For weeks, we've been talking about going to a tea ceremony at one of Japan's many gardens. And today, we decided to head over to the garden next to Himeji Castle to admire the fall colors and try the tea ceremony. Much is written about the tea ceremony - how the elaborate ritual is intended to give the recipent time to comtemplate the tea, and life in general. We were excited to finally experience this ancient tradition and happily took off our shoes to enter the tea house and paid our 500 yen. What we didn't know is that today, approximately 150 high school students were also visiting this tea house to experience the tea ceremony. So we were ushered in, seated in low chairs, given our sweets and our tea to gulp down and then move on out to make room for the next group of guests!! It was rather anti-climatic! But we plan to return on a quieter day. Here are a few photos of the event.
There happened to be a wedding at the garden today, so I snuck a photo of the bride and groom in traditional wedding clothes.
I was amused by all the shoes at the entrance to the tea house. This should have been our first hint that they were busy today.
Our sweet. It's shaped like a ginko leaf. It was rice dough folded over white sweet bean paste (no surprise there).
The bowl of frothy green tea. I thought it tasted like seaweed, but then again, I think everything here tastes like seaweed or fish.
Some guests at the tea house. They dressed for the occasion. We wore blue jeans.
After the tea ceremony, we wandered around the garden a bit and saw this man whose job was to pick the algae off the stones in the little stream.
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