Hokani Life: Left Foot, Left Foot, Left Foot, Right? (Hantai)

Welcome back to stir-fried tango.

So if you were expecting a follow up on the "Traveling Pains" or "A Broad Side" series… you will be waiting a few more days. This is because I'm a horrible human-being, intent on drawing out the awesome drama and torturing you with the story you want

Evil gasp now that you realize my terrible plan

As today is Hump day, know to you poor victims as Wed-nes-day you will be receiving the wrath of my new series

HOKANI LIFE!!

This is where I will be talking about things in my life

Why call it "Hokani Life"? Well because hokani means other… You wanted a more detailed explanation? Well I am an "other" person… Maybe that doesn't translate like I think it does… oh well

So today I have I fun topic… well fun to me

I will be talking briefly about the Japanese tea ceremony or Sadou ( I don't think it is possible to talk on it briefly.) So Sadou is actually really awesome and complicated and I still can't do it right yet. When I get better and think I can do it with only screwing up like 5 or less times I may show you. For now I'll just stick to talking about it and showing you that stuff.

This time I'll just focus on the various different things you need in Sadou.

What things could be involved in making tea? Ha! If you thought it was that simple, expect a big surprise. In the Sadou club I'm in, even some of the students that have been there since freshmen and are now graduating, yes even those veterans are still messing it up. So how is this so hard? Well the problem lies in the details… no really there are just that many details. You have to bring all of the tea serving objects into the room a certain way, open the door a certain way, turn when you are in the room a certain way, make the tea a certain way, serve it a certain way, clean up a certain way, and take everything back out of the room a certain way. Sound complicated? I'm just getting started. It's not just how you do it, the way you move step and clean your various utensils is very specific. There is not a thing you can do that even lets room for creative ways to do it. Most of my time in class is spent hearing the teacher tell me that I'm using the wrong foot when stepping or turning the wrong direction instead of the intuitive one. I feel as if I'm being pulled into a Dr. Seuss book every time I hear the teacher yell "left foot, left foot, left foot" as I move the right, where upon she replies with "hantai" meaning "opposite." I probably spend most of my time confused.

There is one thing that I am starting to get right finally. It’s the names of the various tools used in Sadou. (key word "starting")

Brace yourselves here come a bunch of pictures… no I mean a bunch… and this is just the stuff I have to take pictures of… there is more.

So let's start with the basics. Serving.

To serve tea you need several things. First is the obvious. You need something to drink it out of so first is the Chawan

[picture of chawan (circled bowl)]

But wait, what if when you are serving it you spill a few drips while carrying it. Well then you use a Kobukusa or Dashibukusa

[picture of dashibukusa (circled red cloth)]

But wait there's more. After you are done drinking you need a way to clean your sip drip (you know the residue you leave from drinking from a bowl, that looks like it may hit the table) that’s where Kashi come in.

[picture of kashi (circled white napkins)]

But why do I have this folded napkin looking thing in the first place? Oh well that’s because it was what you ate your snacks with. You know the snacks they carried in the room in the Kashi bowl (it has a special name that I forgot)

The same Kashi bowl that came with those special Hashi (chopsticks) called Kuromoji that you used to put it on your Kashi. You put it on your Kashi right before you cut it with your Youji secretly hidden in the stack of Kashi.

[picture of youji (circled sheath and little blade)]

Where were you keeping that stack of Kashi with the hidden Youji in the first place? Well in your Kashi wallet (probably has a real name, but I don't know) that you had sitting next to you.

[picture of kashi wallet]

Inside there is also a Fukusa

[picture of fukusa (circled silk scarves)]

What is the Fukusa for? Well when you are making the tea you use it to clean several things like the Natsume which is for holding the powdered tea before you prepare it.

And the Chashaku which is for scooping the tea out of the Natsume.

[picture of chashaku (circled stick thing)]

You also use the Fukusa for taking the lid off of the Kama or Chanoyugama which is a pot of hot water….. No picture of this… I don’t have one because they are super expensive, but just search the name on google and one will come up. When I'm practicing I just use a pot of boiled water. Although I may have said the Fukusa is for taking the lid off of the pot it actually varies from one form of Sadou to the other. In the version I do, men do not use it to take the lid off, but women do. I hear it is reversed in the other form.

Hey I finally hit a stopping point…. Breathe

Ok so I may have hit Half? A third? A quarter? Somewhere around there on parts for doing Sadou. I'll try and get the rest next time, and maybe explain a little more on Sadou.

Thanks for Reading! If you liked the post hit the like button and share the blog, and if you want more please subscribe. Please, please comment down below and let me know what you think, and I'll see you next time on Stir-Fried Tango.

Traveling Pains: Himeji Castle: Walk, Run, or Ride the Bus

Hello Everyone, and Welcome back to Stir-Fried Tango. Last time we had just made it to the station near Himeji-jo also known as Himeji Castle and I was looking down the road toward the castle as the buildings framed it and just showed us the clear path there. We grabbed a quick snack (who needs lunch when there is a giant castle sitting out there) and swapped out our luggage in a coin locker about 5 times until we had what we actually wanted to carry for the rest of the day. 2500 yen in a 500-yen coin locker later we started heading for the castle. Christine asked the people at the information counter about what the best way to get there was and they told us that we should ride the bus because it would take about 25 minutes to walk there and the castle would be closing soon. Too bad I didn’t ask "how soon."

We headed out for the bus stop and started waiting thinking the bus would be there soon, then I checked the time. This bus only ran every 30 minutes exactly and I had just missed it… by 1 minute! Ok so 30 minutes for a bus (and then the time to get there,) or a 25-minute walk. 25-minute walk it is since it closes soon. I walked down the street until I saw a few obviously English speaking people that would know a little about the castle. I say “obviously” because of their tall stature, white skin, and giant camera hanging off of their neck like one of the chains that hold Jacob Marley down in “A Christmas Carol,” not because I heard them speaking English or because they were walking away from the castle. Christine asked them what time the castle closed (it was around 3 something then) and they told us 4.

As I was running to the castle I remembered that I didn't bring my inhaler with me. One of the many things left in the locker. No time to care, give me the castle or give me death (or both?.) I made it to the castle gates out of breath but with plenty of time (take that 25-minute walk) and entered the castle grounds. What I saw next took my breath away, either that or the asthma did, don’t remember quite which. The castle… didn’t close until 5.

Why? Why me? Oh my air. Did I mention Christine won't run? I think it was mentioned by "Jedimaester" in the comments.

From the castle gates you walk into the open castle grounds leading to a large white castle sitting atop a hill. The walls surrounding the castle spread out all the way around us so far that even shooting a panoramic shot on my widest lens could not even take it all in. a trail along the big open field, I mean castle grounds, ran along the nearest wall all the way to the first layer of surrounding walls and another set of large gates leading up to the castle. There were trees along the sides of the grounds separating it from the paths, and while the sad trees were lacking in beauty at the time, I could tell that in a few weeks when everything was in full bloom this place would be as breath taking as my asthma.

It only cost about 500 yen ($4.25?) to enter the castle so of course I was going. When you enter you follow a steady trail up through several layers of walls all the way to the castle and around almost every corner you get another spectacular view of the castle itself until you finally get inside. At the door you have to take off and carry your shoes while you go through the inside (don’t worry if they are dirty, they give you a plastic bag.) This is where the climbing starts… and keeps going… and going up several flights of stairs all the way to the top of the castle and then all the way back down. Don’t worry, the view is worth it even if your camera doesn’t seem to take the same pictures you see in your head. I would even tell you to still try and take pictures through the thick stone window openings. Who knows, it may come out.

So a little about this beautiful spectacle, Himeji-jo. This beautiful castle's construction happened sometime around 1330, actually starting as a fort. OMG that’s old. Maybe ten times older than my grandparents. Were there still dinosaurs around then? So yeah, I said "fort" because there was some fort there, but then some ruler's son was like "hey who needs a fort? I want a castle." Now, the part that made me feel happy. The castle wasn't completed until around 1560 (Take that you bratty kid.) One of the next owners added a three story keep in about 1580, and not long after in about 1600, it got remodeled. Why? Son one else's son (Well really son-in-law) decided to tear the whole keep down and rebuild the castle. Sadly this was built and expanded, with awesome moats and fire breathing dragon, in about 10 years (Bratty kids!) The castle stayed basically the same getting passed from one person to the next (I think a lot of people were dying.) Someone added a few new building including a tower for their daughter-in-law (These kids!) Afterwards, there were many destruction attempts on the castle's life, and yet somehow it came out mostly unscathed. Someone tried to develop the land after buying the castle for about $2,000 (heck I would buy it for that,) but fortunately couldn't destroy it because it cost way too much to destroy. Also during WWII a bomb hit the castle, but again it was blessed with a dud. Thus we have this amazing castle.

While wondering around the castle I heard the announcement that the castle would close at 4:30 (yes I was confused too.) So this is when we found out the castle actually stopped people from entering at 4:30 but didn’t kick people out until 5? And the castle grounds didn’t close until 5 (so really 5:30 because it was 5 when we left, but there were still a lot of people inside,) so people could still take pictures of the castle itself while the sun set. At this point I was starting to wear out from lack of food and a little concerned about our time because we were supposed to meet Eriko at Sakai station in Osaka. We pigged out on a source of electrolytes (I’m a little ashamed to say where) and started to head back, again riding the Shinkansen.

Remember all of the wonderful things I said about the Shinkansen? I don’t take them back, but the second trip was a little less awe-inspiring. Why? Because the first time we were riding in reserved seats. I don’t know why my seat ended up being reserved, maybe they thought I was a silly foreigner that should pay more and gave me those ones on the way from Tokyo to Himeji (I did notice that people in Himeji seemed nicer and more considerate,) but they gave me reserved ones. This time my tickets were in the not quite so shiny, looks like it might be a slightly old looking, un-reserved seats. Oh well the Shinkansen didn’t stop being amazing.

Rocketing past everything I soon arrived in Osaka where once again I played musical trains until I finally made it to the right station (give me another week and I’m sure I can tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street.) I exited the station out of the wrong exit, walked all the way around to the other side of the station and finally, we met up with Eriko.

Osaka At Last!

At this point all I could think about was sleep. We went back to her place and stayed up for a little while catching up but soon sleep caught up to me and I was…

Next time: Nara; Oh deer!

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Stir-Fried Tango - A Broad Side - Intro

Welcome Back to the Stir-Fried Tango

So if you were expecting the next blog on our trip around Kansai... you will be waiting another few days. That series will have it's next update on Monday. Today I will be starting my new series A Broad Side, and guess what? My first post has a video!

Hope you guess enjoyed that. I'm wanting to get better at making videos so I will be practicing a lot. Don't worry! I still plan on keeping this blog, and in fact you will probably get special stuff because you not only get to see videos I put up but also the flavorful text up put up with it.

So don't despair!

Traveling Pains: Part 2

21:00 hours and getting later. It was probably around 9:30 by the time we decided to leave the airport for home. Both of us tired and grouchy. It was a long train ride back. When we got to our station, there were no more buses going to our school so we had to ride a taxi back. It was my first time riding a taxi (to my knowledge) and I don’t even remember much of it, I was so tired. Finally, home… already after midnight.

We got up early the next morning because that night before we returned home I had already decided we “were” going to do this trip. This would probably be our last chance to go on any sort of lengthy trip anywhere and I wasn’t going to let it pass. We were taking the Shinkansen!

So if you have never done it, which I hadn’t, the Shinkansen is amazing for long distance. It is a really fast bullet train. If you are scared of flying, but want a similar experience without getting off the ground and maybe taking twice the time (trust me that’s not a lot more time compared to other methods. I’ll tell you about our return trip later, but I’ll just say “9 hours”,) then the Shinkansen is the way to travel. Cost wise it was a little more than plane tickets at around 16,000ish yen or 145ish dollars to ride, but in exchange we didn’t have to worry about a lot of things. We didn’t have to reserve tickets, just buy them as we got on. We didn’t have to go all the way to an airport, just a semi large train station (way more of those.) We didn’t have to fight for a seat, they are all accounted for (not a plane problem, more a train problem. On the other hand, plane problem-wise, there were so many empty seats.) You don’t have to worry about luggage weight, or cost for having extra, although carrying it is all on you because everything is carry-on. And the view is way better. In a plane, you see it from way up as it slowly drifts by, but in the Shinkansen you really feel the speed as buildings zip past at really high speeds. Even trying to take pictures was hard because I had to set the shutter speed really high in order for everything to not be blurred.

Obviously I loved riding the Shinkansen, and I didn’t care that I had to sacrifice a 1-hour flight for a two-hour train ride.

Noon.

We arrived in Himeji. What? Himeji? I thought you guys were visiting your friend in Osaka?

Ok so, yes we were planning on going to Osaka the first day, but that was because we were planning to stay the night at her place and hang out with her in the evenings, but during the day we were going to run around to all kinds of nearby cities. One of the cities we had been considering early on before this trip was Himeji, but there was only one thing we really wanted to see there so it had been scrapped. Now that our first day had been reduced to less than half a day, we decided to add the half-day-jaunt through Himeji castle to the trip. And I’m so glad we did.

Himeji-jo or Himeji castle was amazing, like no really truly amazing. We didn’t know about very many locations to go to in most of the places we went because we didn’t have time to really plan ahead, but the list of places we should go only listed here in Himeji, and I can guess why. As soon as you leave the station it is the first thing you see, and everything else around just disappears after you’ve seen it.

In the distance a large white castle with a brilliantly cloud filled sky, framed by the building in the town leading straight for the castle, nothing to stop or distract you from wanting to just run straight for it like a little kid… except for the long walk.

Next time: Himeji Castle; Walk, Run, or Ride the Bus.

Traveling Pains: Part 1

Hello everyone and welcome back to Stir-Fried Tango. Today I begin my travel series talking about where all I went over the past week.

Recently I made some plans to visit a friend in Osaka because I’m on break from school. I bought a plane ticket from Narita to Kansai, I stole someone else’s plans on where to go. I got what I needed to take and packed it all up (maybe too much though, I do tend to over pack and over prepare.)

Then it happened. So lately I’ve been having these weird stomach aches and I’m not really sure why, but less than an hour before we had to leave I’m doubled over in pain laying on the bed. It’s actually been weird because lately I’ve not been having this happen many times. So time starts ticking by until finally I can move again, then we rush out the door, with no extra time. It was only then I realized that I forgot to leave time for waiting on the bus.

10 minutes late already.

We arrive at the train station with our stolen plans (Darth Vader voice: "what have you done with those plans?") and get on the train to Tokyo, then switched lines. The stop where we were supposed to hop onto the Narita Express was where we messed up. We were on the right track but got on the wrong train. Yes, we did realize it was the wrong one pretty quickly but the doors had already closed and we couldn’t get off. Now it wasn’t too tragic we were still going in the right direction, just on a slower moving train. So once we got a chance we tried switching to a faster one. Switched to faster line.

30 minutes late.

Finally, we arrive at Narita and run all the way to boarding, with all of our luggage in tow… when I say run, I mean a slow hobble because we are half asleep, loaded down with luggage, and Christine doesn’t run. We manage to get in a slide up to the terminal only to find out, the plane takes off in 1 minute.

40 minutes late…

Check in = missed,

Flight = missed,

Us = sad.

We trudge over to a bench all depressed we missed our flight, I had already tried seeing if there were any other ways for us to get to Osaka, but it was impossible. We had already been planning on getting on the last flight for the day, the over-night buses were reservation only, and the Shinkansens had stopped running for the day. We were grounded.

We talked about what we should do. Should we give up and go home? Try next week? We really wanted to go and school would be starting again soon. If we didn’t leave we may not even get the chance while we are here in Japan. We didn’t know what to do.

Tune in next time folks for Part Two of Traveling Pains.