Barbeque

After Aikido, we went into Gojō where we met Ikema-sensei. He took us to the house of... well, somebody, where there was a barbeque happening. There were a few other Japanese people there when we arrived, none of whom I knew, or even know now. They were friendly, though, and chatted with us. We ate beef, corn on the cob, chicken legs, sushi etc. Some people even had oysters, but I declined.

They put on a little tea ceremony, which I enjoyed as I got to show off my skills of a tea guest. The tea was made by one of the men in another room, though, so after drinking tea, I went and sat with him and some for a while, discussing the finer points of the ceremony. Well, they did. I didn't understand most of the time. It was fun, none the less. I was even given a packet of kaishi (the little sheets of paper off of which you eat the sweets).

A little while after a woman had finished doing some random flamenco dancing, I was called back in, whereupon I was dressed in the tea-master's kimono and hakama. Very crazy. I was then paraded around, whilst people took photos of me and one man kept saying "Last Samurai" and "Tom Cruise". All very strange and weird. It was fun trying it on for size (it was a little small), but I had it taken off me pretty soon afterwards; I couldn't take too much abuse, plus I didn't want to damage or spill something on it.

We moved inside later in the evening, where more food was lavished upon us: chicken pieces, cabbage bits, popcorn, etc. We chatted more and one lady gave us each a copy of a fantasy novel she had written about a Japanese hermit. Maybe we might be able to read it along with a dictionary by the end of next year. It's good to have goals, no?

Before we left, we were each given a bowl of crab miso soup, which had a half a whole crab dumped in it. I couldn't bring myself to suck the insides out, so after drinking the soup, I gave it away. We went home with two Japanese students that we met there who live in Cambridge House: Mieno and Yasu. The host's brother also tagged along until Futsukaichi, who'd been talking to us all day at a rate of knots. He kept randomly bursting into a verse of "London Bridge is Falling Down", which he thought was a Scottish song!