Tea and Me

Matsushita Denki, like any other large Japanese company, offers a multitude of clubs and activities to its employees. Unfortunately, since the lab where I work is rather out of the way, our options are few and far between. However, I have happened upon something interesting - the tea ceremony club.

I first heard about the club through my American coworker, Dusty, who attends on an infrequent basis. After attending a couple sessions and enjoying the company of the various members (not to mention the tasty pastries), I was inducted into the group and promptly taught the basics of proper tea preparation. We seem to be a pretty informal group though, as I was talking to Christopher about the matter (he attends tea ceremony club at his school), and he was talking about how the students had to spend several months of learning how to be a proper guest before they were allowed to start making tea.

Our sensei is an older woman who is always dressed in kimono. She instructs everyone on the proper movements and knows a lot about the history and details of the tea ceremony. She's really cool, and it's fun to talk to everyone in there about Japan and America and stuff. Everyone's quite impressed by my Japanese, especially since Dusty doesn't really speak the language at all. I also hear that he's pretty bad at making tea properly. ^_^;

The biggest problem with making tea is you have to remain kneeling the whole time. By the time I'm finished, I can hardly stand up because my feet keep falling asleep! Talk about awkward. But besides that, the whole thing is rather calm and relaxing. Learning the proper movements and order reminds me a lot of learning kata in karate, and well, that's a Japanese art too. Nice to see that it all ties together.

- Rindi

Current song: Random muzak from the overhead system
Current mood: Neutral

Picturesssssss

Yeah yeah, I finally pulled the old pictures from a month ago (OMG, I'm such a slacker D:) off my camera. Also took pictures today, so check 'em out, yo!

- Rindi

Current song: None at the moment... But there will be plenty of Pop'n Music soon. <_<
Current mood: Happy happy joy joy!

I am in Love!

...with Honey & Clover. I haven't enjoyed an anime this much in a long, long time. <3 <3 <3

Oh, and my Pop'n 13 LE came in tonight. I'm gonna check that out next!! 8D

- Rindi

Current song: Suneohair - Waltz (Honey & Clover ending song)
Current mood: Glee