The 12 Settings of GMail’s Tea House Theme
In ancient China there used to be the concept of 时辰 (Shi Chen), each lasting 2 hours long, to make up the day. They name these “bi-hours” using the 12 zodiac animals.
Here’s an illustration of that using Gmail’s tea house theme 🙂
5am – 7am: Rabbit
7am – 9am: Dragon
9am – 11am: Snake
11am – 1pm: Horse
1pm – 3pm: Goat
3pm – 5pm: Monkey
5pm – 7pm: Chicken
7pm – 9pm: Dog
9pm – 11pm: Pig
11pm – 1am: Mouse
1am – 3am: Cow
3am – 5am: Tiger
Here’s a video of an earlier incarnation of this theme for iGoogle.
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ywYLwweNvkQ” height=”355″ width=”425″ /]
Images © Google 2008
Updates: There are more!
3:14am: Probably a play on the number PI (π)
Thanks to Knux The Fox (see comments)
Honestly, I love the Google theme at their first launched of the iGoogle. It impressed me even with a simple interface as compare to other. 😉
does anyone know if there is an easter egg one like there was at 3:14 for igoogle?
There are also interproximal scenes which happen during special times. I’ve found one thanks to a tip from someone on youtube. It’s 314am [img]http://mail.google.com/mail/images/2/5/teahouse/314am/footer_bg.jpg[/img]
If anyone finds any more, please let me know.
times I’ve confirmed so far, and you can put those times in the url in place of 314am to see the image. It’s 2am, 314am, 4am, 6am, 8am, 10am, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm, and 10pm. There must be different codes for noon and midnight, so I’ll play around with it.
Noon and midnight are simply “noon” and “midnight” in the time space. So, there is a scene every 2 hours on the hour, but the special scene at 2:14am Central time, though the code reads 314am unless it’s a glitch and someone put it as 2:14am by mistake instead of an hour later.
That’s awesome! I’ll add it to the main post.
THANKYOU!
after a co-worker asking about my new iGoogle theme,(teahouse fox) I have fallen in love with the little kitsune. After many hours of-Googling- I found the creator (MEOMI @ Flickr) and my search ’twas complete-except for a complete set of Gmail screenshots. You have made my day-THANKYOU!!
Now all we need is a backstory from the author……
Hello,
Could I use your images to make a screen-saver. With due acknowledgements of course.
Best regards and many thanks,
Ray
p.s. You could mail me your answer.
sure – these images are not mine anyway!
Hey, there’s a Facebook page about the ‘lil fox if anyone’s interested.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44608715885
Oh, Thanks. I’ve searched these scenes of the tea house thema. I love it. Can I use these scenes on my blog? If you wouldn’t like it, please let me know.
Thank you for the little fox.
Maybe you can help me finding the original drawer, and maybe tell me why are there just trees (about 1 second) when updating the iGoogle page.
And is there a difference between your version of the theme and mine (in France)? Maybe because your is the Asian one.
I would be grateful for your answer, feel free to answer on my mail. Thanks. See you.
Kaki, I don’t know the original artist. It’s likely that the “just trees” you’re seeing are repeated “background images” while the main picture on the left (which is larger) is loading.
Post the French version :o) and share the link – merci!
I wonder the tea house theme that you show is the gmail one… am i right?
http://blog.use-design.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/tea-house.png
The French version is the iGoogle one with ducks, ghosts, etc. and the tea house is on the right of the screen, not on the left like the one you show.
My iGoogle looks like http://code.google.com/intl/fr-FR/apis/themes/images/teahouse-header.gif
Got a “japanese fox” at home, i’ll send you some pics 🙂
Sorry, i misread the title ^^
jiinjoo did you receive the house tea we have in france ?
hello how is kitsune
What is happening in the tea house 3:14 am scene?
to mmeacham Said in December 31st, 2010
At 3:14 am those are chinese vampires.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shi
They are usually controlled by a Taoist priest (fox in the yellow) who makes them follow him by ringing a bell. (This only works when there is a special spell attached to their foreheads, else they just go wild and hop about and attack people. (I think this particular Taoist priest is nervous because his vampire/zombies got away.)
source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/meomi/3045751867/
Just noticed (6am) a greedy tortoise, chomping away on the pink flowers the fox has in the C-shaped garden rockery while he sleeps! 😮
Actually the “Chicken” scene was replaced with the “Rabbit” scene. Otherwise awesome
I really want to see the 3:14 scene for myself, tho.
GMail is still to this day displaying like 4 of them at various stages..I can see the sun moving! I get such a big kick out of watching the little guy but I wish all of them would still play out 🙁