2005: The beginning of the rest of my life

I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions, but every few months or so I do a major reorganization and decide to make some big changes in my life.  They usually last at least a few weeks.  Well, I decided to REALLY keep my apartment clean and wash my dishes every day.  It's not much, but I have to set realistic goals for myself and work from there.  Maybe next year I can work on my pathetic wake-up (or rather oversleeping) ritual.

I'm off to a good start with a relatively clean apartment (except I did spot some junk under the table after snapping this shot). 

I also decided that now is as good a time as ever to actually invest time in cooking and eating well (unheard of, I know!) especially since I walked down the curry aisle today at the grocery store and it almost made me feel ill.  How did I eat curry and cup noodle for SO LONG? 

Today I took a four and a half hour lunch break (whoops) and went to a special New Year's lunch at my tea ceremony teacher's house.  I can say without hesitation that it was the most beautiful and delicious food I have ever seen or eaten in Japan.  EVER.  My adorable little, old tea teacher made it all herself too!  Amazing.  There were four of us there, plus my teacher and her husband, who is just as old and lovable as his wife.  When we got there he was nowhere to be found, but then came tottering through their enormous yard to say that he put the cat, Chico-san, in a different building on their property since he knows I'm scared of it (and I have bad allergies but I don't have the heart to tell them).  Be still my heart! 

After we ate we took a stroll around their property and it was nothing short of amazing.  My tea lessons are always at night, so I never got a good look at much more than the mansion they live in, but they also have a giant yard with long, old stone driveway that leads up to the house.  Everything is OLD as the hills and just gorgeous.  Today she showed us one of the special hearses that they used to use for nobility hundreds of years ago.  The wall around their garden and the multiple buildings on their property dates back to the 1500s!  All in all it was a pretty amazing day. 

I made it back to school just in time to pack up my bags and head home.  Luckily only about 10 teachers were there today and I slipped in and out unnoticed!

Comments

[frecklegirl]

How lucky that you were able to connect with such amazing people... what a great day!

[DOD]

You are sure having some great adventures!
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