Since I haven’t written for a while I will endeavor to catch up on what’s been going on in the most basic of ways.  When I last wrote we were planning to take a cooking class and dress as geisha on the same day.  Due to Susan feeling sick we postponed maiko-hensen, geiko or maiko makeover, but continued with our plan for the cooking class.  Whilst Susan slept in  I was able to complete blogging.  Around lunchtime we found the ubiquitous but hard-to-actually-spot Starbuck’s and both of us became actually giddy with excitement for a holiday latte of some sort.  Ordering a ‘grande mocha latte, please’ made me feel a bit at home.  Not that I’m homesick or anything but it’s just nice to be understood: the universal language of Starbucks!  I ordered a BLT sandwich (like a regular sandwich on wheat bread) and we talked and listened to Christmas music.  Not a bad way to spend the morning!  And now here I sit in Grand Forks, ND writing in the blog, drinking a grande eggnog latte listening to the same Christmas music track I heard two weeks ago in Japan!  Isn’t the world amazing!?  The parallels and ironies of life continue to strike me and make me happy.

Having figured out the bus system pretty well, we hopped on the #5 and rode to the NE side of town where we were to meet Emi at the Kyoto Art & Design University.  A beautiful area, a beautiful day!  It was sunny and warm and we sunned ourselves on the steps whilst waiting for Emi, our instructor, to pick us up.  Another woman was sitting on the steps as well and we wondered if she might be part of our class since we knew we most probably would be joined by someone else (she was).  Spotting us from a ways away, Emi approached us calling my name.  I liked her immediately!  She is enthusiastic, kind, and self-effacing in that typically Japanese way – – or what I call typically Japanese!  We introduced ourselves to Emi, then to Petra, the woman sitting near us, and then spotted Gerald crossing the cross walk, the fourth person in our class.  I suppose it’s easy to spot one another since we are all Western and all have that look on our face that tells us we are looking for someone.  It was nice to meet everyone and then we were on our way to Emi’s house up the hill.  That’s where we were to do our cooking.  It was a good opportunity to see residential areas of Kyoto and I enjoyed looking at the architecture and the plants around each home.  What a beautiful way of life in a beautiful city!

We entered Emi’s home, promptly removed our shoes, and were sat around her kitchen table like the students we were.  We chatted and got to know each other better.  Petra, a professional violinist from Amsterdam, was visiting Kyoto for a performance and decided to stay on and explore.  And cook.  Gerald, a health food store owner from Ireland, just plain loves Japan.  Kyoto, specifically.  He is visiting for about one month and will return again!  Both were a lot of fun!  We a multi-national group and had a lot of fun whilst learning and cooking together!

Emi is delightful!  She does what Susan and I call the “Japanese hand giggle” – – a lot.  I caught it on video and plan to post it here when I get around to uploading my photos (no light task).  It’s something we noticed a lot of women do in Japan in general.  You’ve seen it, too, I’m sure.  It’s one of those “typically Japanese” things that really happens.  But back to Emi.  Her kitchen was warm and inviting and we were all eager to learn.  She had us each perform some tasks pertaining to the courses we were cooking.  I was lucky enough to be sitting on the end (due to my left-handedness!) so was assigned some fun tasks like cutting and de-boning fish (love to use a knife!), grinding ginger (I love ginger!), and chopping a lemon-like fruit called yuzu (smells yummy!).  And until Gerald performed one of his tasks perfectly, I was the teacher’s pet and loved every second of it!  That Gerald.   🙂  All in good fun.  Petra was the expert sesame-seed-roaster, among other things, and Susan kept time for all the dishes AND watched the rice for steam (to indicated its doneness) AND performed her other assigned tasks with aplomb!  All together we created the most wonderful meal that we all decided, unanimously, to eat as we went rather than waiting until the end to eat the full meal.  What a great decision that was!  Not sure I could’ve refrained from taking some samples along the way…

We slipped our shoes back on, bowed deeply and often to our guest, said our goodbyes many times over and all walked down the hill to the bus stop.  Petra headed onward but Gerald, Susan and I all took the same #5 bus the 30 minutes or so to our stop where we said our goodbyes to Gerald.  An end to a perfect day!

Kyoto is beautiful:  Large and bustling yet quiet and serene all at once.  It’s the stuff my thoughts of old Japan are made of!  Many streets are narrow and quaint with restaurants and shops tucked in here and there in the most obscure places, making a surprise out of every turn of a corner.  Flowers and plants at the entrances of nearly every building with people sweeping outside their homes or shops to keep the place spotless.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we are visiting during autumn and the leaves are beautiful and the weather perfect but I have a feeling it is like this pretty much all year: beautiful and clean.

There is a precise slowness about Japan that I really enjoy.  A deliberate movement of the people, understated beauty, and simplicity.  Saying this sounds like I am stereotyping, making a sweeping judgment, but in this town right now it seems that most of what people think of Japan might be true.  Lots of friendliness but it often seems it should be described more as politeness because it’s not like people pay extra attention to you (tourists) or go out of their way to talk to you but there is an overall courtesy amongst everyone toward everyone.

In Japan there is a utensil or bowl or dish for everything!  If there’s a tool needed to do a specific task and it doesn’t exist it will be designed and created!  Often for one single meal (of 5 courses) we were served on 15 or more plates/dishes – – each with a specific use.  One thing that especially caught my eye is a suribachi, a pottery bowl used as the mortar when using a pestle.  It is a regular pottery bowl that has been scratched along the bottom with a fork to create roughness, then fired.  We used one in our cooking class in Kyoto…but more on that in another post.