May 1-9th: Chaji Prep
May 1st:
Received a reply from the friend that called today, it was completely innocuous. I have no idea why he called and I am still feeling a bit mixed up about it. I had a nice long morning of listening to music, making gyokuro and reading before I organized myself to head out and do some preparation for my chaji, which is about 2.5 weeks away. I started at Goryo Jinja, which will be the theme and inspiration for my event. Goryo Jinja is the protective shrine for the city of Kyoto, and their annual matsuri is on the 18th (same day as my chaji). Very fortuitous :) Between this and the beginning of summer and opening of the furo I have a lot of celebratory and happy things to choose from for toriawase. The first thing I saw when I walked into the shrine was all of the irises blooming, and there was a profusion of purple and green, it seemed like a good sign :) The mikoshi was already out on display and there were so many symbols and images, it was difficult not to get inspired. I checked out the water situation too, to see if it would be possible to use water from the Shrine for my chaji. It would be nice!
Afterwards I headed downtown to start on my quest, and got shomohin (hishaku, chasen, etc.) at Zuiun, and then invitation paper, and then searched all over Nishiki and Takashimaya for beniimo for my omogashi. No luck. Returned home a little sad, but went out again to Oimatsu and Tsuruya to check out the higashi situation. I knew what kind of higashi I wanted but I wanted to look over a few different places before I made my selection.
MY overall strategy for chaji prep is to get a lot of the basics done over break and get most of my toriawase (what utensils and theme I will use) finalized so that when school starts again I can focus on practicing my temae. We will see how it works out. Returned home at about 5 PM, made dinner and am enjoying a glass of wine while contemplating a few ideas about toriawase. It’s not bad, I think I might be enjoying myself so far. The omogashi might be an issue, but I hope to resolve it shortly.
Tonight we gathered in Wendy's room for tea and sweets. The girl really likes buying sweets. Her enthusiasm scares me sometimes, in a good way. I certainly don't mind when someone wants to serve me tea and sweets :) It was fun, Mai-chan and Wendy had an arm wrestling contest, and then Wendy and Talon kept telling really bad jokes. Fun evening. Now I have finally caught up again, and we will see if I can maintain this journal somehow through this month. Wish me luck.
May 2nd:
Woke up to a phone call from Hamana-sensei at about 8:45. I had slept too late anyways. Because I was still a little groggy, I forgot to ask him about where I could find beniimo and ended up sending him an email. I am starting to think this is a hopeless cause. FINALLY went out for a run at about 9:15, then came back, shower, bowl of tea, and off with Mecca to visit Goryo Jinja. We got to pray together for chaji success and then steal water for testing. Afterwards we went to Tawaraya to look at sweets, then get lunch, and then go to Vivre to see if they had beniimo. No luck. Starbucks on the way home to make myself feel better.
Mecca hasn’t been feeling well so I left her back at the dorm and went out in search of higashi at a few places, finally made my decision and placed an order, and then headed to Shijo to try to find beniimo at Daimaru and Meijiya. No and No. The crowds on Shijo were driving me mad. MAD. I went to Starbucks again, and then to the bookstore for a while to try to calm down. Finally wandered home around 6:30 and then got dinner for me and Mecca. After this I washed the sumi, and now if I have any energy left I will write the text for invitations. I feel like I should have accomplished more today. Grr...
I really don’t want to have to come up with a whole new concept for the sweets.
May 3rd:
Despite my desire to sit in bed all morning and be lazy, I went out to run again this morning. I can’t get over how beautiful it has been outside the last two days. All of a sudden it turned into summer. I even have a sunburn from walking around outside all day yesterday! The run felt good, and after the stress of the last two days I ended up taking the afternoon off, cooking food, watching TV and then cleaning my room for a long time. Yuichi was having a sweets night, but initially I decided not to go because I was feeling a bit down. I sat around reading for a bit, and then talked to Glenn-sensei online, thought about alternative sweets concepts, and then decided to force myself to be social and go after all.
I was glad that I went, it was a lot of fun :) Shiori, Maiko and Goto-san were there too and I hung out for a bit, ate some sweets, drank a bit of whiskey and sat with my favorite banana friend. Oh the banana. It was a good night.
May 4th:
Woke up early and went for a run about 8:30 AM, but it was already hot and humid! Whoa! Where did summer come from? When I came back I was debating whether or not to take a trip to Uji to see the fuji growing at Byodo-in (which I have still not been to) or to keep doing prep work for the chaji at home. I was feeling really tired, and the heat probably didn’t help, and in the end I decided to stay at home. I really want to see the fuji at Byodo-in, but I really couldn’t deal with the crowds and enjoy it while I was thinking about the things I should be doing here. Bah.
I ended up trying a kuzu shibori, which required cooking kuzu starch and sugar and mixing in shiroan and making a chakin shibori out of it. My initial attempt was not great...not terrible, but I have some adjustments to make. However, kuzu is really fun to play with! Mecca helped me out, and also cut the paper for my invitations, since I am completely inept at using a razor. What would I do without her??? ;) We went to get bento, and then I came back to go over some toriawase ideas, fold invitation paper, go over sweets ideas to practice the following day, and try to relax.
Unfortunately, I think I am going to be doing this for the next two weeks. Every time someone knocked on my door last night I just kept wishing that I could have one day completely to myself. I started thinking about traveling again, its been almost five months since I was in Thailand, and I’m starting to get the urge to just go somewhere again. This kind of thinking is dangerous, and I still haven’t figured out what I am going to do during the time between when the program ends in July in when I start grad school in September. We shall see.
May 5th:
Instead of going for a run, I took a morning to sit in bed and enjoy the summer breezes coming through the windows. Breakfast was slow and leisurely with a good cup of coffee and I sat with one of my favorite books for a long time. It was extremely nice. I received some feedback from Glenn-sensei about the sweets I was making, and decided to go back for a second try. The second time around I tried making a shiro an ball inside of a layer of kuzu on the outside, and it turned out really great! I was so pleased! I immediately called Mecca over to come and taste it and we agreed it was a great improvement. I HAVE MY SWEET. HAHAHAHA!
Somehow that had become a big worry for me, so having the omogashi figured out made me feel a lot better. I spent the rest of the afternoon studying, reading up on temae and seasonal things and trying to work out my toriawase a bit more.
Wendy came by at about 4 in the afternoon to say that she had bought kashiwa mochi and her chinese tea set had arrived, so we all spent the remainder of the afternoon in my room drinking tea and eating sweets. The breeze was so nice, and the tea and sweets were really lovely, and I was so happy that the omogashi came out well...when I have those moments sometimes I think I could just sit and drink tea forever.
After everyone left I cooked myself some dinner (more practice making dashi) and texted Mari and Nozomi to see if they would come and try my sweets, because I couldn’t eat them all myself! They came by and I gave them sweets and tea and we chatted for a bit about the holiday and what everyone was up to. Those two are really fun :) We set up the 14th as Monopoly part time, I am excited! Yay Monopoly party!
Now I will watch Glee and go to bed, and hope that the next two weeks go smoothly. I *heart* Glee.
May 6th:
Back to school! I got up early and went to the office to give Hamana-sensei my omogashi to have him try it. He was alright with the concept (it’s too early for kuzu), but wanted me to change the color if I kept the name I had chosen. Nothing is ever good enough :) I am violently opposed to changing the color, but I didn’t express that opinion at the time.
Went to school after my discussion with him, and we had a Principal’s meeting with Oiemoto-sama in the morning, which was the first for the kohai. Immediately before the meeting we received our scholarship, and had to walk into the classroom later than the rest of the Gakuensei, which was a little awkward. Ah well.
Mecca still wasn’t feeling well, so we sent her home after the morning lecture, and I missed her all day! My toban was just tatami today, but I helped out with hi (fire) as well. All was chaos in the chashitsu before class since the 1A’s were doing hishaku warigeiko and we needed to set up 8 furokama in the chashitsu. Okamoto-san had also informed us that morning that our room was changed so we had to put them all in room 6, instead of up on the 3rd floor. We were all running around like crazy trying to get everything set up properly. Madness.
It was the first day back in furo and everything felt so strange! I was up first with shozumi, and despite the fact that I reviewed the temae multiple times I couldn’t remember anything! It didn’t help that it was so hot, and wearing awase kimono all day was making me feel a bit ill. It was like my first couple of weeks all over again. I quite literally felt sick and dizzy all day and kept leaving the room between temae to go get water. Everything was sticking to me. Gross. I was able to do usucha as well, which was good. It was a reminder of how much I will need to practice temae before I have my chaji. AHHH!
Following jitsugi I immediately ran and stripped off my kimono, changed into samuei, and went to meet with Hamana-sensei to talk about chaji progress and my toriawase. I really suck at toriawase. I feel terrible for not having better planning skills for this chaji. I just want to make tea. That’s all. Sometimes I couldn’t care less about the dogu. There. I said it.
The meeting with Hamana-sensei was alright, but I usually feel like everything I say is wrong so I just don’t say what I am thinking. It’s probably not the best way to go about things, but whatever. As long as the work gets done.
Tatami cleaning after that, and then I went home and made food since I was too late for dinner in the shokudo. Mai-chan stopped by while I was finishing a glass of wine (I had pasta!) and started questioning my drinking habits. Yes. I do drink a lot here. I appreciate her concern, but it’s not necessary...yet. ;) We ended up having a nice chat. She is really very sweet. Now is is sleep time.
May 7th:
Zen in the morning after a night of restless sleep. I kept waking up and thinking of mukade, not a good sign. Zen was fine, and as usual I am not able to turn off my brain. The difference is I actually tried this time.
Jitsugi: gozumi, tana usucha and koicha. Toban: Nishi and hi (fire). I wasn’t actually hi, but I was helping out Khai today. Since I was trying to balance both jobs I was scrambling a bit more than usual, plus trying to make sure the junbi (preparations) were ready since I was going to do first temae as well. It wasn’t as warm today as the day before, but I was still feeling uncomfortable in awase kimono, especially after hi, so I was feeling a bit on edge by the time class started.
SURPRISE! Nakajima GYOTEI sensei walked in to teach our class. It was our first time having a Gyotei sensei teach us, and you could feel the tension in the room rising. Lucky me being the first temae. I have to say, I have never done a temae so poorly in my life. Seriously. I dropped the damn chashaku three times. Figures. It was a really excellent experience though, and he had a lot of good advice for everyone (me specifically: posture, handling of chawan, handling of hishaku). Mecca had gone home sick so I was able to do usucha at the end of class as well. It went a bit more smoothly, but I was thinking so much about not making mistakes that of course I made many mistakes. Such is life.
After class I ran off, checked on Mecca and the girls all went to dinner together. We were a bit more rowdy tonight than usual, it was fun :) Since then I have taken the evening off, watching TV and trying not to stress about chaji planning without much success. Tomorrow I will go to Osaka to meet up with some friends so that should help me to unwind a bit. I’m looking forward to it :)
May 8th:
Woke up, cleaned a bit, made myself pretty and headed down to Osaka. The weather was beautiful and I was listening to fun music and reading The Prince, so I was in a very good mood! It was great to see Sahori and Yas again! We hung out and ate okonomiyaki for lunch, walked through a rose garden, had afternoon tea (amazing scones with clotted cream. seriously. amazing.), and then took a boat ride down to Osaka-jo. All in all it was a perfectly lovely day!
By the time I got home at around 7 PM I was pretty tired and ended up chilling out for the evening, I was happy to take some time for myself.
May 9th:
Had a late morning, but ended up going running at about 10:30. It was hot, but it was a good run. Once I got home I ran into Mai-chan who offered to make me Vietnamese noodles for lunch! How can I say no to that? She is wonderful and adorable! We ended up eating together in my room and chatting about cooking and various things.
I set up a mini-chashitsu in my room to start practicing temae for the chaji, and then hung out in my room for a while making my invitations while watching TV. Still seriously addicted to Lost, now halfway through season 5. Once the invitations were finished I did another sweets test; I tried a new technique recommended by Glenn-sensei...sadly I do not have the skills to pull it off. Ah well.
In the evening I met up with my kimono sensei for a bit and then reviewed sumi demae for the chaji with Mecca. Toriawase is still not done, but I am feeling a little better about it. I will hand out the invitations tomorrow! Eeeee!
Received a reply from the friend that called today, it was completely innocuous. I have no idea why he called and I am still feeling a bit mixed up about it. I had a nice long morning of listening to music, making gyokuro and reading before I organized myself to head out and do some preparation for my chaji, which is about 2.5 weeks away. I started at Goryo Jinja, which will be the theme and inspiration for my event. Goryo Jinja is the protective shrine for the city of Kyoto, and their annual matsuri is on the 18th (same day as my chaji). Very fortuitous :) Between this and the beginning of summer and opening of the furo I have a lot of celebratory and happy things to choose from for toriawase. The first thing I saw when I walked into the shrine was all of the irises blooming, and there was a profusion of purple and green, it seemed like a good sign :) The mikoshi was already out on display and there were so many symbols and images, it was difficult not to get inspired. I checked out the water situation too, to see if it would be possible to use water from the Shrine for my chaji. It would be nice!
Afterwards I headed downtown to start on my quest, and got shomohin (hishaku, chasen, etc.) at Zuiun, and then invitation paper, and then searched all over Nishiki and Takashimaya for beniimo for my omogashi. No luck. Returned home a little sad, but went out again to Oimatsu and Tsuruya to check out the higashi situation. I knew what kind of higashi I wanted but I wanted to look over a few different places before I made my selection.
MY overall strategy for chaji prep is to get a lot of the basics done over break and get most of my toriawase (what utensils and theme I will use) finalized so that when school starts again I can focus on practicing my temae. We will see how it works out. Returned home at about 5 PM, made dinner and am enjoying a glass of wine while contemplating a few ideas about toriawase. It’s not bad, I think I might be enjoying myself so far. The omogashi might be an issue, but I hope to resolve it shortly.
Tonight we gathered in Wendy's room for tea and sweets. The girl really likes buying sweets. Her enthusiasm scares me sometimes, in a good way. I certainly don't mind when someone wants to serve me tea and sweets :) It was fun, Mai-chan and Wendy had an arm wrestling contest, and then Wendy and Talon kept telling really bad jokes. Fun evening. Now I have finally caught up again, and we will see if I can maintain this journal somehow through this month. Wish me luck.
May 2nd:
Woke up to a phone call from Hamana-sensei at about 8:45. I had slept too late anyways. Because I was still a little groggy, I forgot to ask him about where I could find beniimo and ended up sending him an email. I am starting to think this is a hopeless cause. FINALLY went out for a run at about 9:15, then came back, shower, bowl of tea, and off with Mecca to visit Goryo Jinja. We got to pray together for chaji success and then steal water for testing. Afterwards we went to Tawaraya to look at sweets, then get lunch, and then go to Vivre to see if they had beniimo. No luck. Starbucks on the way home to make myself feel better.
Mecca hasn’t been feeling well so I left her back at the dorm and went out in search of higashi at a few places, finally made my decision and placed an order, and then headed to Shijo to try to find beniimo at Daimaru and Meijiya. No and No. The crowds on Shijo were driving me mad. MAD. I went to Starbucks again, and then to the bookstore for a while to try to calm down. Finally wandered home around 6:30 and then got dinner for me and Mecca. After this I washed the sumi, and now if I have any energy left I will write the text for invitations. I feel like I should have accomplished more today. Grr...
I really don’t want to have to come up with a whole new concept for the sweets.
May 3rd:
Despite my desire to sit in bed all morning and be lazy, I went out to run again this morning. I can’t get over how beautiful it has been outside the last two days. All of a sudden it turned into summer. I even have a sunburn from walking around outside all day yesterday! The run felt good, and after the stress of the last two days I ended up taking the afternoon off, cooking food, watching TV and then cleaning my room for a long time. Yuichi was having a sweets night, but initially I decided not to go because I was feeling a bit down. I sat around reading for a bit, and then talked to Glenn-sensei online, thought about alternative sweets concepts, and then decided to force myself to be social and go after all.
I was glad that I went, it was a lot of fun :) Shiori, Maiko and Goto-san were there too and I hung out for a bit, ate some sweets, drank a bit of whiskey and sat with my favorite banana friend. Oh the banana. It was a good night.
May 4th:
Woke up early and went for a run about 8:30 AM, but it was already hot and humid! Whoa! Where did summer come from? When I came back I was debating whether or not to take a trip to Uji to see the fuji growing at Byodo-in (which I have still not been to) or to keep doing prep work for the chaji at home. I was feeling really tired, and the heat probably didn’t help, and in the end I decided to stay at home. I really want to see the fuji at Byodo-in, but I really couldn’t deal with the crowds and enjoy it while I was thinking about the things I should be doing here. Bah.
I ended up trying a kuzu shibori, which required cooking kuzu starch and sugar and mixing in shiroan and making a chakin shibori out of it. My initial attempt was not great...not terrible, but I have some adjustments to make. However, kuzu is really fun to play with! Mecca helped me out, and also cut the paper for my invitations, since I am completely inept at using a razor. What would I do without her??? ;) We went to get bento, and then I came back to go over some toriawase ideas, fold invitation paper, go over sweets ideas to practice the following day, and try to relax.
Unfortunately, I think I am going to be doing this for the next two weeks. Every time someone knocked on my door last night I just kept wishing that I could have one day completely to myself. I started thinking about traveling again, its been almost five months since I was in Thailand, and I’m starting to get the urge to just go somewhere again. This kind of thinking is dangerous, and I still haven’t figured out what I am going to do during the time between when the program ends in July in when I start grad school in September. We shall see.
May 5th:
Instead of going for a run, I took a morning to sit in bed and enjoy the summer breezes coming through the windows. Breakfast was slow and leisurely with a good cup of coffee and I sat with one of my favorite books for a long time. It was extremely nice. I received some feedback from Glenn-sensei about the sweets I was making, and decided to go back for a second try. The second time around I tried making a shiro an ball inside of a layer of kuzu on the outside, and it turned out really great! I was so pleased! I immediately called Mecca over to come and taste it and we agreed it was a great improvement. I HAVE MY SWEET. HAHAHAHA!
Somehow that had become a big worry for me, so having the omogashi figured out made me feel a lot better. I spent the rest of the afternoon studying, reading up on temae and seasonal things and trying to work out my toriawase a bit more.
Wendy came by at about 4 in the afternoon to say that she had bought kashiwa mochi and her chinese tea set had arrived, so we all spent the remainder of the afternoon in my room drinking tea and eating sweets. The breeze was so nice, and the tea and sweets were really lovely, and I was so happy that the omogashi came out well...when I have those moments sometimes I think I could just sit and drink tea forever.
After everyone left I cooked myself some dinner (more practice making dashi) and texted Mari and Nozomi to see if they would come and try my sweets, because I couldn’t eat them all myself! They came by and I gave them sweets and tea and we chatted for a bit about the holiday and what everyone was up to. Those two are really fun :) We set up the 14th as Monopoly part time, I am excited! Yay Monopoly party!
Now I will watch Glee and go to bed, and hope that the next two weeks go smoothly. I *heart* Glee.
May 6th:
Back to school! I got up early and went to the office to give Hamana-sensei my omogashi to have him try it. He was alright with the concept (it’s too early for kuzu), but wanted me to change the color if I kept the name I had chosen. Nothing is ever good enough :) I am violently opposed to changing the color, but I didn’t express that opinion at the time.
Went to school after my discussion with him, and we had a Principal’s meeting with Oiemoto-sama in the morning, which was the first for the kohai. Immediately before the meeting we received our scholarship, and had to walk into the classroom later than the rest of the Gakuensei, which was a little awkward. Ah well.
Mecca still wasn’t feeling well, so we sent her home after the morning lecture, and I missed her all day! My toban was just tatami today, but I helped out with hi (fire) as well. All was chaos in the chashitsu before class since the 1A’s were doing hishaku warigeiko and we needed to set up 8 furokama in the chashitsu. Okamoto-san had also informed us that morning that our room was changed so we had to put them all in room 6, instead of up on the 3rd floor. We were all running around like crazy trying to get everything set up properly. Madness.
It was the first day back in furo and everything felt so strange! I was up first with shozumi, and despite the fact that I reviewed the temae multiple times I couldn’t remember anything! It didn’t help that it was so hot, and wearing awase kimono all day was making me feel a bit ill. It was like my first couple of weeks all over again. I quite literally felt sick and dizzy all day and kept leaving the room between temae to go get water. Everything was sticking to me. Gross. I was able to do usucha as well, which was good. It was a reminder of how much I will need to practice temae before I have my chaji. AHHH!
Following jitsugi I immediately ran and stripped off my kimono, changed into samuei, and went to meet with Hamana-sensei to talk about chaji progress and my toriawase. I really suck at toriawase. I feel terrible for not having better planning skills for this chaji. I just want to make tea. That’s all. Sometimes I couldn’t care less about the dogu. There. I said it.
The meeting with Hamana-sensei was alright, but I usually feel like everything I say is wrong so I just don’t say what I am thinking. It’s probably not the best way to go about things, but whatever. As long as the work gets done.
Tatami cleaning after that, and then I went home and made food since I was too late for dinner in the shokudo. Mai-chan stopped by while I was finishing a glass of wine (I had pasta!) and started questioning my drinking habits. Yes. I do drink a lot here. I appreciate her concern, but it’s not necessary...yet. ;) We ended up having a nice chat. She is really very sweet. Now is is sleep time.
May 7th:
Zen in the morning after a night of restless sleep. I kept waking up and thinking of mukade, not a good sign. Zen was fine, and as usual I am not able to turn off my brain. The difference is I actually tried this time.
Jitsugi: gozumi, tana usucha and koicha. Toban: Nishi and hi (fire). I wasn’t actually hi, but I was helping out Khai today. Since I was trying to balance both jobs I was scrambling a bit more than usual, plus trying to make sure the junbi (preparations) were ready since I was going to do first temae as well. It wasn’t as warm today as the day before, but I was still feeling uncomfortable in awase kimono, especially after hi, so I was feeling a bit on edge by the time class started.
SURPRISE! Nakajima GYOTEI sensei walked in to teach our class. It was our first time having a Gyotei sensei teach us, and you could feel the tension in the room rising. Lucky me being the first temae. I have to say, I have never done a temae so poorly in my life. Seriously. I dropped the damn chashaku three times. Figures. It was a really excellent experience though, and he had a lot of good advice for everyone (me specifically: posture, handling of chawan, handling of hishaku). Mecca had gone home sick so I was able to do usucha at the end of class as well. It went a bit more smoothly, but I was thinking so much about not making mistakes that of course I made many mistakes. Such is life.
After class I ran off, checked on Mecca and the girls all went to dinner together. We were a bit more rowdy tonight than usual, it was fun :) Since then I have taken the evening off, watching TV and trying not to stress about chaji planning without much success. Tomorrow I will go to Osaka to meet up with some friends so that should help me to unwind a bit. I’m looking forward to it :)
May 8th:
Woke up, cleaned a bit, made myself pretty and headed down to Osaka. The weather was beautiful and I was listening to fun music and reading The Prince, so I was in a very good mood! It was great to see Sahori and Yas again! We hung out and ate okonomiyaki for lunch, walked through a rose garden, had afternoon tea (amazing scones with clotted cream. seriously. amazing.), and then took a boat ride down to Osaka-jo. All in all it was a perfectly lovely day!
By the time I got home at around 7 PM I was pretty tired and ended up chilling out for the evening, I was happy to take some time for myself.
May 9th:
Had a late morning, but ended up going running at about 10:30. It was hot, but it was a good run. Once I got home I ran into Mai-chan who offered to make me Vietnamese noodles for lunch! How can I say no to that? She is wonderful and adorable! We ended up eating together in my room and chatting about cooking and various things.
I set up a mini-chashitsu in my room to start practicing temae for the chaji, and then hung out in my room for a while making my invitations while watching TV. Still seriously addicted to Lost, now halfway through season 5. Once the invitations were finished I did another sweets test; I tried a new technique recommended by Glenn-sensei...sadly I do not have the skills to pull it off. Ah well.
In the evening I met up with my kimono sensei for a bit and then reviewed sumi demae for the chaji with Mecca. Toriawase is still not done, but I am feeling a little better about it. I will hand out the invitations tomorrow! Eeeee!