Fantastic Day Out!!!

Had a full day out today. But it was great.

I was picked up by Harue, Masayo and Reika at around 10am to be taken to Reiko's house. She had invited me to her house more than a month ago. When we got there Hisako was also there (she was one of the ladies in my last voice lesson) and Reiko's sister.

They have a lovely Japanese style house, with tatami mats and sliding doors with beautiful pictures on them and everything is made of a light wood. Reiko had set up her doll display which is set up only for a few weeks around Girls’ Festival for me to see. It was lovely, so big and so many dolls! There’s a picture of the group of us in front of it.

First we had traditional Japanese sweets made of red beans. Hisako made us green tea as they would for tea ceremonies. It was fantastic!

They had planned that we would make gyoza, sushi rolls and tempura. So I got quite the impressive Japanese cooking lesson. It was great! I hope to be able to recreate some of the items! The food was all so delicious and we were all so full! After we had coffee and cake. Reiko’s sister, who goes to a cooking school, made this fantastic cake!

Then we played Uno followed by another round of traditional tea ceremony green tea. But this time Hisako taught us each how to make our own. And then she gave me the tea ceremony whisk, serving spoon and tea to take home with me, so that I can make it for my family and friends. So any one who is interested let me know, though it really is an acquired taste, it took me over a year to start liking it!

I then had to go to a goodbye dinner with some other students. Masayo and Hisako came to that as well (though we weren’t really all that hungry!!). We went to an Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pizza) restaurant which is one of my favourites. Six students came to that, as well as Kedist and Billy. After most of us went out to a karaoke place for 3 hours. It was great fun!

I busy day, but I learned so many things and had a chance to say good bye to some more great students!!