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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 2h

There aren't too many sports-themed wagashi, but one of the most memorable was when Matsuya (松彌) created a sweet dedicated to the Hanshin Tigers (阪神タイガース)!🙌

As a passionate supporter of the baseball team, Atsuko-san was thrilled!
#Kyoto #wagashi #和菓子 #阪神タイガース

Matsuya's sweet based on the baseball cap of the Hanshin Tigers.

Atsuko-san is a huge fan of the Hanshin Tigers!

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 2h

Some eye-catching morsels😋...

🎆Senbon Tamajuken's (千本玉壽軒) 'yozora' (夜空 'night sky').
🎈Colourful 'Kyofūsen' sembei (京ふうせん 'Kyōto balloons') from Suetomi (末富).
🛟Kiyome's (きよめ餅総本家) 'Fuji-dango' (藤団子).
🌈Macarons from Ladurée (ラデュレ).
#wagashi #和菓子

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3h

Since 2020 'Health and Sports Day' has been rebranded as 'Sports Day' (スポーツの日 'Supōtsu-no-hi), the idea being that focusing on sport sounds a lot more fun and less regimented than the name 'taiiku' (体育 'physical education')🧐

#スポーツの日 #Japan #Kyoto #京都 #居合道

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3h

Some of you may be wondering why the 1964 Summer Olympics took place in autumn🤔
Well, unlike 2020's Tōkyō Olympics, organizers in the 1960s were concerned about the summer's heat and humidity, and so moved it to October (after typhoon season).

#Olympics #体育の日 #Kyoto #京都

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4h

The first 'Health and Sports Day' (体育の日) was held on October 10th 1966, the 2nd anniversary of the opening of the 1964 Summer Olympics.
Now celebrated on the 2nd Monday of October, the holiday is intended to promote sports as well as physical and mental health.
#体育の日 #olympics #healthandsportsday

A firework inspired sweet with colourful balls of bean paste suspended in jelly.

Miho-san created this tea bowl. 5 colourful lines represent the Olympic rings, with chidori (a popular motif in Kyoto) flying on the interior of the bowl.

5 sweets in different styles, mirroring the 5 Olympic rings.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 5h

Some rather bitter sweet memories. I remember ordering the bowl...we made so many preparations for Olympic themed gatherings and then PANDEMIC!

I do love the bowl though. I wish they had done a follow up one.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 5h

Nao-san is forever determined to show off how sporty she is in kimono...

...here she is navigating 'Sagi-ike' (鷺池 'Heron Pond') in Nara Park (奈良公園)🚣‍♂️

#体育の日 #HealthandSportsDay #Japan #Nara #奈良 #鷺池 #奈良公園 #NaraPark

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 6h

🏊‍♂️🧢🏉SPORTS DAY🥏🥎🧗‍♂️

Happy 'Health and Sports Day' (体育の日 'Taiiku-no-hi')!🥳
As you might expect, we'll be celebrating with lashings of tea and sweets, and as the holiday commemorates the 1964 Tōkyō Olympics there's a subtle Olympic theme to today's offerings🏅

#体育の日 #healthandsportsday #olympics

A Japanese flag inspired sweet (the flag sits on a red bean paste with a thin layer of jelly covering the round confection).

One of my favourite tea bowls. Purchased for the Tokyo Olympics it depicts mice holding the Olympic rings. The pandemic delayed the Olympics, so in the end it didn't take place in the Year of the Rat.

Colourful macarons hinting at the Olympic rings.

A sumptuous lunch box filled with colourful seafood and vegetables.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

The large 'chestnut tiger' (アサギマダラ), a striking butterfly with blue-green marbled wings, feed on fujibakama nectar (and other flowers from the milkweed family).
Depending on the weather the insects appear from April-November, and migrate up to 1000km to their feeding sites!

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

Fujibakama (藤袴) is now a near-threatened/endangered flower, but was once found growing in profusion along riverbanks.

Symbolising caring and positive memories, the fragrant plant was commonly used in perfumes and hair products.
#Japan #fujibakama #藤袴 #Kyoto #京都

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

The next morning the villagers found a beautiful flower where the woman had last been seen.
As the petals were the same colour as her purple hakama, they concluded she was the spirit of the unknown flower and named it 'fujibakama' (藤袴).
#folklore #thoroughwort #Japan #藤袴

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

In the Kokin Eiga-shō (古今栄雅抄) Asukai Masachika (飛鳥井雅親 1417-91) describes the romantic origins of fujibakama...

One rainy autumn evening a beautiful woman was seen by villagers wandering in the fields above their farms, weeping sadly.
She appeared to them otherworldly.

Nan-san in a gorgeous purple kimono at the Old Mitsui Family Shimogamo Villa (旧三井家下鴨別邸).

Pond at the Old Mitsui Family Shimogamo Villa (旧三井家下鴨別邸).

Maple leaves in a purification basin at the Old Mitsui Family Shimogamo Villa (旧三井家下鴨別邸).

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

Because of their fragrance, fujibakama are also known as 'orchid' (蘭), 'fragrant grass' (香草) and 'dream flower' (夢花).
Heian noble women would often add powdered fujibakama to their baths.

At Fujibakama-en (フジバカマ園) it was possible to collect bags of the dried plant✨👃

Bags of fragrant dried fujibakama for sale at Fujibakama-en.

Nao-san posing in kimono amongst the fujibakama at Fujibakama-en.

Heian women would often use dried fujibakama as a fragrance for their baths.

Woodblock print image thanks - https://ja.ukiyo-e.org/

A butterfly supping on a fujibakama flower.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

A few Falls ago we asked Nona (のな) to craft a special sweet inspired by one of the '7 Flowers of Autumn' (秋の七草)...this was the result🙌

'Kaori-gusa' (香り草 'fragrant grass') is another name for fujibakama (藤袴), which has a smell similar to sakura mochi (桜餅) when dried.

#wagashi #和菓子 #Kyoto

Nona's 'Kaori-gusa' (fragrant grass), a delicate pink sweet inspired by fujibakama.

Fujibakama growing in the fields of Oharano.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

Nao-san carefully dressed in colours that would compliment the Fujibakama and the beautiful chestnut tiger butterflies (アサギマダラ) that gather to feed on the flowers' nectar✨

Unfortunately the butterflies were absent, likely put off by the startling heat🌞🦋🔍😔
#Japan #藤袴

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 3d

💜FIELDS OF FUJIBAKAMA🌿

Each year a parcel of meadow in Ōharano (大原野), to the south west of the city, is transformed into an oasis of thoroughwort. 'Fujibakama-en' (フジバカマ園) is one of the best places in Kyōto to catch sight of this endangered flower 'in the wild'.

#Kyoto #Oharano #fujibakama

Nao-san enjoys a field of fujibakama south of the city.

Fujibakama-en is a popular autumn destination in Oharano. In recent years the flower has increasingly become endangered in the wild.

Fujibakama is a favourite flower for many butterfly species.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

There may be a rather mundane reason for people believing butterflies transported souls to the netherworld.
It was noted that butterflies would collect on dead bodies left exposed in the crematory grounds, sapping on decaying corpses...thus they became linked to the afterlife.

Butterflies taking moisture from a dead animal.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

Adding more horror into the mix, imaginations fired by ghost stories such as 'Banchō Sarayashiki' (番町皿屋敷), the pupae of this same butterfly was likened to a bound woman😣

#folklore #Japan #お菊虫 #お菊 #chinesewindmillbutterfly #蝶々

Pupae of the Chinese windmill butterfly.

Photo thanks - https://ameblo.jp/a0023363/

Woodblock print of a kidnapped and bound woman in kimono.

Image thanks - https://ja.ukiyo-e.org/

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

In 1795 there was an infestation of byasa alcinous, a butterfly larvae that enjoyed cool, dark spaces. Old wells in Japan, filled with their cobweb-like threads, had people fearing the spirit of Okiku (お菊 - a young women tossed down a well only to become a ghost) had returned.

Illustration of the spirit of Okiku rising from the well she had been thrown down to die.

Illustration of a man dreaming of a woman in a spider's web.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

Intriguingly butterflies don't feature in Japan's ancient records or the Man'yōshū (万葉集 - Japan's oldest collection of poems).

In 1247 a swarm of yellow butterflies in Kamakura (seat of the shōgunate) was taken as an inauspicious omen (the Miura rebellion broke out soon after).

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

Butterfly symbolism in Japan...

🦋Associated with metamorphosis, they are a popular motif for girls transitioning into womanhood.

❤️Two butterflies 'dancing' are a symbol of marital happiness.

💀Souls may take the form of a butterfly when journeying to the netherworld.
#Japan

Traditional crest with butterfly as motif.

Traditional crest with butterflies as motif.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

Many temples along Teramachi Street, such as Kō-dō (革堂 aka Gyōgan-ji 行願寺 the 'Deer Hide Temple'), grow tubs of fujibakama from the late summer, attracting large numbers of butterflies.

#Kyoto #京都 #Japan #藤袴 #寺町

Gyogan-ji grows pots of fujibakama to attract butterflies in the autumn.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

Fujibakama (藤袴) is now an endangered flower, but was once found growing in profusion along riverbanks. Symbolising caring and positive memories, the fragrant plant was commonly used in perfumes and hair products.

It is 1 of the '7 Flowers of Autumn' (秋の七草).
#Kyoto #藤袴

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

The large 'chestnut tiger' (アサギマダラ), a striking butterfly with blue-green marbled wings, feed on fujibakama nectar (and other flowers from the milkweed family).
Depending on the weather the insects appear from April-November, and migrate up to 1000km to their feeding sites!

#butterfly #アサギマダラ

A chestnut tiger butterfly feeding on fujibakama.

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Camellia Tea Ceremony @camelliakyoto.bsky.social · 4d

Sonyō-in's ceiling painting (祈りの天井画), a prayer rendered in vivid colours, was created by the artist 'mais' (マイス).

Chestnut tiger butterflies (アサギマダラ), thanks to their long migration, have become symbols of perseverance.
Here they silently protect worshippers.

Sonyo-in's sumptuous coffered ceiling features paintings of flowers and butterflies on a gilded background.

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