Practicing, what else! This time with Japanese friends

By the end of February, when young wild flowers manage to escape the frozen embrace of the still sleeping earth and dare showing their delicate and frail buds through the icy surface of the remains of snow patches, along old wooden fences, Tankokai Romania Luminis had the honour and pleasure  of hosting a simple tea offering at the Reikōan (summit, radiant, hermitage) - the tea room (chashitsū) recently built at the National Museum of Art of Romania.

The guests: His Excellency, the Ambassador of Japan in Romania, Mr. Hitoshi Noda together with his wife, Mrs. Noda and a group from the embassy staff.

We offered okashi and a cup of tea, which we hope was enjoyed by our guests.
After this our guests and our students participated together in a pleasant and provoking exercise: Kazucha no Shiki.
Developing attention and concentration, this exercise also created a pleasant atmosphere of shared learning and laughing (when learning was not so easy) as a united community of tea people.
Later on, we moved to our headquarters and decided to practice Mukogiri usucha and koicha. We do not have the correct setup of our RO but, improvisation is the mother of invention!

Here are some photos from the sessions. A very useful and pleasant time spent together.
We thank our guests and students and hope to see them together practicing. Practicing, what else!

Offering a cup of tea to Mrs. Noda and the embassy staff.

Kazucha no shiki

Kazucha no shiki

A smile to balance focusing and a bit of exhaustion

And back to work

The game comes to its end.

Mukogiri - students find it not 'that difficult'. This is what practice does!