Big Ass Cup o' Tea

This Sunday, Rieko and I went to a really fun festival - the Ōchamori-shiki at Saidai-ji Temple in Nara. The festival was basically a tea ceremony, but one like no other in Japan. In this festival, which is held every April and October, they use giant chawan (tea bowls) to serve the tea.

Not only were the tea bowls huge, but so were all of the utensils used in the tea ceremony. They had a enormous natsume filled with over a liter of matcha powder. They purified it with a ridiculously sized fukusa (square silk cloth). It was funny to watch the monk try to fold it perfectly given its unwieldy nature. The chasen (tea whisk) was massive! Instead of holding it sort of gracefully between his thumb and forefinger, the monk had to use his whole hand. And, the chashaku (tea scoop) was epic. Just imagine how much matcha he added with each scoop and a half. Sweet! Whisking the tea with the massive chasen had to be fun. The monk looked like he was enjoying himself, even though he really had to put some elbow grease in.

Since everything was so gigantic, each chawan held five servings of tea instead of just one. Due to the size and weight of the bowl plus the tea (roughly 7-8kg), the first few people to drink from each chawan needed to have their neighbors help them to hold the bowl while they took their sips. Thankfully, the sweets were normal size.

Looking back on this post, I guess I used a lot of "technical" tea terms... sorry! So, let me sum up the experience for you. I had a big ass cup o' tea prepared by a monk using comically oversized tea utensils. I loved it!

Rudolph the Brown Nosed Nara Deer

Christmas Eve was a blast! We started the day heading for Nara, a city to the south of Kyoto which was the ancient capital of Japan for a few decades in the 700's.

In addition to its Imperial past, Nara is known for the tame deer that wander freely throughout the city. Eric, Kathy, Chris and I all enjoyed buying some deer cookies and feeding our greedy little friends. :) A few of the bigger deer would even jump or get up on their hind legs to beat the smaller deer to the cookies.

In contrast to the summer of 2005 (the last time I was in Nara) most of the male deer did not have any antlers. I suspect this was due to seasonal antler shedding and it was definitely for the best since the young bucks were especially persistent about devouring the cookies. They licked Kathy's leg, bit our coats and even tried to eat my pocket all in pursuit of the delicious (?) "shika senbei."

After playing with the deer, we visited Kasuga Shrine. This shrine was really neat because the forest paths leading up to it are lined with literally thousands of stone lanterns. Once inside the Shrine's grounds, we found a wisteria arbor (which must be gorgeous in the springtime) and even more lanterns! The lanterns in the shrine were mostly bronze, not stone, but were equally beautiful.

Then, we moved on to the highlight of Nara... Todaiji Temple. This Buddhist temple is known for its GIGANTIC bronze statue of Buddha. I mean it, the statue is huge. For example, on our entrance tickets it said "Virocana Buddha: Height of Body: 48.91 ft, Length of Head 17.75 ft, Length of Eye, 3.34 ft, and Length of Ear, 8.33 ft. I think someone is justifiably proud of their huge national treasure. :)

Relating to this, one of the supporting posts in the Great Buddha Hall has a hole that has been bored through the base which, in theory is the same size as one of the Buddha's nostrils. A long line of visitors (mostly children) were crawling through the hole for luck and enlightenment. I wonder what you get blessed with if you get stuck in the hole?