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Our first lecture didn't begin this morning until 10:40, so June and I used this bit of spare time during business hours to head to the Kamigyo Ward Office to pick up our alien registration cards. Now we're official aliens! My understanding is that I now, with this card, have the credentials I need to sign up for a cell phone service plan. As for the language skills I need, we'll see about that, especially since what I want (voice and data service with just a SIM card) is probably not cell phone companies' standard product. This weekend I should have time to visit Softbank and/or NTT DoCoMo to see what I can do.
On the way back from the ward office we stopped at the boulangerie "Marry France" on Imadegawa-dori for some very satisfying pastries. It rained all day, so a cozy bakery with its warmth and light and enticing smells was a welcome respite from the gloom.
The morning's lecture was on tana, which was well-timed since our afternoon jitsugi was our first tana temae, maru joku. For reasons unknown to me we were upstairs on the third floor of Gakuen, not that I minded, since excessive light wasn't a problem today. (It was a little warm and humid, so someone turned on the air conditioning, but Hamana-sensei insisted we should suffer some more, and as sadistic as that sounds I think he's right—to understand the primacy of seasonality and the need to evoke coolness in our temae during warm weather we need to experience the warm weather. So the air conditioning was turned off.) We switched kettles with our senpai so that we used the 常磐 (evergreen/eternity) kettle with a pine needle tsumami. Since we were using tana, we got to use a more-interesting-than-the-usual-bamboo futaoki, in this case a ceramic futaoki in the shape of a candle holder (apparently) with the name 夜学, meaning night study.
The omogashi, from 二條若狭屋, was called aoi gasane 葵襲 and consisted of a ball of anko covered with a pair of folded green and white gyūhi layers. Aoi 葵 in this case refers to the hollyhock emblematic of the upcoming Aoi Matsuri 葵祭. Gasane 襲 refers to layers of clothing worn under one's overcoat or—as an abbreviation for 襲の色目—a combination of colors created by layering of garments.
The natsume we used today included the Rikyu-gata chuunatsume with mismatched lid, a Kōdai-ji-makie hiranatsume, and a chuunatsume that we guessed might be 春草秋草 but that Hamana-sensei called 春野 in which case it's un-seasonal to be using it now. The Kōdai-ji-makie designation refers to a combination of paulownia (the Hideyoshi mon) and chrysanthemum, since Toyotomi Hideyoshi's wife established Kōdai-ji. I don't know the reason for the chrysanthemum.
This evening it was my turn to do haigata for our class. It took me two hours and I wasn't satisfied with it, but it was getting late and I was getting frustrated. So it'll have to do. As a reward I'm enjoying a can of yuzu-flavored Chu-Hi while I let my socks and samue trousers dry out from the rain. Woo-hoo.
On the way back from the ward office we stopped at the boulangerie "Marry France" on Imadegawa-dori for some very satisfying pastries. It rained all day, so a cozy bakery with its warmth and light and enticing smells was a welcome respite from the gloom.
The morning's lecture was on tana, which was well-timed since our afternoon jitsugi was our first tana temae, maru joku. For reasons unknown to me we were upstairs on the third floor of Gakuen, not that I minded, since excessive light wasn't a problem today. (It was a little warm and humid, so someone turned on the air conditioning, but Hamana-sensei insisted we should suffer some more, and as sadistic as that sounds I think he's right—to understand the primacy of seasonality and the need to evoke coolness in our temae during warm weather we need to experience the warm weather. So the air conditioning was turned off.) We switched kettles with our senpai so that we used the 常磐 (evergreen/eternity) kettle with a pine needle tsumami. Since we were using tana, we got to use a more-interesting-than-the-usual-bamboo futaoki, in this case a ceramic futaoki in the shape of a candle holder (apparently) with the name 夜学, meaning night study.
The omogashi, from 二條若狭屋, was called aoi gasane 葵襲 and consisted of a ball of anko covered with a pair of folded green and white gyūhi layers. Aoi 葵 in this case refers to the hollyhock emblematic of the upcoming Aoi Matsuri 葵祭. Gasane 襲 refers to layers of clothing worn under one's overcoat or—as an abbreviation for 襲の色目—a combination of colors created by layering of garments.
The natsume we used today included the Rikyu-gata chuunatsume with mismatched lid, a Kōdai-ji-makie hiranatsume, and a chuunatsume that we guessed might be 春草秋草 but that Hamana-sensei called 春野 in which case it's un-seasonal to be using it now. The Kōdai-ji-makie designation refers to a combination of paulownia (the Hideyoshi mon) and chrysanthemum, since Toyotomi Hideyoshi's wife established Kōdai-ji. I don't know the reason for the chrysanthemum.
This evening it was my turn to do haigata for our class. It took me two hours and I wasn't satisfied with it, but it was getting late and I was getting frustrated. So it'll have to do. As a reward I'm enjoying a can of yuzu-flavored Chu-Hi while I let my socks and samue trousers dry out from the rain. Woo-hoo.
