Tea Ceremony 茶道 & Aeon Laketown

On July 5, we head off to learn about Japanese tea ceremonies! Whoo! Here are pictures of what we did:

After rinsing your mouth outside and "purify" yourself, we step into the tea room. Here, you must bow to god like my sister here.

After bowing to god, you bow to the boiling water :P

Then you find the place you must sit. There you have to do seiza, the formal way of sitting where you put your legs under you.

The teacher prepares the tea. See how she is sitting? That's what you are suppose to do. But being an American you never sits like that, it was starts to hurt in about 5 minutes :P

Wakashi is passed around for everyone to enjoy. You are suppose to eat something sweet before consuming bitter, bitter green tea. But that is the purpose of tea ceremonies, the contrast from sweet to bitterness.

You bow, rotate your cup, and always hold with your left hand. Then you drink as much as you can. Very, very bitter but I feel more enlightened about the Japanese culture.

Proof that I finished EVERYTHING :P

What the green tea looks like. The more bubbles, the better it tastes!

A different kind of wakashi representing edamame and water drops. These weren't made from rice cakes, just purely sugar.

The head teacher talking about the history of tea ceremonies. Apparently samurais were really into it and some even committed seppuku (honorable samurai suicide) if theirs were taken from them! She even talked about not walking on the black seams in the tatami floors because ninjas might be hiding under their ready to force a blade through the seams.

After the tea ceremony, we still had many hours to do what ever we want before the sun sets. My mom decided to go to the biggest shopping mall in Japan called Aeon Laketown. It's seriously huge!

One entrance into Laketown.

Here is an awesome candy store I found! Can you see all the famous character masks? And even Mario?

A picture inside the mall.

Me posing with Mario! Whoo! Geek-meter way up high! You can actually buy him... for $2,500.

Another picture of the mall.

OMG! A line for Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! You have to get in a long line just to get those doughnuts!

Another picture of the mall. So many people... that's Japan for ya'.

Krispy Kreme Doughnut menu.

Here is a map of the mall. It is called Laketown because there is a big lake nearby. The mall is also divided into to two main shopping places: Kaze (Wind) and Mori (Forest).