Day 9: Shomyoji Temple and Sado

Breakfast:

The egg has bacon cooked into the underside of it, and that is corn soup on the right.

I had some of the yogurt halfway through breakfast and my host brother said something like "Mom, she's eating her dessert!" and my host mom said something about how I'm can eat my dessert whenever I want to. I didn't touch my yogurt again after that until I'd finished everything else.

John and I were in B all day today and met with our teachers again after class. They really wanted us to stay in B, but said we could try C again tomorrow for the full three hours after we took our morning quiz in B. Unfortunately, this meant I had to do B's homework, C's homework, and C's homework from yesterday which we hadn't gotten a copy of, on a day that I had signed up to do two after school culture classes.

I got one of the onigiri sold by the school during our long break:

(Onigiri #7)

For lunch I quickly ate a ham and cheese wrap from 7-11 in between our meeting with the teachers and leaving for a tour of Shomyoji Temple. It tasted exactly like you would expect a ham and cheese wrap to taste.

I think I was supposed to eat it warmed up because the guy at the counter offered to toast it for me, but I got it before school and figured having a warm ham and cheese wrap in my backpack all day probably wasn't a great idea. It wasn't bad though. The cheese tasted real instead of like plastic which was nice.

The tour of the temple was really cool. This building is not the temple, but we passed it on the way there and it was really neat:

This is the temple:

We walked into a building beside this awesome-looking part, then down a few hallways and up some stares to get to this part of the building.

There were water lilies in a pot that seemed real which caught my eye because I really want to grow water lilies from seed at some point in my life.

There was also a cat that followed our group around:

Here is the inside of that awesome-looking part:

Shomyoji Temple is a Buddhist temple, and is the second oldest temple in Hakodate. (It has burned down a few times though, so it isn't the exact same building.)

The man on the right told us a lot about the temple, and one of the monks brought out a large, red, heavy, round thing that looked like a bell and sounded like a drum when it was hit. I wish I knew what it was called, but I unfortunately didn't understand most of what he said.

Then we went over to a smaller room with a lot of historic items in it:

Almost everything was labeled with some pretty intense Japanese, so I don't know exactly what a lot of it was.

I liked this ridiculously tiny book though:

It was only about an inch tall and pretty incredible.

There were also sketches there done by Commodore Perry when he opened Japan (Hakodate was one of the two ports opened by the treaty):

Finally, we went into another room with more cool stuff in it and windows that looked out on a garden. I really wish I understood more of what was going on, but even the pamphlets we got are too difficult for me to really understand.

On our way back to the HIF building, a few of us stopped at a souvenir shop and I got a pack of postcards which I forgot to take a picture of, but might take pictures of when I actually send them.

We also passed this house:

According to the sign, it is an old public hall that has been restored.

Later, I went to an HIF event at a nearby high school where we could try Sado/Chado which is the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Unfortunately, due to few misunderstandings and miscommunications I waited at HIF for one of my friends, ended up leaving without him, got there about five minutes late, didn't know what building it was in, and had no cell phone service to call ふじさん（Ms. Fuji） who works at the HIF office and helps organize and run a lot of the classes. I didn't really know what to do, so I ended up just sitting outside. After a little while, my friend showed up and we both felt kind of bad about our respective misunderstandings. We talked for a little bit about how we could probably still do the class next quarter, but then I tried calling ふじさん one last time and it worked! I told her about what happened and that we were outside (at this point about twenty minutes late) and she said she would come get us, came running out of one of the buildings, and ushered us in. We were able to quickly go through the first part of the sado while everyone else was looking at/hearing about one of the rooms, so we didn't miss much! I was really happy.

Everyone was seated next to one of the girls from the high school (an all girls school), and they showed us how to hold everything and what to do. I sat next to a girls named Mizuki who said she really likes her school and also liked my hair.

First, we had a little cookie-cake-thing filled with red bean paste:

There was a really specific way to hold the little napkin and fold it when you were done to wipe off your fingertips. It tasted a lot like dorayaki.

Then, we drank matcha out of pretty cups:

Again, there was a very specific way to hold the cup, turn it before and after drinking the tea, and wipe the rim when finished.

Next, we mixed up the tea ourselves and drank that. You wisk it with a の-pattern until it's frothy.

It was pretty bitter, but I liked it. Again though, I'm a biased green-tea liker.

Finally, we went over into the next room, sat in a circle, and picked out then ate wagashi. They are basically little sugar candies to have with or after your bitter tea.

I picked out a little green bamboo wagashi:

This is the tatami mat room where we had the wagashi:

I got a ride home from my host mom's mother because the class got out after my host parents left work. I was originally going to wait an hour and take the bus, but she works nearby and the timing worked out well for her to give me a ride. We mostly talked about the tea ceremony and baseball.

When I got my lunch in the morning I also got this Pocky:

I snacked on it while doing my piles of homework. I could see the salt, but couldn't really taste it. I really liked the song on the back of the box. It was メリーさんのひつじ＝Mary's Sheep＝Mary had a Little Lamb.

We had curry rice for dinner which was really good, and my host parents showed me that the music workshop I had gone to was in the newspaper (the comic is unrelated, but I thought it was cute):

I got to bed pretty late because my homework took around six hours, but both C homeworks still seemed pretty manageable.