Tea Pot

Today I got one Japanese tea set. It's white with one small tea pot and five small tea cups. The one I got has some cut out parts filled with semi-transparent glass, and because of the way it lets the light through those parts, this technique/design is called lighting bug.

The traditional things in Japan are very season concerned, and this tea set is really for July, but I guess for now as a student R and I will be using this throughout the year. I would love to own lots of different tea sets for each season/celebration/occasion/fauna and flora though!

I really wanted another tea set that had plum flowers on them, but I decided I couldn't 1)afford two, and 2)carry the both back, and that if I could only get one, all white would suit the dishes I have over there better.

Now that I'm done admiring the white set I got, I wish I had at least photographed the plum flower set so I could consider weather or not I should go get it once I score some yen (JP crrency) or if I should just forget it. I know that you're not supposed to photo places these days because everywhere they're concerned with security, but I guess it's okay to take a pic for self for catalogue-ish use?

I've been regretting not bringing home cinnamon sticks, they're expensive here! But oysters are like 1/5 the price compared to there, and besides here they're sterilized by salt water and ozone or by UV rays so it feels more comfortable eating them raw.

Back to the tea topic, my other house, the main one on mainland JP is surrounded by short tea trees and every year granma picks the newly grown leaves to dry for making tea. I should bring you some!

When we were little, we would return home for the event but I will be chased away after a while because I'm way too busy collecting the tiny snail babies from the tree and am therefore of no help.

These family events are always discussed at family gatherings, and for each harvesting it seems everyone remembers me as a nuisance, like how I will collect centipede while they dug up potatoes or how I caught so many frogs while everyone else planted rice. I wish I had behaved better on the only days of the year that the relatives gathered!

No one is a full time farmer in the family but in the traditional parts of JP, the eldest of the families that have retired grew crops for the whole family so when it came to harvesting everyone spared few days to help.

I got one kombu tofu today. There are many diferent kinds of tofus, but this is the first time I see a kombu one. I wonder if kombu (kelp? Sea vegetable.) will be any good in the olive pesto we keep on discussing.

H