Tea and tiffin

Sir S and I took the visiting chaps on a tour of Matsue Castle and the samurai district, where we were lucky enough to catch the Matsue Tea Festival. Many a tent was pitched in the surrounding castle grounds and bunting was hoisted high and flapped gaily in the breeze. In the tents, many women, dressed in the rich colours of formal kimono, gathered to listen to lectures on traditional tea ceremony and applaud various demonstrations of the art. In neighbouring tents or by the shade of a red parasol, one could enjoy traditional green tea and a citrus-flavoured sweet. It was quite a sight to watch the elegantly kimono-ed women studiously taking notes or discussing finer points of the art, with Matsue Castle providing a most appropriate backdrop. Indeed, I was rather expecting Hiro Nakamura to drop in aboard his Time Travel Courtesy Bus.



Tea ceremony remains a popular pursuit of older and young women alike. Many of my teenage students belong to a Tea Ceremony Club, and the art is revered along with calligraphy, flower arrangement and kimono-dressing as one of Japan's highly respected arts of the accomplished lady.

We hired a motor and chugged along to the pretty seaside town of Mihonoseki which was all a-bustle with the autumn festival and a rather super display of aerobatics by a shiny red bi-plane. Here we also took a break for a spot of green tea and sweets. Pictured here are some tea snaps, taken by the sharp camera eye of Sir S.