Sensei says that Tea is, of course, more about the context than just about the tea. I had a lot of context this time.
I spent just a little bit too long talking at Kansai Gaidai trying to make friends, then a little too slow of a walk to Makino station. Starting to feel a little irrachi. Get to station, and think to myself that I might not have dinner tonight so I think I will buy some mochi( of course). I see a sign at the shop saying 60 en. Oo cheap! I ask for one, and the woman gives me a whole box for 600 en, oh well too late to change now. I now have a pack of kinako mochi, really powdery brown kinako mochi. In the station I try to eat one inconspicuously and choke it down, powder all over myself. Local train to Kuzuha. There I try to eat a couple more, brown powder all over myself. Quite innapropriate I am sure. Train to Tambabashi. At Tambabashi, starting to get worried, it is getting dark. Cant find Kintetsu line, ask a highschool kid, he says oh that way. I jog to Kintetsu line. Train to Kyoto station. Now I am afraid I dont have enough money to make it back, very worried. Give up on finding the Sonenin line or whatever it is called. Luckily I drew a exact copy of the map Kojiro sent me on google! Just in case. I want to find a bank, Asking the guards they gruffly laugh and say, "Famous banks in the tower, TAW-WA." In the tower I find no bank, I do find a small bathroom.
Very small and covered in pee, I need to change my clothes. Holding the straps of my backpack, and various articles of clothing in my mouth I manage to stand on my shoes and change my pants. Okay, god so small. Racing outside now it is real dark.
Snot starts pouring from my nose, the really gooy kind, once it starts it just keeps stretching, yeah,I have hardly any tissues. I try not to make too much of scene on the street.
I find my way through the dark streets to something that I think is Tayuuchou. There is a guard there. Luckily right? I dont see Kinse, thats the house. I ask the guard. He tells me, "Kinse, kinse, hmmm, no Sanki, you want sanki. So I go into Sanki. Which appears to be a ryookan. Just like Kojiro described right? There is a nice woman, "hi hi hi hi hi." "You are from France she says," and "you want to study with Yabe sensei, hihiiihi".... I know something is wrong when she takes me to ofuro. I say, I want to do okeiko, tonight... then she really laughs, as do I of course, and I go to kinse, across the street. I am there way early, as a matter of fact. And so Yabe Sensei lets me in, and we attempt to chat, and I sit. And sit. I dont want to wear out my legs in sazai yet, you know, but I go ahead.
The guests started to arrive, and I'll just say that it was all very magical.
It seems I met all of kyoto last night, all at tea, Hashiguchi, and Yabe Sensei, and so many others, many of whom had been to Whitman, and so many different styles, and I was even instructed a little too.
And my legs died, several times over, and I shocked them as much as I could, trying to be inconspicous of course.
It seems Kyoto dialect is not so far from Osaka, hens and all that, but I dont really know what was going on, lots of talk about family members, and ghosts and mice, and shiomizu, or something like that, very nice tea bowls.
Wagashi was Suetomisan's green powdered with azuki inside, very delicious. And chocoleto. And the tea. And the sitting, and it was all so warm and inviting.
It is so nice to be in a place, and do a thing, it seems, so welcoming.
The contexts, the wrappings,
I did make it back, with money to spare, by 1 oclock! So ahahhah!
No comments:
Post a Comment