So, I apologise that this post is coming far too late to be useful to anyone, but I went to the Chado ~ The Spirit of the Way of Tea ~ exhibition on Saturday (which also happens to be the last day it was open). It was pretty interesting, so I thought I’d just write down some thoughts on it!

The main reason that we went for the exhibition was for the tea ceremony by the Urasenke Tankokai Singapore Association. I have to admit that the experience was not optimal because we reached there about 2 minutes before it was supposed to start. The guests were all seated in rows of chairs, so as someone who was short and sitting in the back, I really couldn’t see much. They do, however, have a facebook live stream so I was watching that for a while.

But, it was still worth it to be there in person because they gave out sweets and matcha! I’m always down for more tea. And more importantly, after the demonstration there was a guided tour of the exhibition! Without the tour, we would probably have finished in five minutes but the guide gave us so much information on the scrolls, the teacups, and various tea utensils.

In particular, the information on the Chaji (full tea ceremony that includes a meal) was stuff that I haven’t heard since my Japanese Tea Instructor course. The pieces of cloth that are used to carry the tea bowls were also very fascinating – they use cloth from all over the world and the patterns are beautiful! I like how they adapted the tea ceremony by using some local sweets for Chinese New Year – I think it’s a nice way to incorporate some Singaporean culture into what’s a very traditional Japanese practice.

This was a small but fascinating exhibition! I’m glad I managed to catch it because the guided tour was great and there were so many beautiful pieces of teaware there.