Japan

I hiked Daisen again last week and the fall colors are incredible!

I went to a tea ceremony festival last month at the castle near my apartment (how cool is that sentence, really). Here are some pictures from that. So many women were dressed up in their best kimonos and of course were constantly in formal manner. Several of our older women students are pretty well-known tea ceremony teachers in the area.

We actually sat inside a tent and watched the whole process, then, they served us the matcha (ceremonial green tea) and Japanese sweets. Matcha is a little bitter and thick, and our sweets were made from sweet potatoes. Sounds weird, but it was really good!