Ikebana, Tea ceremony and life

So last week for our tea ceremony (Sadou) class, we got to try a little bit of Ikebana (flower arrangement).  The teacher put in front of us 2 piles and I forgot what each one is called, but one pile had the greens (leaves and stuff) and the other had the color (flowers, etc.). So we were instructed to pick one from each, pick a vase and arrange them in there.  It doesn't seem hard at all, but some flowers just don't go well with some types of leaves, and you have to pick a vase that provides the right aesthetics.  By the time I got access to the piles, most of the good ones were gone (in my opinion) and I guess I don't really have the right eye for this, so the teacher helped me a lot.  So even though I would like to take credit for my arrangement, I really can't lol.  Since this ikebana was for sadou (part of the ceremony involves gazing and appreciating the beauty of the flower arrangement in the room), it's supposed to be beautiful, but simple.  Basically it's not supposed to attract too much attention because the focus is on the tea and not the flowers.
Also when you arrange them, they should either stick up vertically or lean forward, never backward.  There's a lot more to ikebana than this, but this is all they really taught us since it's a sadou class.  This is mine, isn't it pretty? :D




My friend and I after finishing our ikebana; that's our sensei (teacher) in the back doing last minute touch ups:




Everyone's ikebana. Can you spot mine? =)




These are the okashi (sweets) that we eat before drinking our tea. They are always really good (very sweet) and really pretty and cute. The reason why they're so sweet is because the tea isn't sweet whatsoever, in fact it's a little bitter, so eating this before drinking makes the tea less bitter and more enjoyable. I will explain tea ceremony in more detail next time.
 



Normally for the ceremony there is only one flower arrangement in the room, just FYI. =P




 I took these pictures to give you a good sense of what the traditional room looks like. The floor is made up of tatami mats, and all the doors are sliding doors. The ones leading to outside (the ones you can see in the pictures) are just made of paper and wood. They are pretty delicate and fairly easy to break I think.  Also that's my friend again, and he is sitting in traditional seiza style with feet tucked under and hands places elegantly on the thighs (your sitting directly on your heels/under arch of your feet).  This seiza position is pretty natural for Japanese people, but not for most foreigners.  For me I physically could not do the seiza position the first class, because it immediately cuts of the blood circulation and puts your foot to sleep.  With each class I've been getting a little better at it and able to sit for longer each time, but it's still painful for me lol.  I think the average Japanese person can sit in seiza for around an hour or so before it starts to get uncomfortable. 




 There's us both in seiza, and that's an example sadou style ikebana behind us.




 Both rooms in one shot; the room beyond is the waiting room, and the room I'm taking the picture from is the room the ceremony takes place (where you drink your tea, etc.)





Every once in a while we go to the gyudon place to eat because it's super cheap, and close to our dorm (next to that izakaya we always go to, and Cafe de Cozy Cozy).  This was actually also the first place I ate at when I arrived in Japan :)
Just as a reminder, gyudon is basically beef over rice, and there are 3 kinds you can get; the most expensive one is not only slightly bigger in quantity, the quality of the beef is better too.  I always just nami, or the regular kind since I don't really care, and it's the cheapest (380 yen).  That's it in front of me:





 Later that week we had Japanese curry night at our dorm, so we all helped out cutting vegetables and cleaning, and then sat together as a family:




The curry turned out to be really good, better than the one I buy at the campus cafeteria.  One of my dorm-mates came up with the idea of sprinkling some mozzarella cheese on top of the curry at the very end before eating so that it would melt with the heat, and it was surprisingly delicious.  (you can't see it here since we sprinkled it on our individual plates)





One night my friend and I were hungry but didn't want to spend too much money, so we went to the convenience store, bought some cheap soba, a packet filled with greens, and some sweet niku dango (meat dumplings) and returned to my dorm to cook some yakisoba.  Here's my friend cooking it:




 Everything without the noodles (and yes people here often cook using longer chopsticks):




 Added the soba:




Mix mix mix!




Ta-da! She said it would have been perfect if we had eggs to go with it, but whatever:





The next day during lunch break I ate at a different cafeteria.  For like 550 yen, you get salad, soup, and pasta.  I got to make my own salad; the only thing is I couldn't recognize any of the food items because they were all Japanese, so I just had fun with it and added a little bit of everything.  It was actually pretty good, and extremely colorful (lots of pink stuff) and I wish I had taken a picture of it but I forgot to.  You can see the remnants in the top plate.  For the pasta, I ordered something with spinach in it, and it was also really good:




This was the soup; it was alright, pretty tasteless; I think it was some kind of variant of egg drop soup:




 Me after eating; I'm really happy because the food was good and I didn't have class after lunch lol:




 Since we were all free, I made everyone go to the Lawson convenience store so I could buy some ice-cream.  I got this again so I could share it with my friend (and because it's cheap lol). I keep forgetting what it's called, Pariko or something, but it's coffee-flavored and goooood:





Back at the gyudon place again, it's called Yoshinoya (I never really looked at the name till now) and it's a chain restaurant:




Aaaand back at the same izakaya (called Torinosuke--also a chain restaurant).  I ordered my usual lychee sparkling juice :)




 They're so colorful and pretty! Mine's the white one :)





Since I don't have a random picture to end the post this time, I will comment on something random.  The birds here in Nagoya (at least the ones in my neighborhood and on campus), make the most strangest sounds.  I am not exaggerating when I say that they sound like they're dying or in extreme pain.  When I first heard it outside my window, I was legitimately alarmed for a long time, and it kept waking me up in the morning days afterward.  Finally I realized that a bird was making that sound ( I couldn't even tell what animal it was until then!) and that it was simply its way of chirping.  I've lived here for almost 2 months now, and this sound is extremely aggravating to hear now............ok my random rant is done.  I'll post again soon!