You can see the program of events here, and the admission is free.
I know that some of my readers are from Cambridge, so don't miss this chance for a Japanese event in Cambridge :)
~ Lyuba
Showing posts with label Japan Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan Day. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Japan Day in Cambridge on March 9, 2013
You can see the program of events here, and the admission is free.
I know that some of my readers are from Cambridge, so don't miss this chance for a Japanese event in Cambridge :)
~ Lyuba
Monday, October 15, 2012
Japan Day at Spalding High School
Hello Everyone,
Last Tuesday Hong and I had our official first proper kimono talk. Not that any other talks we gave up until now were less proper, but it was almost like all of them were just preparation for this one. Heck, my public speaking class that I took last year was preparation for this one! Why you might wonder? Because this was actually 6 kimono talks, one after another for the duration of the day.
Back in December of last year I got an email from one of the instructors at Spalding High School saying that they will be organizing a Japan Day in October 2012 for their 8th year students and that my name was given to her by Alice from Norwich Taiko Centre. Basically there will be six groups of around 25 students that will spend the whole day going through one event to another, with each event being 45 minutes long. They would have loved to have a kimono dressing there in addition to everything else that will be happening. After working out the details, we agreed that I can't realistically dress 25 people in kimono in 45 minutes, but I can do a kimono talk and dress one of the student in kimono. We also agreed that I will be bringing Hong with me to help me with the talks.
Fast forward almost a year later, and the day had finally came! I picked up Hong from Epping the day before, packed the suitcase and proceeded to have quite a huge scare around 10pm. I actually looked up where Spalding High School was located to put in my GPS! Turned out it wasn't in Norwich, like I convinced myself it was, but in Lincolnshire! I know, I know, how stupid of me! I was mentally preparing for a 3hrs drive one way, since I couldn't back out at this point, but turned out it was only 1.5 hours (vs 1 hour to Norwich). I must have looked it up right when I first got the email, otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to anything, and then promptly forgot about it and kept thinking it was in Norwich, since people who referred me are in Norwich. With my moment of some serious hyperventilating over, I went and tried to fall asleep.
Unfortunately morning came way too soon because I had to get up at 5:30am in order to be ready to leave at 7am. For once, my hair actually cooperated and I didn't have to spend a ridiculous amount of time straightening it. I woke Hong up, we had some breakfast, I got me a travel mug full of very strong coffee, and off we went. The drive was pretty uneventful but took us through some serious scenic country. By scenic country I mean fields and fields and farm animals. I've never seen roads so winding as on this drive and I live in England! I'm talking about almost 90 degrees bends in the road! I can't say I enjoyed that drive too much.
We arrived at 8:30am, only a little off thanks to mynot so trusty GPS, but thankfully Hong's phone was able to get us to the place. We were shown to the room we were to occupy for the next 7 hours and told that we can re-arrange everything in any way we wanted. We ended up putting the chairs in a semi-circle, with my clothes rail to the side and table for all the non-hanging stuff to the other side. I got the spot in the middle. I even had a map and a board behind me, how cool was that? :P There was no reason to use the board, but I did use the map when someone asked me where Ukraine was located. :)
I decided to keep the talk very simple, since none of the girls knew anything about kimono and I didn't want to overwhelm them with all the terms. So I started with telling what kimono was, and how it used to be an everyday clothes but now it's mostly worn for special occasions in Japan. Don't worry, I did say that kimono is coming back in fashion, but not to the same extent as 100 years ago. Then I actually got to use some of my kids kimono stuff! I basically went through the events that kimono would be used for, starting with Shichi-Go-San and showing kimono for three year old girls, five year old boys and seven years old girls. Then I went on to show them the furisode, saying that's normally it is work at Coming of Age Ceremony, but it also can be worn by any unmarried girls.
Then I showed them two different kimono that adult women would wear, explaining about the sleeves length and different designs and seasons. Afterwords, I picked my volunteer and proceeded to show everyone what goes into wearing kimono. I basically went item by item, starting with juban. This is where having Hong there was extremely helpful because she could dress the girl while I was talking, and then put away any stuff so I didn't have to get distracted. Seriously, without Hong there the whole talk wouldn't have gone as smooth as it went.
While Hong was dressing the girl I told everyone why men's and women's kimono are different length, showed some men's items for comparison and made jokes about how men's stuff are boring and we won't talk about them too much :) I should have mentioned earlier, but this was an all girls school, so there was really no point of talking a lot about men's stuff anyways. We went through the dressing, explaining about padding and dressing accessories. I think all the girls got a kick out of the padding talk, since I had 6 volunteers, each one of them either needed or didn't need padding. One girl's face literally fell when I said that the proper kimono shape is a tube with no curves, but then she completely lightened up when I said I could fix her curves "problem" with kimono.
For the final part of our talk I brought my wedding katsura for everyone to try one. It was actually a last minute decision as I only received it about a week ago, but I figured that if I can't dress everyone in kimono, at least everyone who wan'ts to could try the katsura on. It was also probably the best decision I've made in regards to the talk, because it was a huge success. Girls had a blast trying it on and taking photos, and all 6 teachers that were supervising also tried it on. I kept saying that I had more fun watching them all and it was absolutely true. I couldn't stop laughing for the whole time.
Overall it went really well and after the first talk was done, I didn't feel scared at all. As I said before, having Hong there was what made it happen, because she was taking care of all the background stuff while leaving me to talk. Because of that we didn't have any awkward pauses while dressing the girl, I didn't trip on any kimono stuff, and didn't have to worry about putting away the kimono. I also had a girl come up to me and say that my voice was really nice (awwww) and several others saying that the talk was very interesting. I don't know if I'm going to get any official feedback, but as of right now I did get an email saying that the whole day was a success and both students and teachers were giving very positive feedback to every event.
In the end, the whole talk worked out very well. I ended up doing 15 minutes of straight talking, then 15 minutes of dressing/talking (still more talking since Hong was doing most of the dressing) and last 15 minutes were taken up by the katsura craziness. Now that it's done, I feel like a huge weight is off my chest, because I was literally dreading this day for month! After being in front of people and talking for straight 6 hours, I think I can officially say that I can do public talks. My public speaking professor will be proud, which reminds me that I need to email her about this!
Now that this is over, I can start worrying about London EXPO in less than two weeks.
~ Lyuba
Last Tuesday Hong and I had our official first proper kimono talk. Not that any other talks we gave up until now were less proper, but it was almost like all of them were just preparation for this one. Heck, my public speaking class that I took last year was preparation for this one! Why you might wonder? Because this was actually 6 kimono talks, one after another for the duration of the day.
Back in December of last year I got an email from one of the instructors at Spalding High School saying that they will be organizing a Japan Day in October 2012 for their 8th year students and that my name was given to her by Alice from Norwich Taiko Centre. Basically there will be six groups of around 25 students that will spend the whole day going through one event to another, with each event being 45 minutes long. They would have loved to have a kimono dressing there in addition to everything else that will be happening. After working out the details, we agreed that I can't realistically dress 25 people in kimono in 45 minutes, but I can do a kimono talk and dress one of the student in kimono. We also agreed that I will be bringing Hong with me to help me with the talks.
Fast forward almost a year later, and the day had finally came! I picked up Hong from Epping the day before, packed the suitcase and proceeded to have quite a huge scare around 10pm. I actually looked up where Spalding High School was located to put in my GPS! Turned out it wasn't in Norwich, like I convinced myself it was, but in Lincolnshire! I know, I know, how stupid of me! I was mentally preparing for a 3hrs drive one way, since I couldn't back out at this point, but turned out it was only 1.5 hours (vs 1 hour to Norwich). I must have looked it up right when I first got the email, otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to anything, and then promptly forgot about it and kept thinking it was in Norwich, since people who referred me are in Norwich. With my moment of some serious hyperventilating over, I went and tried to fall asleep.
Unfortunately morning came way too soon because I had to get up at 5:30am in order to be ready to leave at 7am. For once, my hair actually cooperated and I didn't have to spend a ridiculous amount of time straightening it. I woke Hong up, we had some breakfast, I got me a travel mug full of very strong coffee, and off we went. The drive was pretty uneventful but took us through some serious scenic country. By scenic country I mean fields and fields and farm animals. I've never seen roads so winding as on this drive and I live in England! I'm talking about almost 90 degrees bends in the road! I can't say I enjoyed that drive too much.
We arrived at 8:30am, only a little off thanks to my
I decided to keep the talk very simple, since none of the girls knew anything about kimono and I didn't want to overwhelm them with all the terms. So I started with telling what kimono was, and how it used to be an everyday clothes but now it's mostly worn for special occasions in Japan. Don't worry, I did say that kimono is coming back in fashion, but not to the same extent as 100 years ago. Then I actually got to use some of my kids kimono stuff! I basically went through the events that kimono would be used for, starting with Shichi-Go-San and showing kimono for three year old girls, five year old boys and seven years old girls. Then I went on to show them the furisode, saying that's normally it is work at Coming of Age Ceremony, but it also can be worn by any unmarried girls.
Then I showed them two different kimono that adult women would wear, explaining about the sleeves length and different designs and seasons. Afterwords, I picked my volunteer and proceeded to show everyone what goes into wearing kimono. I basically went item by item, starting with juban. This is where having Hong there was extremely helpful because she could dress the girl while I was talking, and then put away any stuff so I didn't have to get distracted. Seriously, without Hong there the whole talk wouldn't have gone as smooth as it went.
While Hong was dressing the girl I told everyone why men's and women's kimono are different length, showed some men's items for comparison and made jokes about how men's stuff are boring and we won't talk about them too much :) I should have mentioned earlier, but this was an all girls school, so there was really no point of talking a lot about men's stuff anyways. We went through the dressing, explaining about padding and dressing accessories. I think all the girls got a kick out of the padding talk, since I had 6 volunteers, each one of them either needed or didn't need padding. One girl's face literally fell when I said that the proper kimono shape is a tube with no curves, but then she completely lightened up when I said I could fix her curves "problem" with kimono.
For the final part of our talk I brought my wedding katsura for everyone to try one. It was actually a last minute decision as I only received it about a week ago, but I figured that if I can't dress everyone in kimono, at least everyone who wan'ts to could try the katsura on. It was also probably the best decision I've made in regards to the talk, because it was a huge success. Girls had a blast trying it on and taking photos, and all 6 teachers that were supervising also tried it on. I kept saying that I had more fun watching them all and it was absolutely true. I couldn't stop laughing for the whole time.
Overall it went really well and after the first talk was done, I didn't feel scared at all. As I said before, having Hong there was what made it happen, because she was taking care of all the background stuff while leaving me to talk. Because of that we didn't have any awkward pauses while dressing the girl, I didn't trip on any kimono stuff, and didn't have to worry about putting away the kimono. I also had a girl come up to me and say that my voice was really nice (awwww) and several others saying that the talk was very interesting. I don't know if I'm going to get any official feedback, but as of right now I did get an email saying that the whole day was a success and both students and teachers were giving very positive feedback to every event.
In the end, the whole talk worked out very well. I ended up doing 15 minutes of straight talking, then 15 minutes of dressing/talking (still more talking since Hong was doing most of the dressing) and last 15 minutes were taken up by the katsura craziness. Now that it's done, I feel like a huge weight is off my chest, because I was literally dreading this day for month! After being in front of people and talking for straight 6 hours, I think I can officially say that I can do public talks. My public speaking professor will be proud, which reminds me that I need to email her about this!
Now that this is over, I can start worrying about London EXPO in less than two weeks.
~ Lyuba
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Japan Day in Cambridge 2012
Today was my second annual venturing to the Japan Day in Cambridge. I knew that it was going on for a while, but apparently it was their 10th year today. The theme of this event was hope, since tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
As always, when I'm out to impress, everything will go wrong. It started out with my kimono not wanting to wear properly. Of course the problem was that it's too short, and I'm simply not used to wearing too short kimono in traditional way anymore. After two tries I've managed to get it to sit semi-nicely, but then the obi decided to act up. The obi I originally wanted to wear is extremely stiff, and guess needs to be in a special mood to sit on me properly, which unfortunately wasn't meant to be today. Instead of fighting with the obi for the third time, I just went with my plan B. Thankfully that obi was less temperamental, and everything worked out from the first try.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Japan Day in Cambridge
Hello Everyone,
I am not able to attend Kimono de Jack in Manchester tomorrow, so I was very excited to find out that there was a Japanese event happening locally in Cambridge the day before, today. Not knowing what to expect, or where it was even located I donned my not-yet-worn spring kimono and off I went.
The event, Japan Day, was hosted by Kaetsu Educational & Cultural Centre in Cambridge. I looked up on google maps where it was located, and it didn't seem like it was too far away from the Grand Arcade mall in Cambridge. I parked my car in Park & Ride and took the bus to Grand Arcade, where I got myself an obligatory Starbucks, checked out some shoe stores (that sell Irregular Choice), pulled out my GPS so conveniently set to pedestrian mode and embarked on the walking adventure. I was right, it wasn't too far... if you're driving that is. The distance was a little over 1 mile, which is not that bad in itself, but I'm not used to walking much anymore.... let alone walking that much in kimono. Although my Ukrainian upbringing didn't let me down, and I didn't even break a sweat or got tired. And I was very happy that I wore western boots instead of zori, because on my way back to the Pa Ride bus stop it was raining...
My GPS led me straight to the Kaetsu Centre without any problems, other than the long walk by myself. There were signs everywhere letting people know that Japan Day was happening, as well as signs letting know where to go for which event. The event was pretty small, I would say the main events that generated the most turn out were the demonstrations in the Theatre area. The only other events that were interactive were brush painting and calligraphy workshops. And the food area, although that doesn't count as an event, was PACKED. I saw the line and didn't even attempt to go there.
I tried my hand at Oriental brush painting, but my hands were literally shaking. Not sure why, maybe from the excess of excitement and adrenaline and shyness? Yes, because I am very very VERY shy around people I don't know, especially when I'm all alone there. I checked out the rest of the displays and set myself down on a nice marble looking bench to wait for Chado demonstration. While waiting a lady sat herself down next to me and commented on my kimono, so we chatted about kimono and KDJ while I went into PR mode explaining what it is :).
I have to confess that the main reason I wanted to go to Japan Day, aside from another reason to wear kimono, was to check out the Chado demonstration. Few days ago I found out that Kaetsu actually holds a beginners Chado class on Saturdays, and I wanted to know more about it to see if we can possibly hiJACK the event ;P I got a reply and was invited to come over to Japan Day and talk with the instructors there, no other information given (more on that later).
I must say that in my hat, bright patterned kimono and western boots I stood out like a sore thumb among the iromuji-clad ladies. And once the demonstration started, I immediately regretted (but was happy in the long run) that I wore western boots instead of zori because they asked for a volunteer from the audience to be a second guest. I wouldn't have been able to remove, or put back on, those boots easily in kimono, nor did I want to blind everyone with my bright striped socks. So I passed and instead settled down to watch.
At the end I ended up looking more at the kimono than paying attention to the actual ceremony itself. Oh I paid attention to the ceremony, don't worry, because we had a lovely lady explaining everything step by step and why so we all knew what was going on. But I couldn't help but glance at kimono. And think that I don't ever want to wear kimono that way, subdued and traditional. Although I don't know all the details about Chado, I did know enough to think that I possibly will not enjoy it or want to actually study it. After attending the demonstration, I KNOW I will not enjoy it nor that I want to study it. The Way of Tea is not for everyone, and I am among those people.
The hostess was a girl around my age, who according to narrator (for the lack of better word to call her) only studied tea for 2 years and started out the same way, as a second guest. She didn't know anything about tea or how to wear kimono, but now she got good enough to host a demonstration. She wore a rather bright orange iromuji, which I thought was a no-no in the Chado world, but I figured it was because she is unmarried. The first guest was a lovely older Japanese man in a kimono.
After the demonstration was done, audience was invited to come forward and try some tea with the traditional sweets. Since I missed out on being the second guest, I wasn't going to miss this chance so I promptly stepped forward. While waiting for my tea I chatted with a narrator lady about kimono and tea, and got an eyebrow rise when I told her that I don't do tea. I might have been having a bad day and feeling cranky, but it offended me for a split second because I felt like I HAD to like Chado since I wear kimono. Kinda like I have to like borsh and vodka since I'm Ukrainian. I have to mention that the comment "You must have an interest in tea since you're here" (or something along those lines) along with the raised eyebrow is what did it to me. Actually no, I don't have an interest in Chado, I only wanted to see what it was about and maybe trying it once or twice.
Aside from my split second mood swing, the lady was very nice and the moment she heard that I wanted to attend the beginners class she called the instructor over (the guy I emailed before) to let him know. Of course I also told her about KDJ events and handed few cards over, and she promised that she will make sure everyone will hear about it. We chatted about kimono and she told me that she is trying to convince one of the Japanese ladies to hold some kisuke classes, because she is rusty in her kimono skills. I'm hoping that the Japanese lady will agree, and that it will be a public event because I would love to attend.
After that I talked to the instructor for a little bit about Chado classes, and this is when my second frustration comes into play. I mentioned already that I emailed him for more info, because the official website has hardly any info on it. I was looking mostly for information such as: Is there a charge? How much? How to sign up? How many people can attend? How far in advance do we need to book? etc. Call me naive, but I believe this is a standard information that should be included for any kind of classes and be freely offered. I am not sure if it's a Japanese thing, a Chado thing, or this particular instructor thing, but I felt like I had to claw the information out of him. Finally I flat out asked him if there was a charge, because I felt that was one of the most important things to know, especially as an organizer (me) of an event that I want to invite other people to. Turns out yes, there is a charge and it is £20/class if you decide to take classes seriously. If you just want to come by to have a cup of tea, you probably would just be asked to cover the cost of stuff. Yes, a group of people can come too, just email in advance to let them know.
I was still not satisfied with the answer, but didn't ask anymore questions at this point. I guess he answered all the important ones anyways. I wish I did ask more questions, but as I said before I am extremely shy and have trouble talking to people I don't know especially when they don't appear to be that interested anyways. Again, I might be overanalizing because everyone there were nothing but nice and polite to me, but my nerves could also have been playing tricks on me (remember, I was literally shaking.... a little).
Overall, tea left a bitter taste in my mouth both literally and figuratively speaking. A taste I like (because I like matcha), but I don't know if I can go through all the trouble of getting it again. I much rather buy me some matcha from JapanCentre and enjoy it at home, than try to hunt down the information on how to attend one of the classes.
One final thing, as you might have already noticed I didn't take any photos. There were several reasons for that. First, there wasn't much to take photos of. Second, although photos were not prohibited and people were taking them during Chado demonstration, their cameras were very quiet and tiny. My camera is big and loud lol, and I felt rather embarrassed to pull it out and start snapping pictures while everyone were being all serene and submerged into the Way of the Tea. Finally, I didn't take any photos when I got home because it was raining :( But what that means is that I should wear the outfit again sometimes soon!
~ Lyuba
P.S. And then I got home and one of my cats snagged a thread on my kimono while I was getting changed. That was the closest I ever came to hurting my kitty lol. No I didn't hurt her or did anything to her for that matter, because she did it out of excitement of seeing me. And I need to cut her nails, but I can't do it alone. I am rather upset, but I will try to convince myself that a little loopy thread is not visible.
I am not able to attend Kimono de Jack in Manchester tomorrow, so I was very excited to find out that there was a Japanese event happening locally in Cambridge the day before, today. Not knowing what to expect, or where it was even located I donned my not-yet-worn spring kimono and off I went.
The event, Japan Day, was hosted by Kaetsu Educational & Cultural Centre in Cambridge. I looked up on google maps where it was located, and it didn't seem like it was too far away from the Grand Arcade mall in Cambridge. I parked my car in Park & Ride and took the bus to Grand Arcade, where I got myself an obligatory Starbucks, checked out some shoe stores (that sell Irregular Choice), pulled out my GPS so conveniently set to pedestrian mode and embarked on the walking adventure. I was right, it wasn't too far... if you're driving that is. The distance was a little over 1 mile, which is not that bad in itself, but I'm not used to walking much anymore.... let alone walking that much in kimono. Although my Ukrainian upbringing didn't let me down, and I didn't even break a sweat or got tired. And I was very happy that I wore western boots instead of zori, because on my way back to the Pa Ride bus stop it was raining...
My GPS led me straight to the Kaetsu Centre without any problems, other than the long walk by myself. There were signs everywhere letting people know that Japan Day was happening, as well as signs letting know where to go for which event. The event was pretty small, I would say the main events that generated the most turn out were the demonstrations in the Theatre area. The only other events that were interactive were brush painting and calligraphy workshops. And the food area, although that doesn't count as an event, was PACKED. I saw the line and didn't even attempt to go there.
I tried my hand at Oriental brush painting, but my hands were literally shaking. Not sure why, maybe from the excess of excitement and adrenaline and shyness? Yes, because I am very very VERY shy around people I don't know, especially when I'm all alone there. I checked out the rest of the displays and set myself down on a nice marble looking bench to wait for Chado demonstration. While waiting a lady sat herself down next to me and commented on my kimono, so we chatted about kimono and KDJ while I went into PR mode explaining what it is :).
I have to confess that the main reason I wanted to go to Japan Day, aside from another reason to wear kimono, was to check out the Chado demonstration. Few days ago I found out that Kaetsu actually holds a beginners Chado class on Saturdays, and I wanted to know more about it to see if we can possibly hiJACK the event ;P I got a reply and was invited to come over to Japan Day and talk with the instructors there, no other information given (more on that later).
I must say that in my hat, bright patterned kimono and western boots I stood out like a sore thumb among the iromuji-clad ladies. And once the demonstration started, I immediately regretted (but was happy in the long run) that I wore western boots instead of zori because they asked for a volunteer from the audience to be a second guest. I wouldn't have been able to remove, or put back on, those boots easily in kimono, nor did I want to blind everyone with my bright striped socks. So I passed and instead settled down to watch.
At the end I ended up looking more at the kimono than paying attention to the actual ceremony itself. Oh I paid attention to the ceremony, don't worry, because we had a lovely lady explaining everything step by step and why so we all knew what was going on. But I couldn't help but glance at kimono. And think that I don't ever want to wear kimono that way, subdued and traditional. Although I don't know all the details about Chado, I did know enough to think that I possibly will not enjoy it or want to actually study it. After attending the demonstration, I KNOW I will not enjoy it nor that I want to study it. The Way of Tea is not for everyone, and I am among those people.
The hostess was a girl around my age, who according to narrator (for the lack of better word to call her) only studied tea for 2 years and started out the same way, as a second guest. She didn't know anything about tea or how to wear kimono, but now she got good enough to host a demonstration. She wore a rather bright orange iromuji, which I thought was a no-no in the Chado world, but I figured it was because she is unmarried. The first guest was a lovely older Japanese man in a kimono.
After the demonstration was done, audience was invited to come forward and try some tea with the traditional sweets. Since I missed out on being the second guest, I wasn't going to miss this chance so I promptly stepped forward. While waiting for my tea I chatted with a narrator lady about kimono and tea, and got an eyebrow rise when I told her that I don't do tea. I might have been having a bad day and feeling cranky, but it offended me for a split second because I felt like I HAD to like Chado since I wear kimono. Kinda like I have to like borsh and vodka since I'm Ukrainian. I have to mention that the comment "You must have an interest in tea since you're here" (or something along those lines) along with the raised eyebrow is what did it to me. Actually no, I don't have an interest in Chado, I only wanted to see what it was about and maybe trying it once or twice.
Aside from my split second mood swing, the lady was very nice and the moment she heard that I wanted to attend the beginners class she called the instructor over (the guy I emailed before) to let him know. Of course I also told her about KDJ events and handed few cards over, and she promised that she will make sure everyone will hear about it. We chatted about kimono and she told me that she is trying to convince one of the Japanese ladies to hold some kisuke classes, because she is rusty in her kimono skills. I'm hoping that the Japanese lady will agree, and that it will be a public event because I would love to attend.
After that I talked to the instructor for a little bit about Chado classes, and this is when my second frustration comes into play. I mentioned already that I emailed him for more info, because the official website has hardly any info on it. I was looking mostly for information such as: Is there a charge? How much? How to sign up? How many people can attend? How far in advance do we need to book? etc. Call me naive, but I believe this is a standard information that should be included for any kind of classes and be freely offered. I am not sure if it's a Japanese thing, a Chado thing, or this particular instructor thing, but I felt like I had to claw the information out of him. Finally I flat out asked him if there was a charge, because I felt that was one of the most important things to know, especially as an organizer (me) of an event that I want to invite other people to. Turns out yes, there is a charge and it is £20/class if you decide to take classes seriously. If you just want to come by to have a cup of tea, you probably would just be asked to cover the cost of stuff. Yes, a group of people can come too, just email in advance to let them know.
I was still not satisfied with the answer, but didn't ask anymore questions at this point. I guess he answered all the important ones anyways. I wish I did ask more questions, but as I said before I am extremely shy and have trouble talking to people I don't know especially when they don't appear to be that interested anyways. Again, I might be overanalizing because everyone there were nothing but nice and polite to me, but my nerves could also have been playing tricks on me (remember, I was literally shaking.... a little).
Overall, tea left a bitter taste in my mouth both literally and figuratively speaking. A taste I like (because I like matcha), but I don't know if I can go through all the trouble of getting it again. I much rather buy me some matcha from JapanCentre and enjoy it at home, than try to hunt down the information on how to attend one of the classes.
One final thing, as you might have already noticed I didn't take any photos. There were several reasons for that. First, there wasn't much to take photos of. Second, although photos were not prohibited and people were taking them during Chado demonstration, their cameras were very quiet and tiny. My camera is big and loud lol, and I felt rather embarrassed to pull it out and start snapping pictures while everyone were being all serene and submerged into the Way of the Tea. Finally, I didn't take any photos when I got home because it was raining :( But what that means is that I should wear the outfit again sometimes soon!
~ Lyuba
P.S. And then I got home and one of my cats snagged a thread on my kimono while I was getting changed. That was the closest I ever came to hurting my kitty lol. No I didn't hurt her or did anything to her for that matter, because she did it out of excitement of seeing me. And I need to cut her nails, but I can't do it alone. I am rather upset, but I will try to convince myself that a little loopy thread is not visible.
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