Mountains and Matcha

Today was awesome. It began with some serious doubts as to whether I should have said yes to going (not thrilled about the 6:45 pick up time...) but I would have been seriously disappointed if I hadn't gone.

Pictures first, then a summary, then more pictures of last Monday, Friday, and Saturday! So keep scrolling!

Almost an hour out from Hamamatsu - saw the most adorable ちちゃい cars!! IWANTONE. They were so tiny the drivers actually pulled forward after backing into the parking spaces so they were more even with the larger cars beside them.

I'm always amazed at the power of water, the whole side of the this foothill was completely washed away by rain. Amazing. 

Close up...おちゃ farm up at the top (those perfect rows that look a lot like the ones down below)

We learned today that Tempura oil is made from Ocha leaves...do you have any idea how much better that makes me feel about having tempura veggies??

Uh...first obstacle as Tiffany put it. Not too bad, but a little slippery. I'm not sure if the road just washed away or if there was work being done on it. But we had to pack down the dirt/stones to create a path across. It was fun!

Epic shot 1

And duo... you can see the river down below on the left. 

The water up in the mountains is perfectly clear, nothing taints it and there are sections where it's a very vibrant blue-green-grey color, but still crystal clear. Gorgeous.

ハイキング!!!!

Artist shot :p jk...bridge marker below a shrine to a god of protection

AH you can see that blue color I mentioned earlier here!! 

Everyone else :) 

Suh-weet suspension bridge waaaaay above the river that swayed soooo much as you walked across it. Nice swaying.

Log cabin - ログホウス in Japanese. Absolutely gorgeous architecture.

Dream cabin :3

Ffffire

Martin-san being all epic and splitting wood  like a man...

ごんばって Tiffany!!! - Tiffany proved to be quite a formidable splitter

Pine bark strips 

Yeah we just build stairs in a couple of hours here, no big deal...

Suzuki-sensei just has to keep proving himself epic...66 years old and he out-split all of us young-uns

HOT POT!!

I'm in love with the way they designed the interior of the cabin.

Kadekawa-sensei showing us a miniature version of this

And again...the arrow was pretty off balance so it zigzagged everywhere but he still made the far target up on the hillside

コーヒータイム!

 Ok...first of all I need to qualify this video....that stupid glove was the stiffest thing I've ever put my hand inside of and was massive. Also. Kadekawa-sensei is a sneak photographer/videographer....

  

I adore these mountains.

Alright, so early morning pick up (after a late night celebrating Otou-san's birthday) and a long drive before we met everyone at a convenience store in the foothills of the mountains. I discovered that you can get hot coffee in aluminum cans from Japanese じはん - which is really shocking when you're expecting a cold coffee, also, metal cans are really hot when heated [[der]]. 

I was blown away by the mountains in this part of Kosai...I thought the mountains around Hamanako were beautiful, but these mountains were so much farther removed from the city that it just made everything more peaceful. If you've every seen Ponyo or any of Miyazaki's films that involve driving in the mountains, he wasn't exaggerating that much...the road starts out at the bottom as a two lane road that quickly converges into a one lane - but two way - road, with curves hard enough that I was thankful that we had a great driver handling the turns. There were quite a few instances where other cars had to find a little nook to tuck into so that our three car caravan could squeeze by (No joke, we were less than a 8 inch away from another car and hugging the guard rail the whole time...). From the bottom of the mountain it was about a 45 minute drive. Then the walk to the cabin was another 45ish minutes. From the washed out area (our first obstacle) it was about a 4km walk, pretty easy. Apparently, the rock/dirt/dunnowhatiswhatanymore road we were walking on is used for cars but idk how safe a drive that would be... My favorite part of hikes like this, where things are slow because it's not about speed, is noticing the little hidden things that could be missed by the larger picture - like the little rain catching containers I saw through out, an ant carrying his lunch across the road, a VERY fast lizard with vibrantgorgeousbeautiful colors all down his black body, the trickles of water that just wet the rock faces enough to make them seem as though they're glazed with glass - these are the things that I enjoy most. I love hiking when it's a difficult climb or about speed, but I enjoy taking in moments. Just moments. Things that will never happen again the same way exactly. Like crossing a river. 

First order of business when we reached the cabin was airing it out, starting a fire, moving all our food supplies inside so that lunch could be started. Thankfully, the wood we ended up burning didn't smoke as badly as the kindling...that was awful >.< Everyone watched Suzuki-sensei split wood for a while until he decided to stop being epic and give someone else a go at attempting to be as cool as him...and thus began the wood splitting episode...

Things I successfully did today:

- split wood (second log was really hard. I mean physically it was hard, did NOT want to split. First log was easy one-two-done but was the second? ooooh no). 

- avoided mountain leeches..YUCK. OMW they were the most disgusting thing ever *shudders*. Lindsey found one on her pant leg and though it was an inch worm ... until Suzuki-sensei started freaking out. Um, can I just say that watching that thing in its death throes in a mound of salt was really nasty? it started bleeding out from the bottom and then writhed around and then finally just became a pool of blood. UGH.

- Understood more conversation than I expected to! I always have trouble understanding people right away if I haven't heard them talking before...it takes a little while to get used to each person's individual speech pattern

- skipped a rock! I haven't been able to do that since I was six! of course...no one saw it, so I have no one to corroborate my story...

- used the longest longbow I've ever seen. Japanese ゆみ are very different too...they're longer on the top than on the bottom, so the pull feels really different from a symmetrical longbow. Also, I have no idea how you're supposed to aim with them, because the arrow doesn't cross over, it lays on the right side, so there's no way to line it up with your line of sight. Also, there was this glove. That glove was awful. I mean, it was great if you were using it for a long time, I'm sure, and if it fit you. But it was huge and made of leather that was sooooo stiff. 

- lost an arrow :s Suzuki-sensei kept saying うえ、うえ、うえ, so I aimed うえ、うえ、うえ and buh-bye arrow...

- hit the target :D

5/20/2013 - Monday

Monday after school, Lindesey, Tiffany and I went with Ojii-san to his ちんどん practice. ちんどん is basically the loudest and most interesting drum I've ever seen. And I finally got an explanation for Ojii-chan's hobby of "traditional sandwich board advertising" - I had a whaaaaa-? moment when I first found out what Ojii-chan's hobby was.

But rather than me trying to explain it...

Ojii-chan's group has traveled to Portugal, Spain, Germany, and somewhere else...for competitions. This year they're headed to Poland to compete! Using a mix of traditional instruments and contemporary instruments, groups like this compete by either singing or creating a short skit accompanied by music to sell either a product or store - think precursor to television/newspaper adverts - you want to get your store's name out there, especially during festival season when lots of people are gathered in one town, loud music and laughter will do that ;)

5/24/2013 - Friday

Friday, instead of having a normal day of classes (I'm going to upload week 2's schedule soon so you can see how much we're covering in one week...) we had a day of cultural exploration! It was really relieving for me, because I haven't had a chance to make any art over here (don't have any supplies anyway) and we had a calligraphy class in the morning :) I could totally get down with just calligraphy classes all day. Not gonna lie.

After lunch, we piled into a couple cars and drove 45 minutes to Hamanako, to this gorgeous hotel, where we were greeted by the owner. She went out of her way to provide us with another cultural experience apart from the one she had been booked for (tea ceremony, which is beautiful. Please, please do this at least once if you're visiting/staying/living in Japan). She had arranged for us to see a traditional Japanese dance - a tale, really. I'm so mad at myself for not grabbing my camera BEFORE it started so I could take some pictures of it...it was incredibly moving. I couldn't understand the story (a poem, about a famous poet, hah) as it was playing, but I could feel the sadness of the story through the dancer's movements. Each movement informed the next subtle fold of her kimono sleeves, near stomp of her foot, twist of a wrist, shift of balance. The subtlety of her motions is what captivated me the most, I think.

After that, we all changed into ゆかった, summer weight kimono:

  

.....hips....*headdesk*

Annnnyway...so yukatta, I have a love/hate relationship with them....I adore them, because I've always loved the way kimono look. I love the bright colors, the patterns, the way you can mix and match and look fantastic, not to mention the fact that they are so nice and lightweight for the summer...but...unless you have a very expensive kimono - or are of the male species - they have a bad habit of either making you look like a board or a wide board or much wider than you actually are. 

BUT that's besides the point. We were going to be part of a tea ceremony. That's the only thing that mattered :) 

Tea ceremonies are highly ritualized, each movement is meaningful and is reflective of the action just taken, both for the hostess and the guest. It begins with wiping each instrument (cup, match spoon, ladle) with the same cloth the server uses to handle each item and also protect her hands from the heat of the かま. Before this, though, each guest enters the tea room and is invited to view the seasonal poem scroll, flower arrangement, and other artistic item opposite the guest entrance. Once each guest is seated and has bowed to the hostess and each other, the tea is made and a light snack is handed out.

 After the matcha has been placed into the cup (each cup is fairly large and wide to allow for whisking of the matcha - powdered green tea, which is delicious), hot water is ladled carefully into the bowl, and the ladle is then placed just so that it is upright but does not drip. Then, the matcha is whisked until it becomes frothy and handed to the hostess, who places it before the first guest. The guest and hostess bow to each other, bow to the second guest, bow to each other, and then the cup is lifted with the right hand only onto the left hand, turned clockwise twice, so that the decorative side faces away from the mouth and may be viewed by the other guests, and then the tea is drunk. This is repeated for each guest. Once the tea has been finished, the guest wipes the area of the cup their mouth touched (almost as an apology that it touched such a lovely thing), turns the cup twice counterclockwise, and places it before them. Thanking the hostess for the tea is up to the guest (though not thanking them would probably mean you didn't like the tea...). Once everyone has finished, the first guest exits, then the second, and so on. And that concludes the ceremony. 

Because we had a large group, we went in two separate ceremonies, but that was really nice because we were able to watch the ceremony from both view points (the hostess/sensei/hotel owner left the door open so that everyone could be a part of both). Then we were invited to make our own cup of matcha, all together. The whisks are made of finely split and gently curved bamboo. I really like the frothiness of whisked matcha - you can get matcha from any grocery store here, since it's very convenient when you want hot green tea, you just pour hot water over the matcha and voile, green tea. But when it's whisked, it tastes better. 

I know I said I'd write about Saturday (yesterday) too, but it's 1:30 AM and study/futon are calling my name. I'll get another post up ASAP :)