A Weekend of Chanoyu

This past weekend, I was entirely immersed in chanoyu! On Saturday, our sensei was in town for a day of lessons, and to my surprise, his parents were visiting as well. His mother is an Urasenke master, and she personally gave me a lesson in preparing koicha. It was quite an interesting lesson, as my Japanese is very poor, and her English is minimal. Surprisingly, I did pick up on quite a bit of what she was saying, but I believe all of the pantomiming helped!

As usual, I wore kimono to practice, so here is my ensemble: a yellow-beige sha komon with tsubaki pattern, raspberry color ro nagoya obi with tsuyu-shiba design, white ro obiage with yellow shibori dots, and yellow summer obijime.

On Sunday, my dear friend held a private gathering in her personal tea room. She was the host for the first part of the gathering, and then my sensei's mother hosted the second half. It was such an honor to be able to attend! The ensemble I chose to wear was a sky blue ro iromuj, pale lavender fukuro obi with uroko design, navy tate-ro obiage, and mint summer obijime.

After I left, sensei's mother apparently gave me very high compliments on my kitsuke as well as my practice the previous day. I am very honored that she had such kind words for me. I only hope I can live up to them!

My friend's husband snapped several photos of the event, so I hope to have some more photos to share later. Thanks for looking!