Well, the year is slowly coming to an end. Last week, I had my last tea ceremony lesson of the year. In Urasenke tea ceremony, there are slight variances among the utensils, decorations, and methods used during each of the four seasons. Because Kumano had its first snow fall of the year (hatsui yuki) the day before my last class, I learned to preform the ceremony as one would during winter. To be honest it is probably the most difficult, but I still had a lot of fun during the lesson.
After attempting to perform the ceremony twice under my sensei's instruction, she my dressed me up in her friend's Kimono. And what a pleasant surprise that was! Regardless of my curiosity and intrigue of Japanese culture, I can't say I've ever thought I'd ever find myself dressed in a Kimono. A very enjoyable experience indeed.
After I took off the Kimono my sensei gave me a crash course on how to make dashi from scratch. In case you're wondering, dashi is a commonly used soup base made from Kombu (a kind of seaweed) and bonito (fish flakes). We enjoyed some delicious fried shrimp udon together. It was certainly a lovely way to end my last lesson of the year. I'm already looking foward to returning in January, and a little sad that I won't be practicing for a few weeks.IKEBANA
This morning I did two oshogatsu flower arrangements in honor of the coming new year - in Japan, the year of the Snake! I loved working with the traditional colours and materials for the new year, since my taste in plans and flowers tends to gravitate towards those that have a winter-like or Christmas feel. The most enjoyable aspect of creating a New Year's arrangement is that its acceptable to free style, so today I didn't have to follow any rules!
First arrangement:
Free Style Oshogatsu arrangement
Pine
Ornamental Cabbage
Willow - (dyed gold)
Senryo
Second Arrangement:
Free Style Oshogatsu arrangement (I think it looks like a form of Heika adaptation)
Pine
Willow
Ornamental Cabbage
Senryo (looks like holly desu ne?)
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