This was at the Japanese tea ceremony I took Cousin C. to when she was here. They even let those of us who wanted to try to make the tea at the end, and I didn't want to pass that up. When I was whisking (I guess that's what I was doing) the tea, the lady laughed because apparently I was doing it too gently. She said she could tell I had a gentle personality with how I was doing it. :) Tea ceremonies used to be only for men, but now women have almost completely taken over the tradition. Women train for years to learn how to properly conduct a tea ceremony. The ceremony is pretty short and involves admiring the flower and calligraphy in the room, drinking the tea and eating a small dessert. It was an interesting ritual to be a part of.
We had a great Easter celebration at church this year, almost 60 people in attendance, which was huge. The weather was really nice, too. We ate a potluck at church before heading to a party for my English class kids.
I guess most of these are younger siblings. The boy 2nd to the left is one of the students who comes every Saturday to the English class I co-teach.
D. was pretty excited about finding eggs.
We took a ferry when Cousin C. was here to Ie Island, just a half hour away. Every year they have a Lily Festival, growing over a million lilies on their little island. Most of them were white, but they had all the other different colors too. J. thinks they just dyed them, but I think they're natural. Some people were taking more pics of A. walking through the lilies than they were of the lilies themselves. They think American kids are cute and we think the Japanese kids are cute. The other day when we were at a castle, it had just started raining, and a young guy stops us and asks us to take a picture. I know he just wants pictures of the girls, but he asks for the whole family. So after a few of all of us, we step aside and let him and his "crew" of five or 6 gal friends, all with nice, huge cameras, start clicking away at the girls for probably a good five minutes. I'm sure they got more pictures of the girls than they did of the castle. I think A. feels like a mini-celebrity here with so many people always wanting to take her picture.
We went on a nice walking tour in the "Valley of Gangala". There were lots of caverns that used to be underground that are now outside, and this awesome tree with vines that had grown down and become its own roots in the ground. There was also come giant bamboo that the guide said had grown 50 feet in 6 months. It was pretty incredible.
Right at the beginning of May is Golden Week in Japan, a week where they celebrate 3 holidays. It's like a Spring Break for the kids and lots of people take off of work for the week. There were also some big dragon boat races that we got to go and watch in the harbor. American teams even compete against Japanese teams, some friendly competition. There are races all over the island, which are held in hopes of a successful fishing season.
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