Ever since I began my “Amateur Learns Aperture” series, I find myself scouring the internet for cool things to do, where I can practice taking photos.  I am now a Course Horse addict and I cannot stop going to courses and classes in New York City, I recently signed up for a tea ceremony course, which you can see more information about HERE.

This was a fun night out. I wish I had brought my camera because the space was gorgeous.

Not bringing my camera totally went against the whole purpose of finding stuff to do.  I may now be a person who leaves my apartment, maybe next we can work on me being a person who is not an idiot.

We learned how to prepare matcha tea as the Japanese Samurai did to facilitate meditation while they were at taking a break from battles.  The tea master spoke to us in Japanese and he had a student there to translate for us.

Most people came as pairs, with me being solo.  Fortunately there was a second unpaired person so her and I were able to each prepare the tea and each able to drink the tea.

There are so many steps to making tea, who knew?  The ritual is designed so you are only using one hand at a time.  This allows you to truly focus on the steps so your mind is taken off of things that may be consuming your brain.  Such as stress, work (that’s the same thing) or being a Samurai battling.

Overall, this was a fun night out.  It was interesting listening to the background story, and also learning how to make the tea in a way that made me want to make it like that at home.  I love the idea of spending 10-15 minutes focusing on the steps rather than my usual crazy person willing the water to boil before my next meeting, as pings go off in the background with employees asking me questions.

One thing I really loved was that they did not try to sell you anything. I cannot stand when I am pressured to buy something. You used special tools to make the tea, such as THESE.  There is also a tea bowl set HERE that I want to purchase for no reason other than I have suddenly flipped from “I never buy souvenirs since they just collect dust” to “I want to own all the things from my travels!”  Nevermind that I didn’t actually TRAVEL anywhere.  Well I did, but on the subway. Hardly a need for any souvenir there.

Those links above are affiliate links and if by any chance at all you decide that you now MUST HAVE a tea whisk, and you use that link, Bezos will give me some pennies that I will put in my bra when gambling for good luck.

The class was run by a Japanese cultural center named Resobox.   Japan is not so high on my bucket list.  It would be if it were just JAPAN.  But my dreams of going to Japan include insanely lengthly itineraries for which a 2 week vacation would not cut it.  Which is the sole reason it is on the back burner.  I like that I can get a taste of Japan in NYC.  Now if NYC would just open a million head spas just like Japan…

But back to  Japan, Resobox has a bunch of upcoming events that I would like to attend to get a taste of the country.  You can check that their website HERE if this also interests you.

It is amusing to me that for ten seconds after returning from traveling, that I felt there was nothing to do in NYC and now I can’t stop finding things to do.  I have too many things to do.

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