Today all formality was expected. We put on our suits and reported to the Urasenke Center at 10:00 for an orientation meeting with Hamana-sensei. Or rather, everyone else did; I showed up a few minutes late after following Yo to her orientation meeting, which was not ours, which neither of us knew. As it’s already been made quite clear that tardiness is one of the deadly sins around here, I’m afraid I’ve not made the best possible first impression.

At 11:15 began the Dormitory Entrance Ceremony. The Japanese, of course, solemnize every possible occasion with a ceremony. This one looked like others I’ve seen on television: a crowd of dark suits sitting stiffly on folding chairs while speeches are made. Every new resident’s name was announced; one by one we stood and bowed. The ryōchō (“dorm chiefs”) were appointed and given certificates. A representative pledged on behalf of all the students to behave honorably according to all dormitory regulations or some such.

We broke for lunch (croquettes) and then rejoined Hamana-sensei to continue our orientation. We sat in one of the formal tea practice rooms while Hamana-sensei made plain the school’s expectations of us. (That we’ll behave and work hard, of course, but also that we’ll go on from here to continue in the study and spread of Tea in our home countries.)

The whole school (around eighty students in programs ranging from three months to three years in length) assembled again in the afternoon to rehearse for Monday’s big Opening Ceremony. By some unnerving combination of seating plan and alphabetical luck, I’ll be sitting at the very end of the very front row, directly in front of Oiemoto, the sixteenth head of the Urasenke organization. Worse yet, it will fall to me to join a group of five in front of the hall as Midorikai’s representative when we swear on behalf of our various contingents to do right by Tea, or whatever. (Seriously, I have no idea. I just know that after the guy to my right pipes down, I’m supposed to say, “Midorikai. Eric Boydston.”) Worst of all, I had to sign this beautifully handwritten document of fealty (or whatever) in my preschooler’s Japanese lettering, made worse by the fact that I was using a brush pen for the first time. Knowing that this physical evidence of my incompetence will survive somewhere for a long time to come bothers me.

Szymon led us to a nearby dōgu shop after rehearsal so that we could buy whatever we’ll need for Monday that we didn’t already own. I got a new stack of packets of kaishi paper (used for eating sweets and wiping tea bowl rims as a guest at a ceremony), a hand-sized square of embroidered fabric called a kobukusa (on the various uses of which I remain unclear), and a very small blunt knife called a kashikiri, which a guest uses to cut certain soft sweets into bite-sized pieces. We stopped then into one more shop for a set each of three flat copper spoons that we’ll use to manipulate the charcoal ash in our braziers into specific topographies.

All nine Midorikai students gathered a little later in Szymon’s room for informal bowls of tea and the introduction of the tōban list, a spreadsheet detailing our chore assignments for the next month. Our days will begin and end with cleaning and preparation, and we’ll cycle through the various duties so that everyone will get to/have to do everything. For the first week or so, though, we newbies will simply be paired up with senpai–our seniors in the program–to learn by watching.

Then Anita, Tanja, and Verena disappeared so that Szymon could make sure that we kohai (opposite of senpai) knew how to fill a natsume properly. The natsume is the small container in which a host brings out the powdered tea to be whisked with hot water into usucha, or thin tea. They come in various shapes, sizes, and materials, but the most common variety is a fist-sized lacquered box shaped something like a gumdrop. One fills the natsume scoop by careful scoop with a small bamboo spoon called a chashaku; the surface of the tea should at last form a gentle peak reminiscent of Mount Fuji that rises to the lip on which the natsume‘s lid will rest. This is is done so deliberately because, in the first place, everything in tea is done carefully for the sake of doing things carefully, and in the second place because one’s guest will likely ask to examine the natsume at the end of the ceremony; the skill with which tea has been put in and taken out will be assessed. Szymon had just declared all of our work satisfactory when Tanja phoned to ask if we’d like to go for a walk down to the river with her and Verena to see the sakura there.

Sean, Szymon, Nadia, and I joined the Finns and headed east for the river. Night proves to be no obstacle to hanami (flower viewing) in the Japanese mind. Part of the reason for this is that flowers are often more pretext than anything else where this activity is concerned; the party is the main thing. Large groups lounged around and talked and laughed and ate and drank on blue plastic tarps on both banks of the river. At least one party had brought its own generator and floodlights to illuminate the sakura tree they sat beneath.

Our path home wound through many little side streets and past many other gloriously blooming trees, many lit brightly in the night, all beginning to shake loose their petals in little fluttering storms that leave on the streets and sidewalks a festive confetti, as though Spring had been driven through the city in a ticker-tape parade. Hamana-sensei says it will rain on Monday. If it does, right now when the petals are letting go, it will bring a quick end to the pleasure of watching them fall at their leisure. And there may be something beautiful even in that deprivation.