January 26th - CLAY PARTY

I had nothing planned today, so I was quite happy that Yukiko called me to catch up. She invited me to a friend of hers. He does a lot of artistic things, and makes everything himself. For example, he makes all the instruments for the tea ceremony of wood and other materials. His working place was located 1 hour from Matsubara by car. Yukiko and I had a lot of fun in the car, she is a great person.

When we got there, we first had lunch. We ate, of course, traditional Japanese food. They asked me to design something I would like to make of clay. I designed a cute and modern coffee cup. Secretly, I wanted to bake a Hello Kitty figure, but I will do that next time. I love to be creative, so I was really into the claying. I must admit that I'm not a talent in claying, but I tried by hardest! We will return this Friday to finish my cup, first it has to dry..



After the claying, we drove back to Tokyo. Yukiko introduced me to a major shop in Kijijochi, I don't know the name of the shop because it was written in Japanese script. We needed to find me some cloth for my Kimono-bag for the Tea party on February 4th. They had SO many fabrics of Sanrio, it was a dream come true for me. They had like, 50 different fabrics and prints of Hello Kitty. Cinnamoroll, Little Twin Stars, Pokémon and all the others also had a great amount of different choices. It was amazing! My Kimono-bag is going to be quite controversial: the outside will be Little Twin Stars, the inside will be Cinnamoroll. I'm sure that this will be the first Kimono-bag of Sanrio in the long history of the Tea. Loves it!

At 19:00, I had to meet up with the family where I'm going to tutor at. The little boy, Yuki, is 9 years old and extremely intelligent. He speaks better English than most people I know. His mother, Shoko-san, was also really kind. She doesn't speak English that well, so Yuki was the translator. They have a major American-style house with a huge porch. In fact, the house is orange, I love American houses!! As much as I liked the outside, the inside was a bit.. empty.. The living room was gigantic, but there was almost no furniture. Also, when you come in the house, everyone needs to go straight to the so-called 'family room'. Here I had to wash my hands and disinfect my throat with a strange substance, I guess they don't want to get sick.. We discussed all the important details and they took me out for dinner. I had a great night, I'm looking forward to turot Yuki. I love studying myself, and I like to see other people study as well.

Sleep tight!

Love, Steven