Tea Ceremony

Today has been a long day. It started with grocery shopping, which was very confusing:

The result was I avoided buying meat, and picked up cooking sake instead of cooking oil. Oh well! The food I made later was still pretty good. Everyone in the kitchen/lounge helped me figure out what I got -- Green Onion, Potatoes, Cucumber, Carrots, Cayenne Pepper, Mustard, Cooking Sake, Soy Sauce, and Vinegar.

Afterwards I ran to meet Jesse and Laur for the ICC tour, only to find out it's tomorrow. So, instead, we went to the club office and checked out basically every floor to see what clubs were available. We were greeted rather coldly by everyone, except the Tea club. They told us about their meeting later on, so we decided to go to that, and continued searching. We took a break for lunch, then headed to the Ceremony.

My lunch was "Tanuki Soba," Jesse got "Kitsune Soba," and Laur got "Katsu Don." Pictures are of Tanuki and Katsu (the woman basically told me their Katsu Don was famous so I had to take a picture of it when I was taking a picture of Tanuki. For reference: Tanuki = Racoon, Kitsune = Fox, Katsu = Fried Meat Cutlet, normally Pork as in Tonkatsu"

Tanuki Soba, Katsu Don

The Tea Ceremony was interesting. It was actually more casually done than the Korean ceremony, though this was just practice. Unfortunately Jesse is the only one that took pictures. We got to mix some powdered tea! I think all the tools and the tea were basically the same as in the Korean ceremony, however there was a bigger water boiler. It was pretty fun, and we met some interesting people. I exchanged phone information with a third-year student/possibly the club leader, Asami.

From there, Laur left and Jesse and I sort of wondered around. Eventually he led me to a 100 yen shop to buy a bowl, which was the final product necessary for me to cook. I have taken so many pictures of my food I did not bother this time. I will say it came out alright, better than I expected due to the lack of protein. Didn't do much else -- just some laundry. Though, Damon and Abby finally got phones! Also, they are cooking upstairs now with the aid of a few girls (probably a good thing).

Tomorrow I think Ben, Laur, and I will go to Edo. Should be fun!