Eleventh Week

 TEA CEREMONY

 We went to a tea ceremony and the first thing we got to eat was some kind okashi, or Japanese sweet.  It had seeds on the outside and it was made of mochi and something else on the inside.  I liked it.

 There was quite a bit of bowing involved in the ceremony, both from the tea master and us participants.  But the whole thing is very complicated, with many rules.  I couldn't remember everything that I was supposed to do and say.

The tea itself. It was very foamy and bitter, but I think it went well with the okashi we had just eaten.

We also got the chance to try our hand at making tea ourselves.  But if just participating is difficult, it doesn't even compare to trying to make the tea.  And our sensei was very strict on doing everything the proper way.  And everything had a proper way to do it, even just grabbing things, opening the container, pouring the water.  When I say everything I mean everything.

Right outside the tea house there was a nice-looking path.

And since it's my first time seeing the change of seasons I have been fascinated with the color of the leaves.

TOFU MAKING

For the Food and Culture class we had to make tofu, practically from scratch.  Since this was for a class I didn't have much opportunity to take many pictures, but I managed to get some.

 This was already close to the end and it was starting to look like tofu.  But making tofu is actually very a long and complicated process that, believe it not, uses formulas and weighing.  I hate math, so I didn't really like it. But in this process we just had to leave for quite a few minutes to heat up. This pot was actually inside another pot that had boiling water.

 The last step is to move it to this container, after squishing out all the liquid you can see in the previous picture.  It was a little messy and since it had been in boiling water, so to speak, it was very hot.  Afterwards it was placed in that little container that gives it its shape and left to cool for, I believe it was, half an hour.