Downtown Tour- Japanese Tea Ceremony

On the 22 of September, me and other international students going to downtown tour that arrange by HUE. So, this is basically like a introduction about Japan. We are having tea ceremony and wear kimono, and visit Hiroshima castle. We meet at 9.15 in Shimogion Station and go to Hiroshima Station with ticket 200 yen. Here we need to pay for the ticket by ourselves. At first, I fell quite surprised, because the tour is different that the tour in Indonesia. In Indonesia, we usually meet up and go tour mobe around by bus. But, in here we need to use public transportation and buy out train ticket by ourselves. Hehe..

This Is Shimogion station

From Hiroshima station, we walk around 5-10 minutes to a place that used to doing a tea ceremony. What I love about Japan is they have such a little park in the corner. It looks beautiful.

And something that interesting is, the girls will wear kimono!! kyaa.. This is my first time and I just too excited. In the tea ceremony, the girls usually wear kimono. Kimono is japanese clothes. It really hard to wear kimono. You cannot use it by yourself, somebody have to help you. For me, it looks like a kebaya. But, kimono is more comfortable because it's not really tight. And kimono is very flexible. even you have a big body, you still can suit wear a kimono. For me, it's such a relief. You know why, right? :)

Japanese Kimono

Obi in Japan has beautiful pattern

three beautiful girls. Dika, Me, and A Ram from Korea. :D

I think this is such a park. It was so beautiful..

And below is the tea ceremony. I just can take a few picture because I don't want to disturb the ceremony. Sorry.. So, first, we have to bow to calligraphy. you can see the calligraphy below. And then you look at the calligraphy, the flower and you bow again. Every people should do this.

She is the host of the ceremony. I forget the name, but she is really beautiful. The host is the person who make tea for every guests. And to make occha (green tea) in traditional way takes a long time. She has to come in twice to bring all the stuff to make mocha. And do the ceremony in order. You can imagine, she make tea for everyone. But, fortunately, because there are too many guests, they prepare the tea already.

The man is struggling. Haha

The hardest thing in this tea ceremony is you must sit in the proper position. You can saw in the picture that Pierre (white shirt) and Tom (uses glasses) cannot sit properly because your leg become exhausted. The ceremony takes a long time, so it hard for me not to relax my leg. First, they give you paper and stick. It will be used for eat sweet. And it has such a manner. You must ask permission from people next to you that you will take the paper, and after that give it to him. There is such a word, but I forget what should we said. And after the paper , they will give you sweet. Why? it because ocha taste is bitter. So, to neutralised your tongue, they give you the sweet. It's nice and I like it.

And for drink occha, they have such a rule. First, you have to understand that the tea cup has a "face part". Face part is like the part that has a some design. And they give you the tea cup with the "face" in front of you. If you want to drink the tea, you should rotate the cup twice, to make the "face" not facing you, and you should drink all the tea in one shoot. Trust me, it's really bitter. Maybe because I usually drink such a sweet ice tea in Indonesia, so I don't really like it. If you finished drinking, then you should swap the cup that use to drink to clean it up. And you rotate the cup twice, so you can face the design of the cup, and you can enjoy the "face".

It was such a wonderful experience and I can't believe that for drink a tea, we should doing some rituals and it takes a long time. But, hey! this is Japanese culture. It really unique, and I'm glad that I can experience in here. Usually the place for tea ceremony is in the smaller place. Especially in Edo era, the place for drink tea only 1,5 x 1.5 m with heigh 1 m. And the door to get in is very small. So, for the samurai that want to get in, they have to abandon their long sword, and tea place become a safe place.

It was so good when you can relax your foot like this.. :p

So, that was my story about having my first Kimono and Japanese Tea Ceremony experienced. I will post the rest of the tour in my next post. Please wait for it!!