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.

Tenth Week

MISO FACTORY

My class went to a factory that makes a special kind of miso, apparently only one of three.

 They had these enormous wooden buckets that held quite a few tons of miso in them. Then they place rocks, by hand, on top of the miso and leave it there to ferment for some time.

They gave us this to taste.  The sauce is made of the miso, I believe, but I'm not sure what the white thing was, it had no taste.

TOYOTA COMMEMORATIVE MUSEUM

Toyota company was originally a loom company and it was called Toyoda, after the family name of the founder, Sakichi Toyoda.

 The American cotton was actually bigger than the Asian cotton.

 Again, I took a so many photos that I'm not going to comment on every single one.

 This is the Type G Automatic loom machine that Sakichi Toyoda invented and with it became very rich, by selling the patent to another loom company. They then made sure it was never made and sold, because it was too good.

 

 I'm not sure why there was a robot, posed as if playing the trumpet, but I thought it was cool.

 Then we moved into the automobile section.  That machine makes mini connector rods, I believe they were called.  By pressing a really, really hot metal cylinder into a mold with 120 tons, three times.  The machine that makes the actual size, for cars, connector rods press the metal four times with, I think, 200 tons.

 The molds and the man is holding the metal cylinder that is used to make the connector rod.

 The cylinder being heated.

 It's close to the temperature that is required to take to the mold.

 On the right side is an example of the connector rods used in cars and what it looks like after being molded on the machine.

 A really old microscope.  I'm not sure why it was in this museum.

 When cars used to be made by hand.

 For some reason, they also had examples of different roof tiles.

 And we got to the car section of the museum. Sadly, I ran out of battery on my camera, so I was unable to take many pictures.

FUN FACT

I'm not sure if it's common knowledge (I know I was surprised), but cars in Japan are all tiny.  Even the trash trucks are much smaller than in the States.