We then went to Watanabe san's house which was designed by his grandfather and was built in a traditional Japanese style. His mother greeted us wearing a traditional Japanese Kimono and made us delicious tea! After drinking tea and talking for a bit she invited us into the adjacent room, where she played the Koto for us. It was such a treat! She will be playing in a concert this upcoming January, which we will plan on attending. After enjoying another cup of tea we headed out on foot into Akita city. We enjoyed a stroll through a lovely park on the way to the city and stopped at an Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) exhibition. The delicate flower arrangements were very impressive and ranged from both traditional and modern styles. We also visited several different art exhibits in the city which were all part of an art exhibition of 詣展 (moudeten) in which many local artists participated, including Watanabe. The style consists of a square pine box inside which the artist creates a scene or display. I wasn't able to take any photographs of them, however if I find some I will post them in a following blog. If you would like to see some of Watanabe san's work, the following is an address to his website: http://peace-flower.one-traveler.info/gengaten.
After stopping by the various galleries, we returned back to Watanabe san's house where we watched the final stages of a Sumo tournament. お母さん (Okaasan "Mother") was very happy when her favorite won the tournament! It was quite a thing to see, if one wins a Sumo tournament you get a number of impressive trophies, enough to justify not just a trophy case, but a trophy room! Very impressive!
I don't think I would be a very strong competitor though, so I will stick to my studies. :)
Below are some pictures of the day.
