August 18, 2006

Eating and Leaving




I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but I remembered to take the camera to snap these shots of our breakfast. Breakfast was at 8:00. Imagine waking up to this much food! As you can see things are served in separate dishes. Each person gets a serving of the same food on the same kind of dish. Little Brother's egg was cooked for him and served on a blue and white plate with lettuce. Ours was softly boiled and served in a soy and mirin sauce in a square bowl.

The selection of dishes (food and dishware) here is wide and varied. The food is seasonal. Some dishware has seasonal decorations. A green maple or bamboo leaf, morning glory, bellflower, sunflower, dragonfly, or watermelon (Little Brother's idea) are common decorations on dishware. As I look closely I can see that this dishware didn't have any special summer decorations.




As we were leaving our breakfast room, I asked the woman who had served us for a picture. In the picture of the whole breakfast table, you can see a bit of her kimono behind Little Brother and Big Sister. She sat on the floor on her knees and first served us rice (it is already on the table in the pictures) and then made tea for us. Here she is in the hallway about to put away futon in someone else's room. Imagine cleaning up while wearing a kimono! I have worn a kimono. It's not easy to walk in it much less bend!

When we went back to our room, our futon were already put away. Check out time was 10:00 so we had time to get ready to leave.

No comments: