushi

Met many nice tea ladies

In the school cafeteria was an intriguing “decoration”. We were quoting it for weeks.

Curry with hanjuku egg is my ultimate comfort food here

I went to Nara to visit my former host parents (we had host families during the OUSSEP time, although we didn’t live with them)

With Keiko-mama

With Hiroyuki-papa

I attack the okonomiyaki

And got lovely home-made sukiyaki in the evening!

We had Kaiseki cooking class.

Got to taste dishes exemplifying the concept of umami (“deliciousness”), a subtle taste that the Japanese believe to be uniquely Japanese.

Christmas chakai. It still seems incredible that we survived that day, and especially the weeks of preparation before it. But we did and then all was well. One of Hamana-sensei’s classic quotes (when we gathered after the “important” guests had left): “That went very well, so now it’s all downhill from here!”

Us with the crème de la crème of the tea world (you can probably guess which one is Oiemoto himself):

Before the event

The view to the garden was spectacular

Oiemoto and family members signed their names in the guestbook

Afterwards we celebrated with oysters

During art history class we visited the Daitokuji temple, a birthplace of Japanese arts. The Kano school of painting originated in this very temple! It was gorgeous.

And then I made a day-trip to Kobe

Almost empty train!

Is there anything better than travelling alone to a largely unfamiliar city?

On the way to Port Island, an artificial island

My main purpose of the visit was to go to Tegomass’ concert. Again the experience went something like this: take a million different trains, finally get there (too late and still without any kind of ticket), find scalpers, negotiate back and forth, wait for ticket, go buy some concert goods, find something to eat, finally get ticket, find toilet, queue, five minutes left, RUN, get inside arena, find seat, rummage for penlight and other equipment, take in sparkly arena & perfect view and breathe for two seconds, lights go out, concert starts, Tegomass are there, complete happiness. So, did it go smoothly? Everything is relative.

World Memorial Hall (concert venue)

Eating takoyaki before the concert <3

The tour title Tegomasu no mahou (The Magic of Tegomass) was very fitting, as the concert was truly magical and unforgettable, one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. And I swear those two emit some kind of otherwordly magic sparkliness. Was fantastic! At one point they even sang without microphones, for 8000 people… Thank you Tegoshi & Masuda.

Walking a bit in Kobe. Didn’t have much time since we have to be back at the dorm at 10pm every day, even on vacation.

Visited Chinatown!

Then I walked to the Luminarie. It took forever. The Luminarie is a yearly illumination event (every light hand-painted!) commemorating the 1995 earthquake.

Getting closer

The main Light Castle

Inside

A smaller one

When the term ended we had year-end-parties, closing ceremonies and greetings of all sorts. These pictures are from the Bonenkai (=”forgetting the year” party)

Our kawaii teachers Muracchi and Imacchi!

Midorikai also did a Secret Santa gift exchange with the teachers. I got these cute warming hotpants and socks from Murata-sensei. You know you’re in Japan when your teacher gives you something like this, right?

We were invited to a nighttime talk chaji, a full tea function including food and sake, at Gary-sensei’s house. His cat was also very present.

Smoking is also part of tea gatherings

The food was really delicious!

Gary-sensei serves Katie sake

I visited Hitomi in Osaka

Castella cake and darjeeling with Hitomi! Aah~

Made a nostalgic trip to Osaka University

Walking to the Toyonaka campus

My old home

We ate lunch at Sora! Then later when Hitomi introduced me to some people, this familiar conversation took place. Hitomi: “This is Freija, she studies tea in Kyoto.” Friend: “Oh interesting! So everybody in the group are high-school students?” Me: “Erm, I’m thirty-one…” Friend: ” Eeeeeeehhhhh???” Something like this happens EVERY TIME.

Then we went to the Kaiyukan, the Osaka Aquarium

This was the cutest thing ever, it just floated happily

Let’s smell penguin’s ID band!

English-language leaflets are always helpful!

Outside the aquarium with new friends Ayaka and Nami

Osaka Bay

We ate kushikatsu

Purikura~

On Christmas Eve Katie, Mika and I headed to Nara very early in the freezing morning, and then spent all day doing a Finland-Japan tea event (unrelated to school). Markku also dressed up as Santa Claus and we sang Finnish Christmas songs to children.

The team at the end of the day, with the rabbit Markku saw in a dream and then made.

And a few pictures from Kyoto

The Silver Pavilion!

Zen gravel cone. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to make one of these every morning at school

The Philosopher’s Walk!

In Gion

Kabuki actress

Kamo river at night

Some things we have done lately: Made tea sweets, painted tea bowls, visited a high school and made tea with the students, cut charcoal again, participated in the Kyoto Kokumin Bunkasai (large cultural event, crazy day), helped at the 2011 Kyoto Prize (similar to the Nobel Prize) event (crazy day); Mika and I also got a surprise task one morning: to serve tea to nine members of the Finnish Parliament. But it’s always more fun the less the guests know about Japanese tea.

Other things that seem to occur with some sort of regularity: zen meditation sessions, Oiemoto’s (the “tea master’s”) lectures, Oiemoto’s wife’s visits, going to exhibitions. On Friday we got to see a really nice exhibition at the Kyoto National Museum. Tea-wise, we have moved from the furo (brazier) to the ro (sunken hearth) season (lasts from November to April), which means that everything has changed. I’m too tired to explain how. But I really like ro and prefer it over furo. Temae we have been learning (attempting to do) include: tana usucha (thin tea procedure using various types of shelf units: marujoku, sugidana, tsubotsubodana, kuwa-kojoku), wakei chabako, koicha, tana koicha, kinindate usucha, kinindate koicha, kininkiyotsugu usucha, kininikiyotsugu koicha, as well as the sumidemae (shozumi and gozumi), the charcoal-laying procedures. And yeah, the furo and ro versions of all these are different. The sumidemae felt slightly less hopeless last time, though. Maybe. It’s really fun trying to handle heavy charcoal pieces with metal chopsticks knowing that someone will have to pay a lot of money if you drop them in the wrong place, and apologies will have to be made. No pressure at all! The kinindate procedure is used for presenting tea for nobility. It’s quite fun to practice, especially for the one who pretends to be the nobleman, since there are no rules for his or her behaviour. Speaking of nobility, the King and Queen of Bhutan came to Kyoto yesterday and were served tea – they sat at tables, though (ryurei procedure).

Also, I made a weekend trip to Tokyo, and I turned 31. On my birthday, the Midorikai group went to an izakaya (Japanese bar with food). They spoiled me by giving me lovely presents (including yaoi comic books), and suddenly, while we were having a great time and I was completely unsuspecting, an ice-cream popped out from nowhere and a room packed with Japanese boys was singing Happy Birthday to me. It was very awesome!

Yesterday (Saturday) we had yet another event, Sotanki, the big memorial service for Sen Sotan, 3rd generation grand master. Looots of visitors came, mostly old Japanese ladies, many of whom were very interested in us. The event took all day, we went to seki after seki, it rained a lot and we waited a lot. Luckily we were “only” guests and didn’t have to work. We saw many old and rare tea utensils. When we were to watch Oiemoto observe a mysterious knot-tying ritual (yeah, I’m not sure what was going on there) he told us in the back row to get up from the floor and come closer to look. I love the atmosphere of the dark tea rooms, especially with the sound of rain and birds from outside. Suddenly someone was trying to pull me to the side, and I noticed Daisosho (the 88-year-old 15th generation grand master) was beside me. But he immediately went “No no, you should absolutely stand there!” and in English “Yes! Yes!” So lovely. I think the panic some people show in the presence of Daisosho and Oiemoto is unnecessary since they are both very nice and down-to-earth.

That’s that in short, and now I will dump pictures (and more ramblings) here.

Place were we had sweets-making class

Neon-coloured brains sweets we made

We also ate them…

Sweets for sale

We visited a private High School, where we did tea together with a group of students. It was very confusing for everybody, because the Japanese students, as part of their mission to learn English, were doing tea in English, whereas we always do it in Japanese and don’t even know how to say the various phrases and terms in English (although we do take every opportunity we can to say things like “A rudeness I did” instead of “Shitsurei itashimashita”). Anyway, I have never encountered anything as giggly and nervous as those poor girls who had to speak English. They were super adorable though and really did their best, although they mostly uttered rehearsed phrases, very slowly and accentuating each word. When one of the girls asked if she could take someone’s tea bowl back, and said “May. I. Please. Take. It. Off?” we had to fight not to laugh, and that has indeed become one of the classic phrases we use daily.

When the students introduced themselves, one of the girls said something like “Nice to meet you. I love Tegoshi Yuya and I plan to marry him. But I have never met him.” Later I couldn’t resist telling her that I have met Tegoshi, and she pretty much died. It was so cute.

Katie crawling into a tea house

Japanese schoolboy making tea

Japanese schoolgirls making tea

We received the tea bowls we made ourselves.

Black raku tea bowl I made

Kyoyaki (Kyoto style) tea bowl I painted

On the ro-furo irekae day (when we cleaned a lot again) the ros (fireplaces built into the floor) were revealed from under the tatami mats. We were introduced to the various procedures associated with the ro, such as the kama-awase, levelling of the kama (kettle), and realized that if you have to lie flat on the floor for hours adjusting millimetres, you goddamn do it and no question about it. This is how things are done in the tea world.

Seya fixing a ro

Hamana-sensei found it amusing to give his students snacks called Crunky Ball Nude.

This is what Kyoto looks like from the roof of our dormitory.

One picture from the Kyoto Kokumin Bunkasai event, where we performed on stage. Even though I only acted as a guest, it was a complete disaster. Amazing how many things that can go wrong, really!

Then I went to Tokyo. Was still acutely tired and didn’t have time to go to as many places as I would have liked, but it was so wonderful. Every minute there always feels so precious. Emma was there! And Kiia too, and I also got to meet Millie (whom I have known online for many years) for the first time. We discovered again that if you are four Johnny’s fans in Tokyo, all roads lead to Takeshita doori. It’s where you will find yourself at the beginning and the end of the day. This was also partly because we were hunting concert tickets for me so that I could see my A.B.C-Z (Acrobat Boys Club) on the eve of my birthday, which I did.

Tokyo metro late in the evening

The first thing you have to do when you get to Tokyo is eat crepes at Takeshita street!

Antique dolls for sale at Nakano Broadway

We also quickly went to Akihabara, because (being nerds) we had to visit the new Trio store that has opened there. It had an amazing selection, and I found some things I have been looking for, like a certain uchiwa from 2008. Akihabara is one strange world. Next time I go there I’ll have to listen to Twilight and pretend I’m in the Densha otoko drama. Maids in every street corner…

With Emma and Kiia at Takeshita street

On Sunday I went to see A.B.C-Z. I had originally planned to only go to the first show because I would have had trouble getting back to Kyoto in time from the evening show (I did!), and it would have been too painful to leave before the show was over (it was!) but luckily I realized that whatever they had crafted, I had to see as much of it as I could. Emma had gotten me a really good ticket for the second show, but when I got to the venue I still hadn’t found a ticket for the first show, which was very very sold out.

The place turned out to be full of scalpers (the yakuza people selling tickets) and I bought one from them – and discovered how careful you have to be with them, because some of them try to trick you in every way they can, by being vague about things, for example. The one I got was particularly awful – he would tell me to wait, and then just disappear in the crowd. At first he “forgot” to give me my ticket, even though he had taken my money. When I got the ticket, I saw that it was different from what he had promised, but he had already disappeared. Another scalper (from here on referred to as “the nice one”) felt sorry for me and exchanged it for a really good ticket (wth!). Later I noticed that the tricky scalper had taken 5000 yen from me, and made up my mind to get it back one way or another. I found him again and argued with him for a long time, but he tried to insist I was wrong. I had to go and eat between the shows, but continued when I came back. The scalper tried to avoid me, and I found the nice one, but he said the tricky one was his boss (which I’m sure wasn’t true). In the end, when I was arguing with the first one again (as well as I could in Japanese…), the nice one turned up and was like “It’s okay, give her the money” and the scalper reluctantly gave me 5000 yen without looking at me, and I thanked him politely. It was hysterically funny! But also not the point at all…

People arriving at the concert venue, Yoyogi National Gymnasium (one of the buildings from the 1964 Olympics).

A small part of the queue for concert goods (the little booth seen in the picture above). The queue was so long that I never found the end of it! I walked for a pretty long time but the queue seemed endless. I was so happy for my acrobat boys.

The goods were sold out. I did get the penlight, though (glow stick).

They were so lovely. I must say that in the past few years they have achieved a rare degree of perfection. One of the members was still recovering from a foot injury and couldn’t do acrobatics, but he made up for it by flying over the audience while wearing a horse head (but that’s still on the normal side when it comes to Johnny’s concerts). The next day I bought all papers I could find that reported on the show. They are highlighting the fact that the group performed for 26.000 people because they are still a junior group within the agency and have never released CDs or anything. Otherwise it wouldn’t be unusual.

And a couple of pictures from the Kyoto Prize day.

A swan we saw (when we had a few minutes to walk outside). Josh just wanted to eat the swan…

Kyoto International Convention Hall

Josh wore extra comfy shoes to Sotanki.

I had better just post this now. Started writing this a few days ago, but haven’t had time to finish it, for some reason.

All the hard work in Tea is done behind closed doors or folding screens, so that the guests only see a performance that seems simple and perfect. The purpose is to create an ideal, separate world of harmony and tranquility. If I say that we carried in sweets and tea for the guests, it’s true in a way, but it was not simple.

Imagawa-sensei, one of our lovely teachers, backstage preparing bowls of tea. (The host made tea for the first and second guest, while the tea for the rest was carried into the room from backstage).

Amount of tea powder in one bowl of usucha, thin tea.

In the evening, after everything (we had been cleaning the tea rooms since the previous day) we had a fun and utterly crazy after party at the Alcove pub.

So much is happening every day that I don’t know what to write now; I’ll just post some pictures. We even had an eighth classmate for two weeks, Arthur from Los Angeles. I was supposed to write reports about a couple of events, a practice Chakai (tea gathering, the first one I went to) on September 29th and a Kenchashiki, ritual tea offering, on October 6th, but that’s just not going to happen anymore. We have new things to learn every day… Next time I must remember to have a pen in my sleeve, because we have to remember details about the tea utensils used (have I mentioned about kimono sleeves? They double as pockets. You can keep anything in them, and we also use them as garbage bags, since there are no garbage bins in the vicinity of the tea rooms).

Speaking of kimono, here’s a picture of one of my kimono (formal winter kimono)

A couple of pictures from the practice chakai (although the pictures don’t do justice to how beautiful everything was). The chakai was hosted by our three senpai and we (1As) acted as guests. I was mercifully allowed to be the sankyaku (third guest) and didn’t have any very difficult tasks. I drank koicha for the first time (or actually the day before, when we also practised things like how to walk in the garden). Koicha is thick tea (as opposed to the thin tea we’ve been drinking so far), and is, how can I say… Compared to usucha it has almost double the amount of tea, and very little water; it’s this thick, dark green substance that looks like it could come alive any second and eat you… They let me drink it the previous day so that the taste wouldn’t shock me during the chakai… We’re preparing and drinking it every day now.

Here we’re sitting and watching as the host silently enters the garden and adds fresh water to the stone water-basin. (Hamana-sensei was with us to give instructions during the practice chakai)

Kiki walking away from the garden to the tea room

Pictures from when we celebrated three birthdays and encountered an amusing Engrish menu (Deep fried food banana on ice, anyone?)

Setup for one of 1B’s classes

Setup for one of our classes

Rainy tea garden

Pictures from the ritual tea offering at the Iwashimizu Hachiman shrine in Yawata city.

Climbing up Otokoyama

Sake barrels

From here we saw the procession including Oiemoto (the head of Urasenke, Sen Soshitsu XVI) stride up to the shrine. The ceremony itself (done by Oiemoto, although I couldn’t see him at all from where we sat) was impressive indeed. There was some otherworldly music that sounded more like wailing that music, and made it all feel like a nightmare scene from a Kurosawa movie.

Tickets to different tea servings we attended.

The last one was presented outdoors by Japanese students of our school

During this day we also met Oiemoto briefly – he chatted to us for a while and seemed very friendly (previously we had only met him for a few seconds when he gave us the October scholarships and we blurted out thanks for the kimono). He also comes to the school to give lectures occasionally. We attended one such lecture earlier this month. The Japanese students were also gathered in the room and everybody sat and waited in deadly silence for probably 20 minutes before Oiemoto arrived. The lecture was very strange. He spoke and spoke, about a range of things including leg pain, imagining yourself as a water bottle, and his own youth when American culture came to Kyoto. It was very interesting.

Pictures from a large tea utensil shop

Intriguing red charcoal (about 70 euros for a little box of charcoal…)

Black Raku tea bowl

Fancy paying a couple of hundred € for a tea bowl?

Next, pics from when we got to make our owl tea bowls. They were carved/sculpted. It was so strange…

Lesson about to start

The teacher and Murata-sensei (one of our teachers) explaining something

While waiting for the clay to dry, we went for lunch and got faaaabulous Korean food. (We also get beer on school trips).

Houses

Before going home we were served tea and sweets – surpriiise (not)

Last Monday (national holiday: sports day) I made a long-awaited trip to Arashiyama, one of the most beautiful places in Kyoto. Oh, it was such a perfect day… Strolled around in beautiful gardens and bamboo forests for hours and finally started to feel relaxed.

Gigantic round leaves

Walking into the bamboo groves

Dude who constructed river 400 years ago

Approaching Togetsukyo Brigde (Bridge to the Moon)

Togetsukyo Bridge a hundred years ago

Tea-wise we’re in the most wabi period of the year. Wabi represents the ultimate aesthetic ideal of Tea. Wabi is derived from the verb wabu, which means “to feel forlorn”, and means an aesthetical appreciation of simplicity, poverty and tranquility. Interestingly, aesthetes like Sen no Rikyu (who developed wabi tea) lived in luxurious houses rather than in rustic, modest wabi huts…

During the wabi period, we use more rustic tea utensils, and for example flowers with insect-eaten leaves. You can also buy a yatsure-buro, a brazier that is made to look like it would if it had been standing in the rain for a few generations…

Tea room number 6 (where we have lessons)

Flower arrangement I made

“Wallpaper” in room number 6

We have started to do sumidemae (charcoal-laying procedure). You carry these charcoal pieces into the room and place them in the brazier while the guests watch. It may sound simple but trust me… The feather is for purifying the brazier and the star-shaped thing contains incense. The rings are for lifting the kettle and the “chopsticks” are for lifting the charcoal.

I can only imagine what our everyday conversations would sound like to an outsider… We talk about ouyuing the kama and haikening the dougu as if it were normal. Not to mention the things we joke about but I won’t go into that here.

Also, I finally have a desk and a chair in my room. Life is so much nicer now (and less barbaric – no more eating on the floor, for example!). Picture of the desk and “chair” that were in the room when I came here (below). I’ve made it look like a desk in a Japanese hotel room, so that I can feel like I live in a Japanese hotel for a year.

And just to demonstrate that everything is done on the floor here – have you ever seen a more ridiculous ironing board?

This was in my room the other day (not this big in reality)

There’s never time to do anything here. If you want time, you have to steal it from something else. I started making this entry on Sunday, I had better just post it now…

Oh, today instead of the morning lecture, we were taken to Shotenkaku museum to see a really nice exhibition of Noh masks, paintings and various interesting objects.

Also, tea sweets (the kind served before the second bowl of tea). We make arrangements of these on little trays and serve them to each other during lessons.

Tired above all. Don’t want to be in kimono tomorrow morning at 8. Resolution for next week (month?) is to go to sleep earlier even if it means sacrificing everything else. These new levels of exhaustion have led to interesting sleep phenomena like long, elaborate, conscious hypnagogic visions, intriguing hypnagogic sounds (even music), highly disturbing nightmares, insomnia. And where did a month go anyway?

Even half of the things we do during one day would be too much. I do understand why Japanese people love the Finnish slow life. Everybody is tired here all the time. In a train, somewhere in Osaka perhaps, there was a schoolboy who nearly passed out against the doors as soon as he had entered the carriage, then kept falling asleep standing, temporarily waking up only when he was bent double, over and over again, during the whole ride. It looked more tragic than funny. I don’t understand why it has to be like this here. It’s annoying when people fall asleep on you in trains…

I have no idea what has happened since I last wrote. We’ve been wearing kimono to school every day. A kimono has a million components that somehow have to be pieced together every time and tied with too many different knots. And every step you take hurts when you’re wearing the zori shoes. If it weren’t for the tabi socks, the skin between the toes would be completely ripped away. And speaking of pain, whatever I might have said about the the sitting on the floor hurting less, it wasn’t true – it’s only getting worse and I could sometimes just throw up from the pain everywhere. But maybe I’ll get used to it or something. And now, since October is starting, everything starts to change, even the type of white collar of the under kimono which isn’t even visible (has to be changed into another type of white collar, which by the way has to be sewn on by hand). So from tomorrow on, it’s absolutely wrong to use the kimono I’ve been using. Luckily we got our tailor-made kimono on Friday (so beautiful!!) but they’re formal ones, so will also have to get another one for daily wear.

As for the lessons, we have been learning a tea-making procedure (temae) called hakobi usucha. The temae are getting more and more complicated… I also got to participate in my first chakai (tea gathering) but will write a separate report about that at some point. We had several days of rest the week before last week because of national holidays like the Autumnal Equinox and the Respect for the Aged Day, as well as another typhoon. The October schedules are pretty full, though: we don’t have any weekend without any program…

Even though the food we get at school is usually quite good, I really enjoy getting to try other food on weekends. Here’s a picture of ramen, which I somehow always daydream about when I’m not in Japan. It’s sooo tasty, and the place where I ate this was really nice too and played good (Western) music and I thought that ahhh this is life and there’s probably nothing more than this…

So apparently the standard ramen in Kyoto is soy-sauce based. Good but I was thirsty for the rest of the day…

Amusing store name (“ehkä söpö” = “maybe cute” in Finnish)

We don’t have to wash our own sheets, we get clean sheets delivered to the dormitory:

We had charcoal cutting (sumikiri) practicum with the Japanese first-year students. They were fans of wearing face masks.

It was fun and challenging to try to cut the charcoal into perfectly straight 2 sun (6,1 cm) pieces, which involved keeping the bark intact, avoiding knots and imperfections, sawing so that the last bit didn’t snap and make a shiny surface (nearly impossible). After the pieces are cut, they go through a strict quality inspection and are sorted so that the higher tea people get the better charcoal pieces, and so on. The decorative pattern at the the end of the cut piece is perceived as a chrysanthemum.

The Japanese students were in charge of the practice session and so we had to do things according to their system. They ended up spending more time cleaning than actually cutting charcoal. Whenever we had a lunch or snack break, they not only cleaned but moved all the furniture away, only to put it all back again a while later. They must have had their reasons, but we were just utterly mystified by this behaviour. There was also something odd about the fact that we got lots of breaks and snacks even though that day wasn’t half as hard as our usual days, when we don’t get any breaks. But not that I’m complaining – the shukuriimu (cream puffs) were delicious! Would have liked to cut more charcoal, though…

One of our picturesque classrooms. This is the setup (not yet complete in the picture) we had for doing warigeiko for the hishaku (practicing how to use the ladle). Obviously you can’t just pick it up, you have to learn all the different ways of picking it up, holding it, switching positions, putting it back in various places – and then remember when you’re supposed to do what with which hand (did I mention I have a headache?)

Last weekend I went to Osaka.

Kyoto station, from which you take the train to Osaka (takes about half an hour).

Didn’t have time to do much else on Saturday than walk around in Shinsaibashi/Namba/Dotonbori, buying some pictures and stuff. Amazingly managed to locate a bookstore I happened to find in 2008 and have always wanted to go back to. Bought an art book from there.

Street in Shinsaibashi

In the evening I went to Minami’s house and was served dinner and wine and good tea and dessert and you name it – such luxury. She also introduced me to her friend Moge – I had a really good time!

Cute girls on balcony

On Sunday I went to two Tackey & Tsubasa concerts with Junko and two of her friends (she gave me the ticket to the evening show as a present, so I obviously went, even though I knew I would have a hard time making it home in time). First show lasted for three hours and was so much fun, even though we had bad seats near the ceiling in a concert venue of 16.000 people. T&T were in Osaka for a few days doing promo for a new single and things, and mentioned they were very tired, but they’re such pros that they still performed to over 100% and seemed to have at least as much fun as the audience. Between the shows we didn’t have time to do much more than quickly stuff an ice-cream down our throats before we were entering the hall again. That time we had the most incredible seats I’ve never even dreamed of having. Since the tickets are acquired through a type of lottery, you need an obscene amount of luck to get first-row seats (or an obscene amount of money, if you buy them illegally), but we really had seats on the first row from the centre stage, so that whenever they were on that stage they were right there and it felt like you were in some kind of zone right in the middle of where everything was happening – the view was unreal and wonderful. The Osaka crowd was loud and demanding as usual, which led to the evening show lasting for three and a half hours. I had decided to leave at 8 in order to be back before the curfew at ten, but at 8 o’ clock things were going on that made it impossible to leave, so I made up my mind to run home if I had to, and stayed. Indeed I had to run home and missed a couple of trains and buses and in the end rode in a taxi at full speed from Kyoto station, was home at 2 or 3 minutes past ten, could breathe a huge sigh of relief because the alarm hadn’t gone off, and told myself for the millionth time not to be an idiot in the future…

Before one of the shows, with Osaka-Jo Hall (concert venue) in the background

Souvenirs from the concert including streamers and things that fell from the ceiling (the 3D glasses were for videos shown during the concert)

Speaking of T&T, they were recently guests on a TV show called Music Japan, where they were shown clips from the Wife-carrying race in Finland. I loved that.

I had more to post about, but it will have to wait.

Nighty! <3

Hamana-sensei, Kiki and Paulina on the train

First we visited the Todaiji temple, the largest wooden building in existence. Even though I had been there a few times before, it was really nice to see it again. Its mere size makes it an impressive sight.

On the way to the temple we ran into these fellows. They may look cute but they’re actually horrible. They like to eat maps and bills, and they also bite hard, so you really have to be careful.

There it loomed, the Great Hall

Ritual incense burning

The Daibutsu, the largest bronze Buddha sculpture in the world

And the hole, which is the size of the sculpture’s norstrils (although I don’t think his nostrils are square). You can crawl through it for good fortune or something. Hamana-sensei got stuck in the hole for a while – it was terrible!

The stuff of nightmares

The deer are some kind of shinto messengers, by the way. Religions are mixed quite freely in Japan.

After Todaiji Hamana-sensei got us ice-creams (almost everyone chose tea-flavoured ones – nutheads! I chose chocolate, obviously), then Hamana-sensei went to queue for the tea offering ceremony and we got to go and visit the Yakushi-ji temple.

Then it was evening and time for the tea offering at Toshodaiji temple (no pictures allowed). We got to see the ceremony from the first row. It was performed by Abe Sosei, one of the gyotei, and was actually called a hochashiki (would have been called a kenchashiki if it had been performed by Oiemoto or Daisosho (the former grand master). A big part of the audience was very loud (because they were “not tea people”) but the ritual was still enjoyable to watch. I found it somehow eerie that he used a white fukusa (silk cloth) at one point of the offering (the usual fukusa colour for men being purple). Supposedly it symbolized his heart being extra pure.

Afterwards we were served tea and sweets, seated at tables rather than on the floor (ryuurei style) and got our first glimpses of the full moon.

Sculpture somewhere at the temple

Then we got lots of food – even a bento box to take home. Hmm, has it already become obvious that good food cheers me up?

On the way home we looked at the moon many times, and tried to figure out if the moon is actually inhabited by a hare, as Chinese beliefs say.

All in all a very nice day!

Already after spending a week here, I felt like I had been here forever, known these people forever, and the constant running around and exhaustion had started to feel normal. Now I’ve even started to like the taste of the tea (almost) and the seiza (sitting) hurts slightly less.

Observing the students in the school, I can only conclude that Japanese people (at least at this school) are like ants. They are constantly swarming around, each with their specific task to complete, never idle for half a minute, cooperating to make everything work. Whenever you meet someone, they greet you with a set phrase, and the best thing is usually to answer with the same phrase, no matter how confusing it may seem. For example, in the middle of the day they will usually utter a cheerful “Otsukaresama deeeesu!” (thank you for today’s hard work) to which you smile and answer “Otsukaresama deeeesu!”. Tea is clearly not a nice little hobby for people here – it’s deadly serious business, and you have to work like a pig to make it work. But there are beautiful ideas in the Way of Tea, such as: “Tea is a gift of your time/yourself”.

As for our typical day, it starts with morning tasks (arrival time depending of which task you have been assigned to do), then a morning lecture, then more tasks before the next lecture, then more tasks before lunch, then lunch for 15 minutes, then more tasks before the afternoon practical lessons begin, then more tasks after the lessons, then home for about half an hour to get changed into samue clothing, then dinner, then evening cleaning, then home after 7PM, and then dorm curfew at 21.50 (even on weekends). Also it’s so hot that you can normally feel the sweat just pouring down, even when you’re not in kimono. Everybody wants to save electricity in Japan now, so the air conditioners aren’t used in school unless it gets “absolutely unbearable”. There’s also rarely time to drink a glass of water during the days, so you will be close to fainting during the lessons. Generally water isn’t served anywhere in Japan – instead you get cold tea in the school cafeteria, at restaurants, cafes etc. Not ice tea, just tea that’s not quite cold.

Hamana-sensei did warn us that this program can be “mentally disturbing” and that people sometimes quit or disappear for weeks or months. I think the most stressful part is that everything is done as a collaborative effort, so that whenever you do something wrong, it becomes someone else’s problem.

As for the lectures, we’ve had several interesting ones. I enjoyed the one about Japanese History in particular. The lecturer was really good and also talked a bit about things that I’m very interested in, like theories of Japanese uniqueness and identity. A Japanese Art History lecture we had about emakimono (horizontal scrolls) was also highly enjoyable. Finally I get lectures on Japanese Art History! We’ve also had interesting lectures on Tea History in general and more specific topics like bamboo and pottery, the use and significance of fire and charcoal in Tea, and “September”. Hamana-sensei thought it was funny when I said that the Japanese are “obsessed” with seasons, but where else do you find at least ten different words for “September”?

Gary-sensei lectured us on what to do and what not to do here. It went mostly like: Do good, don’t do bad, don’t try to have hobbies, don’t do anything on weekends, your time is not yours, you’re late if you’re only five minutes early, don’t have relationships, don’t speak anything bad about the school to newspapers, etc etc. He also told us that in Kyoto, instead of arigatou (thank you), you’re supposed to say sumimasen, which literally means “it will never be finished”. Speaking of hobbies, we went to check out a calligraphy class one day after school, but maybe it’s better to just skip it…

On Wednesday we had haigata practice. Haigata means the formation of the sculpted ash in a brazier. We did a formation called nimonji-oshikiri, with two mountains and a valley. Every millimetre of the ash has to be sculpted perfectly. It takes about an hour to do if you’re unexperienced. Apparently the formation makes the fire stronger, so it’s not done purely out of aesthetic reasons, but the fact that there are at least 12 different “landscapes” you can sculpt…. Hmmm … My first one turned out terrible, but the second one I did for one of our lessons last week was a bit better.

Haigata tools

The Midorikai group watching Hamana-sensei do the haigata

Hamana-sensei’s perfect haigata. The symbol in the middle is a water symbol used to balance the fire.

On Friday, Okusama (Oiemoto’s wife) came to visit the school, which involved elaborate preparations. I’m not sure exactly what all was done for her, but I think watering of pavements and lint-rolling of stairs was involved… She had a talk session with the Midorikai students, asking us about everyday things. Then she just left. Speaking of formalities being important in Japan…

And yes, speaking of formalities being important in Japan, one day we also suddenly had to run to the Urasenke Center to formally greet the entire staff of the International Affairs Department. We introduced ourselves briefly for the gazillionth time, and then the head of the department stayed and chatted with us for a while, telling us that we should partake in the former Grand Master’s mission of World Peace through Tea. Sounds like an easy task! The former Grand Master is 88 years old but is currently busy travelling around the world spreading his peace message – that’s why we haven’t met him yet.

We have a weekly quiz on topics from the practical lessons (not from the theoretical lectures). The first one was on Monday. It didn’t go that well, but I was still surprised at how much I had already learned. There were question like: “When doing fukusasabaki to purify the natsume, in what level does the teishu fold it?” and “How much water is in the mizusashi when it is displayed on a tana from the beginning of the temae?”.

On Tuesday we had a lecture on zen buddhism and tea. Apparently tea practitioners and zen monks have much in common. “The cardinal principle of chanoyu (the way of tea) is peace of mind in your daily activities” – okay sure, but that’s something you probably should accomplish before coming here… Anyway, since peace of mind can be reached by meditation, we had a session of zen meditation. The zen experience remained quite far away from me, though, because I could only feel how extremely sleepy, hungry, hot and uncomfortable I was. At one point the teacher was walking around with a stick, hitting people who asked for it (because they were too sleepy or something). It would have been even more disturbing if he had hit people who didn’t ask for it, of course, but still… to hear the loud cracking sound of your classmates being hit very hard on the shoulders with a huge stick… I don’t know, it just wasn’t my thing at all.

Zazen room

As for the practical lessons, we did warigeiko the whole first week. It involves learning basic movements and temae (tea-making procedure) parts separately, such as ritual purifying of objects with the fukusa (thick red silk cloth). The fukusa is your heart (“Don’t place it on the floor – it’s your heart, remember!”), so you purify the things with your heart? We have lessons in different rooms on different days. Sometimes we’re in the large room without walls, and there might be three groups practicing side by side, which is very confusing since you can hear what the other teachers are saying as well. Even if there are no walls or doors, you have to remember where they would be if they were there, so that you know how to walk in the tea room, from where to slide into it (you don’t step into it) and so on. That’s how, when you do warigeiko, you will find yourself whisking imaginary tea within imaginary walls.

Way home from school

Mountains everywhere! (view from school)

Most of the teachers we have know English (this is an English-language program, after all), but they seem to have decided that our group knows Japanese well enough to be taught in Japanese. I think it’s very nice, and makes sense since the terminology is in Japanese anyway. Some of the teachers even lecture in Japanese.

After the first week, we were treated to a fancy welcome dinner at New Hankyu Hotel. We even got “drink as much as you can” tickets. It was very nice!

In the weekend I met Minami – she also introduced me to her friend Aya who lives in Kyoto very close to where I live. They have both lived in my home town and we laughed about the size of the city centre there compared to the cities here. We ate lunch,

then they patiently tried to find a café where I could get black tea and dessert that was not green tea-flavoured. Turned out to be impossible, and we found ourselves at an ice-cream place, them laughing at me trying to like the very alien flavours…

I’m in a country where it’s normal for cafés and shops to look like this from the outside. So unless you know where you’re going, you really don’t know where you’re going.

Afterwards we went to look at the Yasaka shrine,

(ran into an anti-nuclear demonstration on the way)

and then to the Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art, where we saw a nice Elliott Erwitt photo exhibition.

Some of the photos were exhibited in traditional Japanese rooms, which created an interesting contrast

In the weekend I also did some shopping. Found a great bookstore with an entire section of art books and journals with the kind of grotesque art/photography that’s so popular here. Bought a couple of very inspiring journals and some other magazines.

These are our school textbooks with tea terminology and such.

Took undecorated purikura alone, because I’m creepy like that

On Monday we made a field trip to Nara, but I will make a separate entry about that since we were assigned to write a report about it and this entry is already too long anyway.

Andrei & Mika checking the setup for bonryaku

On the second week we started with bonryakudemae, a very simple temae where you have a tray with a tea bowl, a chasen (whisk), chakin (folded linen cloth), chashaku (scoop) and natsume (tea container). You also have a kettle with hot water on a furo (brazier) and a kensui where you pour the used water, and sweets. And then you’re supposed to know what to do with it all and how… The bonryaku is apparently sometimes learned for a year, but we learned it for three days. It involves over 50 steps, the order of which simply has to be remembered. On the third day I managed to do it more or less successfully (thanks to Paulina training me in our practice room the previous evening) and both teacher and guests seemed very pleased, which of course made me happy. During the lessons we take turns being the “guests” that are served sweets and tea. Even the guests have strict rules they have to follow, phrases they have to remember to say in the right moment etc. During the tea-making procedure everything has to be perfect. If your movement is 1 cm off, the teacher will correct you.

Once when I carried a tray with sweets into the tea room, everybody cracked up really badly. I thought that I had placed the sweets in the wrong way somehow, maybe used the wrong kind of sweets or turned the tray the wrong way – but it turned out I had used a tray that was very shin (there are three ranks applied to various things, shin, gyo and so, shin being the most formal) and combined with the lower-rank sweets it looked very comical. Lol.

Yesterday we moved on to another temae, chitosebon. We weren’t taught how to do it first, we just had to try doing it by observing two people before us do it. The procedure had some similarities to bonryaku, but was also very different. All the items were in a large box in the beginning, for example. Usually our group (1A) have the practical lessons with just the four of us, but this time we had the lesson together with the senpai (1Bs). It was also special in the sense that our teacher was a gyotei, which means the highest of the high – the people who are direct disciples of Oiemoto, the grand master. Yikes! He was very friendly, though.

We currently have a three-day weekend

Anyway, as expected, we couldn’t fit all our tasks into one day yesterday. We came home after 7PM (as usual), having missed dinner, part of our preparation duties and all our cleaning duties (that we were supposed to help our senpai with). The day started with the Opening Ceremony. For some reason that nobody seemed to know, the Grand Master wasn’t present – instead his wife, Okusama (who is apparently a cousin of the Emperor) was there in his stead. Everybody sat on the floor in perfect rows, dead silent, for a long time before she arrived. After the ceremony, we did many things that I can’t remember the order of. We received our monthly “pocket money” directly from the hand of Okusama (went into the room one by one). 100.000 yen in a special envelope, in perfectly new and straight bills. Every month we will get the money personally from the Master, but right after that we have to pay back a small fee, which is very bothersome since one of us has to go and change the money into unused bills so that we can give them back.

We also went on a round of “greetings” to several places, to show our faces and introduce ourselves. We were photographed for student cards. We went inside the Konnichian. That was the most fascinating thing we did that day. The Konnichian is a building we have to bow in front of when we pass by it. We went through the main gate, which symbolized our becoming “insiders”. When we leave the school we will go through it once more. Inside is an absolutely gorgeous garden and a collection of historical tea rooms (the Master lives in the building just beside it). Being inside the building was like stepping back in time. We were allowed inside a room with an altar for Sen no Rikyu, our Tea ancestor, so to speak. It was very dark and you could only almost see the legs of the life-sized Rikyu statue behind a veil.

Japanese students walking through the Konnichian gate for the first time

Then perhaps after that, we and the entering Japanese students were served tea and a sweet. Again there were some things I didn’t know how to do, like how to touch/observe some objects that were being passed around, and the Japanese people laughed at me. But it’s no big deal, I don’t get the feeling that they laugh in a mean way. Then Hamana-sensei showed us around in many places, like the tea rooms in which we practise. Traditional Japanese architecture is just so fascinating: walls that are actually doors, walls that conceal endless cupboards, windows made from paper, rooms that can be combined in surprising ways… Hamana-sensei mentioned that we will be instantly deported if we start a fire while preparing tea, since a Midorikai student once burned down the school, which used to be in an old, valuable building.

I have a picture of the special welcome sweet we got, because my lovely classmates gave me an extra one later

In the afternoon, our classes started. We are doing warigeiko all week, which means the very basics. It’s fun, except that there’s so much physical pain involved. We’re learning how to sit, how to bow in various ways, how to walk in a tea room (this seems very complicated), names of things… For example, in an 8-tatami room each tatami mat has its own name, and depending of whether you go “up” or “down” in the room, you enter the mat with the right of left foot, and so on. The walking in itself is very difficult and looks funny – you sort of shuffle your feet to make a sound on the tatami, and so on. Also starting this week, our senpai are teaching us the preparation and cleaning tasks that we rotate among the seven of us. So for example, Andrei-senpai showed me what the fire person does. The fire person is also the towel person, which meant I got a bunch of towels to take home and wash and iron.

After the lesson, we had fitting for our tailor-made scholarship kimonos. We got to choose the colour of the kimono and pick an obi that goes with it, as well as the pattern on the white under-kimono. I chose a colour that I think is sort of (or maybe exactly) the colour of the Nadeshiko flower. I believe it will look fancy. From the same shop, I bought a navy blue Samue. We wear them while we clean, because you obviously can’t do any task in this country without a specific uniform for it. After the fitting, Kiki, Josh and I had to hurry to the other kimono shop by bus, to pick up the kimono we had reserved on Sunday. And that’s how we missed the evening cleaning.

Wearing Samue

Today our morning lectures began. We had lectures by two different teachers before lunch. There are various preparations to do before, between and after the lectures, since the teachers are served tea + sweets by the students, and we also have to clean the floors and everything after the lectures. Let’s just say that I thought the quality of the lectures was similar to the ones at Osaka University. Also, it’s interesting that the teachers openly show if they’re displeased with the tea or the sweets they’re served.

In the afternoon we had warigeiko again. We had a really nice teacher, whose way of teaching was very gentle and non-frightening. He spoke mostly in Japanese. Again we practiced how to walk, bow, turn, stand up and down, slide on the floor, and various things that made at least my legs scream for mercy. We also started to learn how to fold the fukusa, the silk cloth. The sensei said that “During tea, the fukusa is you” or something like that. In any case, it’s important. And like everything in Tea, it looks beautiful when you can do it well. I was happy that both my fukusa handling and walking improved a bit during the lesson. Oh and for the preparations today, I was the cha (tea) person, who does things like sifts the tea and puts the sifted tea in a natsume, tea container. This is a complicated procedure that involves getting the tea “mountain-shaped but not looking too perfect”. After the lessons, we went home and changed into Samue, then had dinner at the shokudo, then went back to the Gakuen to do the cleaning. Among other things, we have to clean the toilets, as well as crawl on the floor of the large practice room, cleaning a hundred and twenty tatami mats…

The Mizuya (Preparation room) where all the tea dogu (tools) are stored in absolutely perfect order and condition

View from the Mizuya window

I can’t remember what else we did today. Bought pretty tools for tomorrow’s haigata practice, but I’m too tired to take a picture of them now.

There’s a really lovely and cool breeze now after the typhoon, and it has been 10 degrees colder than when I got here and it was almost unbearably hot.

Since we’re getting the monthly scholarship tomorrow when school starts, we reserved the kimono for tomorrow. We bought some things used and some new. I chose a violet kimono (whatever type that was – there are countless…), a black obi with a pattern of violet dots, a pale pink thing that goes over that, and a string that goes on top of that… and that’s not nearly all the components yet.

Paulina and Josh getting fitted

Bought some of the necessary accessories: kimono bag, tabi (socks), tabi covers, zori (“shoes”)

We also went to a sweets shop where we got to see how the sweets are made. It was pretty impressive.

This is how it turned out. I think it was called Aki Bijin (autumn beauty) and modelled after a flower called Cosmos.

This is what the tea looks like that we drink all the time here

We’ve also tried to think of how to fit impossibly many things into one day tomorrow. Let’s see how it goes…