Lungiman!: I wonder if you know how they live in Tokyo..

Woke up early and headed for CP's place to pick her up. We'd agreed to meet at 10am SST (Siti Standard Time) , but she was still sleeping when I got there at 10.15, which isn't surprising because I'm NEVER early :D In fact, I average about 45-50 minutes late for just about everything. After breakfast at La Mee we went to the Ikea shop where we bought something very weird...pics up tomoro :->

Then off to UBD for the Japanese exhibition thingie. The first coupla booths were a little blah...like study in Japan, anime, Japanese technology (TV, video games, robot dog). The first interesting one was Origami.

There were 2 origami sumo wrestlers complete with wrestling ring.

They "wrestle" if you tap the box

And the Animal Kingdom plus a microphone...oops :P

With a big prosperity cat or "Maneki Neko", which is literally "beckoning cat". Its one of the most common lucky charms in Japan.

Can you believe this one's made out of paper???

Cat-in-the-box..Kawaii !

Sushi!

Then we went to the Tea Ceremony booth. There were 2 ladies there to "teach" us the art of drinking tea.

Japanese Tea Ceremony (Chaji)

Japanese chicks are hot!

First, a sweet (cookie, actually) to sweeten your mouth since the green tea is slightly bitter.

Then our host (who has a Masters degree in Japanese Tea Ceremony, I didn't know that even existed!) mixed the tea with a wooden whisk thingie.

And served it in a pretty bowl with the flower facing me.

Then the bowl is to be placed in my left palm, and turned twice clockwise, so that the flower faces the host. This is to show respect to the design. Then I've to drink the tea in 3 sips, turn the bowl back to face me and admire the flower :-)

Next was the Calligraphy Booth. We wrote our names in English and the lady painted them in Japanese. She's the wife of a Japanese ambassador and has a Masters in Japanese Calligraphy. The poor lady must have been writing all day but she was still SOOOO sweet and polite and graciously kept on painting.

Then they "frame" it with fluorescent paper and hand it to you.

The other booths were about traditional games, there was a guy spinning a top in front of the booth. Then Japanese festivals and events, language and a lucky draw thingie.