A Day of Sushi and Kimono - Khaled Atalla '21

Today was a great day. After everybody started to wake up and get ready for the day and we had a great breakfast we went back up to our rooms and changed to get ready for the day. Once we were totally ready and we left the hotel we went to a train that with a little walking got us to the place where we would be eating and making our own lunch. Now keep in mind it was raining today and it was also very cold so everybody had to bring their umbrella and their warm clothes.

So once we got to the sushi place at around 11 AM we put our umbrellas away and we walked upstairs to the room that we would be making our sushi. As soon as you entered the first thing you saw was a long table that had 11 leaf shapes plates on them each for one of us and one for the teachers. Four rice bowls, and 11 trays with different kinds of fish in them. What happened was we all sat down and after about five minutes the teacher came in. She was very enthusiastic and we were all very hungry/enthusiastic so that was great. The first thing she did was introduce herself and tell us a little bit about how we would be making our own sushi and how to do it. After she took a few pictures of everyone and finished with the introductions we all put on gloves and made our hands very clean and that's when we started making our sushi. The teacher shows us that we had to pick up the rice with our right hands and to make sure that we had around twenty grams. We then had to make it into a little oval in our hands. Once we had done that we had to pick up the fish with our left hands and put it on the rice than we added a little wasabi and that's what we did eight times with eight different kinds of fish. When we finally finished that's when we all began to eat. Despite not looking like it was made by a professional chef it did still taste very good.

After we finished our whole meal and talked story we all got our stuff back and left. By this time it was beginning to rain even harder and it was colder than it had been previously. After we left we walked to the train station so that we would go back towards the hotel to the place where we would get our kimono. Kimono are an ancient piece of clothing that a lot of people used to wear to show off their class or status. They were also used for different things like weddings and funerals and graduations. They are now used for mostly for funerals, graduations, and weddings. Kimono are in essence longs dresses but not like a wedding dress, they are a lot more subtle and go from the top of your body to the bottom.

Once everybody got all set up with those we all took a walk to a huge temple that had the largest wooden Buddha in all of Asia. But to walk to the temple we had to walk through a park that was devoted to deer so that was awesome because we were able to see the deer once again in all of their glory. The Buddha was really really big. Its pointer finger alone was probably about six feet long and I can't even imagine how big the body was. The temple that it was inside of was also very large and was very old as well (1,300 years old!). After we walked around the temple for a little while that's when we behind the temple into an almost forest like an area that had a lot of different lanterns for the shrine on the side and was also very large in itself.

At this point though everybody was freezing. The Kimono despite being like 3 layers didn't cover antibodies hands or face so everybody was very very cold. Josh was the only one whose hands were still warm so everybody was just holding Josh's hand for a little while just so we would have the chance to once again feel our own hands. We walked around for about two hours before we headed back to the store where we changed out of our kimono. Everybody really enjoyed wearing them but at the same time, I think everybody was happy to be back in their own clothes where they would be able to be really warm and not have cold hands.

After that, we all walked back to the hotel and after some candy shopping we all got back to our rooms and relaxed for a little while before we went down to a huge dinner that everybody shared. All in all, it was a great day and everybody had a lot of fun.