Kimonos and pottery

Good morning, I'm sitting in a nice cafe watching the rain and occasionally typing. I'm also trying to resist buying a chocolate croissant.
Last Wednesday Iain and I got up early and went to Kani, the town where Iain works, to spend the day with four of Iain's students. The train ride out to Kani is lovely - all green hills and dense bamboo forests. It beats the hell out of the Nagoya subway. We met Kayoko, Mieko and Marie at the station and went to Kayoko's house where she made us coffee and served up the shortbread we'd brought as a vaguely Scottish present. Yumiko and Mai also joined us and Mai showed us her archery kit (see Iain's blog for the actual name of the style of Japanese archery). It all seemed very technical. Over coffee the four older ladies took out their notebooks (complete with pre-prepared questions) and quizzed me. Where do you work? Where are you from? How did you meet Iain? etc, etc. My answers must have been satisfactory since they let me play with Meiko's kimono.
It's impossible to dress in a kimono by yourself, and it's extremely complicated. Meiko had two silk kimono, one black and one light blue printed with flowers. I chose the blue one. First you put on an under-kimono, and that gets tied with a cord. Then the top kimono. Kimono are all one length so it has to be tucked up around the waist and tied with a cord. There's also a collar piece that goes around the neck (I suppose so you don't get your kimono grubby). Then the obi, a piece of stiff material about 6 feet long and one foot wide that gets folded and wrapped around your waist and tied in a very complicated bow at the back. This gets secured with another cord, then another, pulled very tight. The whole thing acts like a giant corset. I suddenly wish I hadn't drunk so much coffee. It's an extraordinary outfit, and I haven't had so much fun dressing up in years.
While still wearing the kimono, I (carefully) went upstairs with the others for a koto lesson. Kyoko is a music teacher and has several of these weird instruments. They're about 5 ft long and have 13 strings. You wear odd little finger picks to play them. Iain and Mai could read the Kanji on the music and so could pick out a tune without too much difficulty. For me however it was like a sudden flashback to Mrs Yule's piano lessons, and put it this way, I wasn't much good at piano. After having a go of the shimasen we trooped downstairs to be confronted by a year's worth of food. I thought the ladies would delicately nibble a little salad, but they tucked to the meat, salad, yakinobu and barbecued rice with gusto. Over lunch and a bottomless cup of beer Mai told us about her work as a curator at Little World, an open -air museum of different houses from around the world. It was great to listen to someone talk passionately about their work.
After lunch we drove up to Tajimi and had a go at making pottery. It's not as easy as it looks. My thing started off as a cup, then briefly became a vase, then collapsed into a splodge. Attempt number two was just as bad. Finally on attempt number three something emerged that was vaguely functional, but to be honest I don't quite know what it is.
It was great to spend a day with such nice people who went to so much trouble to entertain us, they were so generous. I hope I have more experiences like this.