Before I write about Hatsugama, I want to talk about what happened while I was writing the last article yesterday.   I was writing it just before I made my children sleep, it means I was in a hurry writing.   So, when my son told me that he wet his pants, I scolded him very fiercely.   I regretted after he slept.   “I’m very sorry.”

Anyway, speaking of Hatsugama, guests usually wear Kimono, but it was very windy that day, so I went my teacher’s house, the place Hatsugama was held at, wearing a suit. 

In the waiting room, we are supposed to write our names and appreciate flowers and a hanging scroll.  After that we eat “Hanabira-mochi”, a sweat especially for “Hatsugama”.   And then we wait uniil the host tell us to come in the special room for Hatsugama.

I’ll write a continuance in next blog.   I have to to to pick up my daughter now.

I started to learn “Tea Ceremony” when I was 18 years old.   My mother told me to learn it.   I wasn’t willing to do it at first because I thought that learning “Tea Ceremony” was out of date.   But it didn’t take time for me to come to love the unique atmosphere.   While I was doing lessons, I felt as if time stopped.   My teacher would say to all students “When you come to my house to take lessons, you take off all the secular dirt and you can forget all of what you have to do or you have to play as an employee, a student, or a housewife.

Since then, I take lessons from time to time.   On Jan. 7th, I was able to participate “Hatsugama”, the first tea ceremony of the New Year, for the first time in 7 years.   I’ll write about what I did in the ceremony in the next blog.