Ikebana, Zazen, Hitsumabushi, and Tea Ceremony

What an Incredible day today!

 

All thanks to my friend and neighbor Amy. Thank you thank you thank you....

 

 

The day began with beautiful sunny weather, a bit chilly but nothing a coat won't fix. Amy and I met at the hall and proceeded to her Ikebana class.

 

 

What is Ikebana?

 

Ikebana is a type of Japanese art of flower arrangement. The key is to allow each stem, leaf, and flower to coexist with each other in a minimalistic yet elegant way. This art form dates back over 500 years. I was lucky enough to be taught by an actual ikebana sensei (teacher) today. She has had many years of experience and people from all over the world come to be taught by her.

 

I was first provided with a shallow dish, half filled with water and a square floral frog in the middle. The frog is used to hold up the arrangement. You start out with the stems. The longest stem should be over 2x the length of your dish, and represents the "father". The other stems should be shorter than the "father" and those stems represent the rest of the family adult members. The trick is to place each stem straight into the frog and then slant is away from you. After the stems comes the leaves. The leaves represent the children and should be placed in front of the "parents". The children should be half the length of the stems. Finally comes the flowers. The flowers are to be placed in between the parents and the children to bind the union of the family.

 

I first watched sensei create an ikebana. After, she asked me to put one together on my own. Here is a side by side comparison (can you tell which one is the one I made?):

 

 

 

After ikebana, Junko-san, Ota-san, Amy, and I went over to Ota-san's house for lunch and to visit her garden. On our way to her house, she had a surprise for Amy. We all went to her Buddhist temple, where the resident monk showed us how to zazen. Zazen is a form of meditation practiced in Zen Buddhism and it is supposed to calm the body and the mind so that the practitioner is able to concentrate enough to experience insight into man's existence and thereby gaining enlightenment. In its simplest explanation, the practitioner sits on a cushion, either in a full lotus or half lotus position, with a straight posture, and hands in cosmic mudra (placing right hand over the left hand with thumbs touching forming a circle). A bell rings signaling time for zazen, and if desired, the monk may perform Kyosaku on you, which is him standing behind you and hits your right shoulder with a wooden stick once as a means of encouraging or reinvigorating the practitioner.  It was a truly humbling experience and I wish I took more pictures, but all I got was the meditation room, which is called the zendo. 

 

 

After zazen, we went to visit Ota-san's garden. Now, I have been to more than a few people's homes in Japan, and hands down she has the most beautiful home in Japan I have ever visited. For starters, all the houses in her neighbourhood belongs to her family. Secondly, every house is huge with a large garden, which is very unusual given how expensive land is there, and she lives very close to downtown Nagoya. Third, her house has a detached palace. I'll explain later.

 

Ota-san's garden. She has many different trees, shrubs, and flowers. There were ume (plum) trees, rapeseed blossoms, daffodils, wisteria, sakura (cherry blossom) trees, and many more. It was just beautiful. They were all so beautiful and wonderfully kept.

 

Then she treated us to an awesome lunch at her detached palace. The detached palace is a 2 storey home the size of a normal mid size home in Canada (~1500 sqft) on her property. It is fully self-contained with a bedroom, living and dining rooms, kitchen, and bathroom. It was designed by Ota-san herself. The house is beautiful. It has many windows framed with dark brown wood on each wall, and a round window out to the immaculate garden. Junko-san says this is meant to bring peace and tranquility to the home. The palace is normally occupied when her son and his family visit her from Tokyo, which is a couple of times a year. There were beautiful paintings and furniture everywhere, and everything felt as if they belonged in a museum because all the pieces were old and had history. Just amazing. And I'm sure my description is not doing it any justice whatsoever.

 

The lunch was great. It was the traditional hitsumabushi lunch, which is charbroiled slices of unagi (eel) on top of a bed of seasoned rice. It is usually served with soup that you pour onto the unagi/rice. It was soo delicious, especially served with Japanese champagne and very good sake, and ended with the sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted along with little cakes and green tea. I ate so much and it still wasn't over...

 

This is what a typical hitsumabushi looks like. I just took a picture of the place setting - I didn't want to be too much of a nerd taking pictures of everything...

 

After lunch, Ota-san learned I had never been to a Japanese tea ceremony, so she decided to show me how to make the tea. Her mother was a tea ceremony master, which is a very prestige title because it takes a long commitment to accomplish.

 

How to make a traditional cup of tea:

 

Step 1: Rinsing with hot water to warm the bowls. Important to swish around the bowl.

 

Step 2: Sifting the tea powder and there's me with Ota-san while she's making tea.

 

 

Step 3: Place a teaspoon full of sifted tea into each bowl:

 

Step 4: Whisking with a bamboo whisk. It's all with a light wrist action around and around the bowl. Ota-san was so nice she let me use the whisk for my own cup. This is typically not offered to the guest. 

 

Step 5: A finished bowl of tea. I couldn't wait to try it so no picture. The tea was delicious and apparently it's full of vitamin and anti-oxidants. Bonus!

 

 

I really enjoyed spending time with the ladies today. They are all such extraordinary women. Ota-san has many talents. For example, she made these and teaches people how to make them:

 

 

They were all handmade and hand stitched. A paddle like that on the right would take approximately 3 months to finish and cost a lot of money. It's a lot of dedication and fine craftsmanship to do something like that.

 

Junko-san speaks very good English and teaches English to students and professionals. She just recently fully retired and is enjoying life to the fullest. She visits her many friends everyday. Good for her.

 

I wish I could be like any of the ladies I met today. They were all so gifted and talented and hard-working in their own rite. Today was a great day.

 

 

 

Note: I did not take many pictures at Ota-san's place because I felt like it would invade her privacy, so that's also the reason why I am not posting any pictures of her house here. 

 

 



Opening day of the Osaka Sumo Tournament

Matt and I were lucky enough to be at Osaka when the sumo tournament kicked off. Every year, there are only 6 sumo tournaments held throughout Japan, each tournament lasting 15 days. 3 sumo tournaments are held in Tokyo, and one each at Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka. 

 

The Osaka sumo tournament starts on a Sunday, so Matt and I went to the opening day on March 10, 2013. Outside the Osaka Prefecture gymnasium was decorated with the flags representing each sumo club that will be participating at the tournament as well as hand-written matches that will occur that day.

Matt at the entrance of the gymnasium and us posing with sumo wrestlers (or rikishi), cardboard style. These are very famous rikishi's and are at the top rank. The guy in the middle is non-Japanese:

The tournament day is filled with many sumo matches, starting with the lower class and then preceding to the "main event" with the highest ranked rikishi's around 5pm. So you can technically start watching sumo matches at 10am till 6pm. But not many people do.

Just for reference, a side by side comparison of crowd at 11am vs 5pm:

We were sitting at the arena seats, which resembles normal venue seating at home, a plastic chair with a back, except in Japan, you get a seat cushion! The other seats, which has the blue cushions very close to the ring, are called box seats. They are merely sectioned off squares with cushions on the floor that you sit on. Very uncomfortable for any gaijin (foreigners) who are not used to sitting cross legged.

There are several processions (or dohyō) that happen between sets of matches, where the wrestlers wear their elaborate aprons into the ring and perform a ceremony. The aprons get more elaborate the higher the rank, so the later the day. The wrestlers either belong to the East or West and they face these directions in the ring before they fight. Our seats were facing East, so we saw a lot of direct action.

This is how a match goes:

There is a always a guy who sings the names of the wrestlers who will be competing. Then every wrestler performs this same sequence of actions: he faces the audience, claps his hands, then stomps his leg. This is the drive away the evil spirits from the ring. Then the referee (who is also dressed up more elaborately as the day progresses) steps into the ring and gets ready. The top 2 division wrestlers perform an additional ritual. They get to drink a ladleful of power water at their corner of the ring, wipe their face with a cloth (or power paper), and sprinkle salt into the ring for purification. This can actually repeat several times before a match starts.

When the wrestlers finally crouch down at the starting line, both wrestlers have to have both fists touch the ground before the match can start. Between the crouch position and both fists down, the wrestlers are supposed to play mind games by staring down his opponent. Then they charge at each other and tries to either push his opponent out of the ring, or force him to touch to ground with anything other than his feet. The match can only take maximum 4 minutes.

Here's some action shots:

 

 

 

All in all,    AWESOME Time.  

So glad we went and can't wait to go again in Nagoya.

FYI, I took a lot of pictures and videos of this experience and can send you the link to my dropbox. Just let me know and I'll add your email address for access. I took videos of a few matches as well as all the rituals.

Osaka 大阪

For our first weekend in Japan, we decided to go to Osaka to go to Ikea and Costco. Now that we have a new apartment, we needed to stock up!

Our road trip route. We pass Kyoto - don't worry Kyoto, we'll come visit you soon.


Osaka is the 3rd largest city in Japan, after Tokyo and Yokohama (Nagoya is now the 4th largest), and has a population of ~2.9 million people.

Fun facts about Osaka:

• The word "Osaka" means 'large hill' or large slope'.
• Osaka served as Capital of Japan many times through Japan history.
• Almost all of Osaka's historical monuments were destroyed in WWII bombing raids.
• Osaka has several key attractions including the first Universal Studios outside US and one of the largest aquarium in the world
• AND.... 

The Gate Tower Building:

 

 

That's right - the highway PASSES THROUGH the building. This is the first building in Japan to have a highway pass through it. This is as a result of an unusual compromise between the land owner and the highway owner, aka Japanese government, to allow the unified development of highways and buildings in the same space. This was the only way to resolve the property owner's refusal to sell their land to the government to build the highway. So now the Hanshin Expressway owns the building's 5th, 6th, and 7th floors and its construction was completed in 1992.

There are many many bridges in Osaka. It used to be called the city with 808 bridges. Though I don't know if there are that many that exists today, I can tell you Osaka has a lot of bridges. Check out the one we crossed over on our way to Ikea.

The bridge is called the Namihaya Ohashi Bridge. It is 1573 metres long and sweeps around in a curve along its length. The bridge connects the Taisho Ward to the Minato Ward and serves as an evacuation route for the harbor district in times of disaster. When we were driving on it, it felt like a roller coaster ride as we drove to its peak, then suddenly as we were driving down the slope, we could feel our ears popping.

We also saw this double decker red cantilevered steel-trussed bridge called the Minato-bashi bridge. Not sure of its specs, but it sure looks pretty neat.

Anyway, after 2.5 hrs drive, 4300 yen of tolls, and $$$ spent at Ikea later, we were tired and were ready to go to bed.

But not before having a beer!

We walked around our hotel and found the tiniest little pub I have ever been to. It was at the second storey of a rowhouse. Inside this room was the bar which used up 3/4 of the space and the rest was occupied by 7 stools. Sorry no pictures. Another interesting thing, look how much foam there is on an Osaka beer pour. Most I have seen anywhere.

 

All in all, a good travel/first day in Osaka.

Yakiniku, Cigars, Bowling, and Red Rock

To all you readers, sorry for not blogging for so long. Matt and I have been out and about, enjoying our time in Japan. I do have in store A LOT of great experiences worth sharing and writing about, so please enjoy the multiple blogs coming your way.

Finally, it's our first Friday in Nagoya. Matt finished his first full week at work and it's time to celebrate.

TGIF!!

We first made our way to the local yakiniku, which is a type of Japanese restaurants where you order the raw meat and you grill it at your table.

Here we have an assortment of pork and beef slices. It also came with 3 kinds of dipping sauces. Combined with beer, it was a great start to our night.

Next, we headed off to the cigar shop so Matt can unwind with a cigar and scotch. The one we went to was called Cigar Club KANOU. Established in 1953.

 


 This place is so popular that it closes at 25:00.










Here's Matt enjoying his cigar, in which he used a propane torch to light it. Did he almost burn off his eyebrows? Don't worry, still intact. ~WHEW~

Our drinks at the cigar club (Kirin beer for me, scotch with handpicked ice for Matt):

Next we went bowling at Round 1 with a few of our new friends. I got the first strike, while Matt won 2 of the 3 games we played (lost by 1 point on the last). Below is the souvenir picture we got. An awesome thing about bowling in Japan? You can order food and drinks at the lane by calling it in on a phone.

 

After bowling, we ended the night at an Australian pub called Red Rock Bar and Grill and met a few more people.

 

When the clock hit 2am, it was time for bed folks. All in all, a good first Friday in Nagoya.

Next up: We are off to Osaka!

Asahi ビール

Only in Japan can we find beer cans of assorted sizes, ranging from the very small ("shot" cans) to the very big (keg size with built-in handle).

Here's Matt with the largest size found at the supermarket.

 

And Matt with the smallest and largest beer cans.

Kampai! <Cheers everyone!>

The BEST Fridge improvement EVER

Have you ever had to switch the doors of your fridge? Ever thought that was super annoying and a waste of your time, just so you can have your fridge door swing the most optimal way for you? Matt and I have had to switch our doors around on every fridge we've purchased and we find it an extreme annoyance.

Well fear not people - Sharp Japan to the rescue. The incredibly smart people at Sharp pondered over this dilemma and decided to create a fridge where the user will be able to open the fridge door ANYWAY they way, at ANYTIME. Amazing.

And now for the demonstration.

Here's our lovely fridge (zoom in to see the stripe pattern - that's right, my fridge has style):

Nothing extraordinary. Just a fridge at the top with a freezer and fridge drawer at the bottom.

But alas, the ingenuity:





Door opens to the left

Door opens to the right



Thanks Sharp. Well done. Well done indeed.