As you have seen, I am on a little break on the posts but check the facebook page for more recent things:
Posts, posts, posts
I have so many … in theory. But don’t have the patience to sit down, go through them and write them up. Maybe one day 🙂
Also a lot of photos to sort out and if needed adjust a bit (altough I prefer out of the camera…). I’ll get there sometime 🙂
We had the opportunity to go to the 40 All Japan Kobudo Enbu and for our biggest surprise we were put in the vip section. (as usual in Japan, we were not told beforehand). It was a very nice event and a lot of amazing things to see. A bit sad to see how few Japanese came to see this event.
I made some videos and there were professionals with big cameras, so hopefully they will turn up on youtube in the coming days.
My practice is on hold, we have a break and I will travel to visit friends in Fukuoka.
I will have a trip to the Ghibli museum this month and slowly my stay is coming to an end and I can worry about getting a job somehow, somewhere.
Back to the “real” life.
Happy New Year of the Rooster! Boldog Kakas Évét!
Happy New Year of the Rooster!!!
My stay is slowly coming to an end and my story will continue in Europe. For now at least 🙂
I am planning to come back sometime. I started a lot of things and got more attached. Probably as much more attached as much detached 🙂
If you did not get one yet, let me know what your mail address is so I can send you a postcard as a thank you for helping me to get this opportunity!
Boldog Kakas Évét!!!
A Japán évem hamarosan véget ér és visszatérek a nagy európába. Legalábbis egyenlőre 🙂
Tervezek még visszajönni hosszabb, rövidebb időre a jövőben. Több dologba is belekezdtem itt és legalább annyira nőtt a kötődés mint amennyire sok negatív dolog is volt 🙂
Ha még nem kaptál tőlem képeslapot innen add meg a címed, hogy tudjak küldeni egyet köszönetképp amiért segítettél eljutni ide!
Boldog Új Évet! – Happy New Year!
Kerestem egy képet és ránéztem a blogra, hátha ott van. Hát… Nem kicsit el lett ez hanyagolva a nagy rohanásban. Remélem vissza tudok belőle pótolni pár eseményt.
I was looking for some photos and I checked the blog. Maybe I put it there. Well… I kinda left this place alone most of the time in the big rush. I will try to catch up with some posts.
School festival is coming!
The school festival is coming up for IBU. I am in two clubs so I will be in two parts of it most probably. Sadou and kyudo.
We started a new way of sadou for this. Its a small table that you can put together in 5 minutes. It’s a bit weird, because you sit on a chair and the guests too. Feels a bit more like a matcha factory 😛 But it includes a lot from the movements of the chashitsu version with kama and tatami and all the things.
Just to confuse things a bit more 🙂
Shikoku pilgrimage – plans for a future
Sadly this will not be an article about my adventures there. More likely a reminder for me to do it sometime when I come back to Japan next time. I wont have the finances or the time this time sadly.
To simplify it, it’s like the Japanese version of El Camino. (An other of my short term plans). A month long pilgrimige in Shikoku visiting temples around the island.
Of course there is a wiki page for it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikoku_Pilgrimage
There is a good series of articels too with really nice photos here:
https://randomwire.com/shikoku-pilgrimage/#more-22586
Almost half way – hobbies
It’s the end of September. This means two things for the people here, school starts again and we are kind of half way. For me it’s a good wake up call too to try to enjoy the good parts of being here more and care less about the bad parts.
I have 6 more months to get better in Japanese because it will be a lot harder when I leave.
This also means the end is coming closer and closer so I have to start looking at job ads to see what could I get in to and start applying in the not so distant future.
Get back to enjoying practice.
The people like me who have a lot of hobbies just don’t fit in to Japan. Here people focus on one thing and they get good in it or at least try their best. For me, getting locked in to one thing is a small part of hell. I love to have all kinds of hobbies, different activities, variety. Yes, I become mediocre max in most of them probably but it makes me live while the other hand if im locked in to one activity it makes me fall in to depression and black thoughts in a matter of few weeks. So… well… there were hard weeks here. But I have a good enough “I don’t give a shit about what others are thinking” attitude most of the time to keep me free of the Japanese social pressure. Most of the time.
On the other hand I do like kyudo and to practice. So… working on a balance 🙂
Issues – Plans
Lets start with some issues:
- Having some laptop issues, but I’m working on it. Now it got some ram upgrade, the monster runs on 24GB now! Lightroom flies. I still have to get a good editing software for movies. So you should see more of the photos I take soon.
- Motivational issues for writing, photography and the rest.
- Slacking of with Japanese
- Being sick a lot lately. Its the local Kaze, or catching the cold. This covers kind of everything that is not semi serious. It just keeps me down a lot and missing kyudo practices too.
- Japan is expensive
And some plans:
- More time with people 🙂
- More scheduled times for tasks
- Write. Write a lot. Get things out and share the adventures with you all. Starting right with this post 😛
- Running
- Big walks
- Hikes
- More planned photography, not just clicking away
- Baito baito baito
- More kyudo practice
- Even more sadou time
Every Friday is … Sadou
Next to the Thursday Edosenke Sadou classes at the Uni my sensei invited me to her official Friday classes. I am more then happy to go whenever I can.
It’s always an experience. I can sit with 3-5 old ladies and one of the senseis most advanced students who all are chatting about anything and everything and practice for a few hours. There are good ones and less good ones, but everybody is trying their best. It’s a 2-4 hours of seiza practice too. A lot of midori geiko (learning while watching) and 1 or 2 times I can practice too. So many steps and so many words. Sensei is strict on notes, she doesn’t let me take notes. The body has to remember she says. I try. Again and again. And she gently, with a low voice puts in a few words when I miss out a step or do not know what is the next step.
The next step in this particular set up. Because there are so many ways. I am getting more and more steps in mine. Until now there were two big versions. One on a tray, which is a more mobile, everywhere possible to perform version and one with a summer set up in her tea room. In this I had already variations in my practice too. Having the chairo (tea caddy) already inside or bringing it in, showing the used dougu (equipment) to the main guest after the tea or not. And I have seen an other version where the chairo is already in the tea room but in a drawer next to fireplace. Also I have seen koicha (thick tea) ceremony too, where the chairo is the ceramic version and comes in a little bag and we share a big chawan with all the guests and the main guests talks about the tea and the chawan with the tea maker. Today I have seen a ceremonial version of putting coal on the fire with a little bit of incense at the end.
And all this is just the surface of this one school. There are many mane more things like chabana, food preparation, winter set up, smaller one tatami tea room set up and many many more things.
You all know I am a huge tea guy but even I had no idea that this will be my island here, my best class, closest to my heart here in Katsuura.
I have to pick up as much as I can while I am here. I have all the help, I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher.
I remember not starting at home, I remember trying to go to Prague to meet Martin to start in Omotesenke and then I was placed where I should be. Its funny when pieces fit together after some time.
A good friend of mine told me a few times. Careful what you wish for because you will get it.
This year is about these pieces.
Well… I disappeared :)
So… I had some time of from my blog it seems. But they always say when you don’t have time to write about it you live your life 😉 I was trying to do that 😛
But I have a lot of plans about what to write here and had a lot of adventures in the last months I want to share with all of you. Catching up in the background slowly.
Look back in the coming weeks 😉