Japan 2002

Our trip to Japan - September 16 - December 1, 2002

Note - We've extended our trip for two weeks, and we're now scheduled to return on December 1^st (and maybe December 9^th if we can't get an earlier flight). There's simply too much to see and do, and we don't want to miss this opportunity. Remember, we can be reached at 011-81-90-8173-5363 (our cell Japanese cell phone), but we're 13 hours ahead of EST. Click here for our latest schedule.

10/20, Sun - Tachikui - Another day, another adventure! We wanted to go to a ceramics fair to see some "Tamba pottery" in the town of "Tamba," a 40-minute train ride as described in one write-up. There is no "Tamba" town, so the JR folks sent us to Sasayamaguchi, which has some pottery sites, including an "Old Tamba Pottery Museum". When we arrived, we pointed to a poster of our ceramics fair only to be told we should have gotten off fifteen minutes earlier in Aino and taken a shuttle bus, and the next train back was 40 minutes later. So we wandered to a nearby pottery/antique store. Back in Aino we took the shuttle bus to Tachikui, where they make "Tanba-yaki" or Tanba ware. There are about 60 kilns in the area, and many of the potters are farmers as well. This season was the season for harvesting black edamame (soy) beans, which are pretty delicious. This weekend was their yearly ceramics fair, the "Tanbayaki Touki-Matsuri", and, unfortunately, it rained all weekend. Remember how we said that the ceramics fair at Tajimi was the largest we'd ever seen, taking 5-10 acres. This fair was just as big but spread out over an area ten times as large! Tachikui (home of Tanba ware) is therefore our fifth of the "six ancient Japanese kilns." By the end of the day, we had decided that this was our favorite of all of the pottery towns so far. We liked almost every piece we saw. We first went to an exhibit (or competition, we don't know which) of local artists held in the Tachikui Sue no Sato museum. We took photos of 10-20% of the exhibit, to give you a feel for the quality of the local pottery. Then we went to see the regular collection of the museum, and a special exhibit that will be closing soon. There was a fairly large shop near the museum. It was packed due to the rain, but had great pieces and great prices. Notice photo #82 with the place settings. A place setting in many homes, and also many restaurants, almost always contains pieces in different colors and styles. This photo shows four identical place settings - but each piece in the setting is different. The next shop belonged to Chiyoichi Shimizu. He's my (Cheryl's) favorite potter so far. I liked every single thing he did. We have no clue as to why we didn't take more photos of his gallery. I guess we were too busy looking. He also has just opened a gallery in Los Angeles called Sabi. I bought a large bowl (it looks small in the photo, but isn't) of his, but could have bought out the shop. Fortunately, some friends of his were visiting and helped us translate. He showed us his three kilns - an electric, an in-ground kiln, and a carbon kiln. He was helping the carbon kiln manufacturers by letting them put on a demo outside his shop. The kilns are heated by carbon cylinders, and a firing takes only two hours! Unbelievable! These stackable kilns start at about $1200. We'd get one, but the supply of carbon cylinders in the US is probably pretty small. Their Web site (http://www.dab.hi-ho.ne.jp/kabumatsu/) is in Japanese, but I clicked a few obvious links and found some interesting photos. Then we headed for the main street. The ceramic fair program showed a map of about 55 kilns and shops along the road. Most all the kilns seemed to be run by a single family or potter. These were all small operations, but with very high quality ware. We saw eight or nine of the 55 before we had to head back for the last shuttle bus at 5 o'clock. We will probably return next Sunday to see the rest, depending on what happens in Kyoto. We apologize for the number of photos today (146), but this may be the last big pottery day for ten days or so. Most of these pieces will never see the light of day, or the Web, or a magazine, and so we like to share them with our pottery friends, and keep them for our memories. Hope you enjoy, and please feel free to pass the site along to anyone else who might like pottery! And anyone who feels like sending an email or two is encouraged to do so. We have a few brave souls who look at all the photos each day, and a few others who just read this page. We'd love to hear from you if you follow along.

P.S. - An addition to yesterday: Cheryl's brother, Gary, mentioned that the Osaka Ferris wheel looked like the Millennium wheel in London. The London wheel is 450 feet high, but the Tempozan wheel is only 369 feet high - still quite respectable.

10/19, Sat - Osaka On only our third rainy day, we packed up and took the 1-hour Shinkansen train to Osaka and checked into another Tokyu Inn (with its high-speed internet). The room is small but a bargain at $150 per night. Most our stay here in Osaka will be spent over in Kyoto, fifteen minutes away by train. (Kyoto seemed to be all booked up because of various conventions.) Osaka, where my son Jeff taught English for two years, considers itself a rival to Tokyo and more cosmopolitan. We see a lot more Westerners and individualistic clothing here. For the afternoon's outing we chose the Museum of Oriental Ceramics. It is billed as the world's largest ceramics museum, but we've seen bigger this trip. Maybe they meant their total collection, a lot of which might not be on view. They allowed non-flash photos, so we took a lot. Trouble is, we forgot to note what each picture was. So the general descriptions are our best memory. It then being late, we headed to the Tempozan area near the harbor which has longer hours. It features the Suntory Museum, a very large city aquarium, and a shopping mall and entertainment complex. The Suntory Museum had a special exhibit on a Hungarian/American photographer named Andre Kertesz. It was all black and white, and very good. The museum also had an IMAX theater, so we saw 'China: The Panda Adventure'. We can't recommend it for its acting or plot, but it had some nice shots of China. Cheryl bought some popcorn from the store "Popcorn Papa from Texas." They had about twenty different kinds of flavored popcorn. We took the subway home and found we had to stand up because the subway was packed at 8 at night. Where are these people going? Our hotel is near the Osaka and Hankyu Umeda train/subway stations, which are connected by what's billed as the world's largest underground shopping center. We believe it. It spreads out for several miles - really!

10/18, Fri - Nagoya Today was a more relaxed day. We boxed up our purchases and took them to the post office (conveniently located across the street). We found that our inexpensive purchases have now doubled in price due to shipping - and we won't see them for two months! Oh, well. We did some sightseeing around our neighborhood today. First to the Nagoya TV Tower, a 300-foot high tower similar to the Eiffel Tower but only 1/3 as tall. Right next door, atop the bus station, they've built a new pavilion (we think it opened early this month), designed for Expo 2005, an international expo scheduled for Nagoya in March, 2005. It has to do with 'Global Harmony', but there was nothing in English, so we're not sure. We went to a large Noritake showroom. Most of the patterns aren't our style, but they did have some pretty new patterns that are attractive. Next door was a Noritake Gallery, which was showing some local artists. One introduced herself to us in English (yippee!), and told of her travels around the world, including Papua New Guinea. We then went to the Aichi Art Museum, where they were having an exhibit of Joan Miro's early years. Their regular exhibit was pretty nice also, with several contemporary American painters. We had a quick meal and then headed for the Drum Festival. Tonight was the start of the multi-day Nagoya Festival, and there were two bandstands in Central Park with music. We had actually stayed an extra day in Nagoya, especially to let Tom hear the drumming. There were two taiko (Japanese drum) groups scheduled to perform between 6:30 and 8:30. The first group consisted of five women, who were absolutely terrific. The second group used a synthesizer, a flute, and sounded more new age than traditional. But the drums were still great! Tom hopes he can find a CD of the women. The other photos of today were of the vendors near the bandstands. They're really setting up for this weekend's events. We'll miss the actual parades (and the large crowds) because we're heading for Osaka tomorrow.

10/17, Thu - Miyazaki-mura - What an incredible day - a 2-train, 1-bus trip to Miyazaki-mura. The train ride was great because we headed into the mountains (hills) on a beautiful sunny day when the leaves were starting to turn. But we missed the 30-minute bus by 15 minutes, and the next one wasn't for almost 3 hours. So taxi it was to Togei-mura (Echizen Potters' Village). With pen and paper we persuaded him to come back for us at 5:30. This scenic area was built in 1971 to provide a museum, conference center, park, ryokan, restaurants, and several pottery sites. The park is very manicured and full of ceramic sculptures and art from the local artists. This area is also the fourth of the "six ancient Japanese kilns". First we saw the Fukui Preferectural Ceramics Hall, containing some beautiful pieces from the area, then a lovely garden behind the museum, a teahouse (where we stopped for some green tea and cookies), and finally a pottery class. The next stop was the Furukawa Toen Workshop, a small pottery firm with three employees (who happened to be on break). It's a real production kiln, where everything seems to be made from molds. But they're still hand-glazed (we think). The next stop was the highlight of the day (and week). We found a small house and kiln owned by Mitsuo and Yasuko Oya. They and their son create beautiful pieces, of mainly ash-fired glazes. We loved one of their vases and bought it on the spot (but it totally ran us out of cash - see more of the story later). They have their own small anagama kiln (half buried, about 15 feet long). They call their kiln "Echizen furai-meotogama kiln" ("meoto" is a poetic term for a husband and wife). Their workshop contains their two wheels and a work space. Their house has a gallery upstairs and downstairs. We had been wanting to purchase something directly from a small mom and pop type of studio and we finally found it. And their work is just great! After we left, Tom went back to give them our Japanese business card. Mr. Oya noticed the 'President' on Tom's card. (Tom used 'President' because the Japanese card maker didn't have a good word for CEO). Tom tried to explain that he was president of a very, very small company. Mr. Oya (who knew very little English) responded with: "I'm 'president' too….THIS month". Funny! After leaving their shop, we took a shortcut through the park trying to follow some smoke in the distance which we thought was coming from kilns. We found a huge building on one small hill that turned out to be a producer of foods made from bamboo. Nearby was a great garden area featuring many kinds of bamboo, which is one of Tom's favorite things. We finally found the smoke - someone was burning leaves! We couldn't go back to some of the small galleries we'd seen since we now had only enough money for the taxi. But not far from where we were to meet the taxi (with a half hour to kill), we found a very large shop that specialized in local potters (including the Oyas). And, best of all, they took Visa! So we bought a few more mementos of the day. Our dinner was frugal (because we had almost no money). Tom found a take-out sushi box (12 pieces of sushi, including salmon roe) for $4, and I got some chicken nuggets and bananas to take on the train.

Thought for the day: while we were walking, a Japanese tour guide with a group of six or eight Western tourists said hello. We then debated the pros and cons of our way of travel versus travel with a tour guide. Tour guides can at least explain what's going on, know where to go and can get you there easily, can help you order food, and can actually communicate with you. Tom and I struggle all day long to read or communicate. Where are the buses, which stop should we get off at, what is this thing I'm eating (we simply point to the display in the window - thank god for the displays!), how do we get to xx, what should we see in this town, do you have a box for this pot, what is the price, how do I say "without gravy" or "without ice", etc.? But because we follow our noses and use local maps, we find parts of town a guide would never show us. And because we wander into places where nobody is expecting us, we meet terrific people (like the Oyas). We see more this way, unhurried, but understand it a little less. We enjoy it our way, and are getting really good at sign language and mime.

10/16, Wed - Seto - First we headed off for the only ATM we know of in town that accepts our card. Money flies out of our wallet. The Japanese 1000-yen bill is worth 8 dollars US, but you spend it here like you do dollars. $5 for cheese and crackers, $15 for purple grapes, $3 for a croissant, $2-3 for a subway ride (one way), etc. We headed for Seto on a bright red train that took about 30 minutes. Seto is one of the most famous of the pottery towns and is the third of the six ancient Japanese kilns we've seen. (The other two so far were Tokoname and Shigaraki.) They've had kilns at Seto for at least a thousand years, and they claim that it's been ten thousand years. There are seven glazes that were invented here during the Heian period (794-1192). They are Kiseto, Shino, Tetsuyu, Kaiyu, Koseto, Oribe, and Ofuke. We have them pictured in photos 70-76. The town was full of pottery shops and we looked at a few, but didn't buy anything because we didn't want to haul it around all day (like we did yesterday!). We went to Shinano Ceramics Center (recommended by the tourist office), but found that it was simply a large retail shop. We did have lunch there. We had set up an appointment at the Kasen kiln for a tour, but never found the correct place. The taxi took us to a pottery establishment where there were 25 or so kids making plates with edges and trimming bowls and cups. (The actual bowls and cups were created by experienced potters, who just left the bottom for the kids to trim.) When we returned an hour later, the place was immaculate. Ann will be very jealous. Tom somehow found directions to a climbing kiln. See photo 45. After seeing that, we wandered into a small production shop. There were a couple of girls who were taking large slabs of clay, cutting them into smaller plates and platters, marking them on the back with numbers, then creating different patterns on the front of them using fingers and a variety of tools. We saw a woman glazing owls by dipping them with her fingers, a woman putting glaze on cups with a brush on a spinning wheel, a man doing trimming by placing the bowls on a spinning chuck (upside down), and a woman using a mold to convert round bowls into boat-shaped bowls. It's really a factory in that each person is doing a single thing, very fast, and very efficiently. All of the pottery is hand-trimmed, and hand-glazed, but it's done in a very repetitive way. We think the pieces we saw were made from molds, but we didn't see any pots being made that way today. They had several buildings and at least six kilns (gas, electric, or oil - we don't know). The volume of pottery that each person produces is just amazing. Further on we found another shop and the shopkeeper took us to another, smaller, work area. A young man was throwing vases "off the hump" (from the top of a huge piece of clay that had been centered). He was VERY fast, taking 30 seconds to a minute to throw each small vase, trim the top, decorate it with a swirl, and cut it off the hump - amazing. We then went to the Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, another mega-museum devoted to only ceramics. Their biggest exhibit was one on Swiss ceramics, but we didn't find it that interesting. We were so tired from the day that we went directly back to the train, not stopping at any shops. We visited the largest (theoretically) pottery town in Japan without buying a single piece! Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant, where Tom got to try out several interesting tastes and textures. See if you can find the difference between Cheryl's dinner plate before she started eating and after she was done. In other words, Tom will eat anything; Cheryl is much more picky!

10/15, Tue - We set off on a 4-train, 3-hour, journey to Shigaraki, the second of the six ancient Japanese kilns. It's the smallest town we've been to, and the town hall, at three stories, was the tallest building in town. The town is know for its raccoon dog statues. We must have seen 5 to 10 thousand of them, from 1 inch to the one that towers above Tom. Many of the typical pots from this area are "ash-fired", and the only glaze on them comes from the action of the ashes and the clay. They're really beautiful. We found a terrific site from one of the local potters at http://www.anagama.jp/En/index.html. At his site, he shows the complete construction of one of the climbing, or dragon, kilns. The proper name for this style of kiln is 'Anagama'. We visited several galleries, not making a dent in the number of galleries in town. Everywhere we looked there were pottery galleries. (Almost all of them had a couple of hundred raccoons in the front!) On the way to the museum we came upon a large pottery supply store. We bought anything that looked interesting or unusual. Then we went to the Shigaraki Folk Crafts Museum, where they had an exhibit of some of the local potters. Then we taxied over to Setoen, a very large kiln complex. We were pretty loaded down with packages by this time. The kiln complex had a 12-chamber Anagama kiln, with acres of pottery either having been fired, or ready to fire. They had a classroom, and large work areas, although they weren't working today due to a holiday. We missed our train by 10 minutes, so our trip home was a 5-train, 4-hour trip. We feasted on peanut butter and honey sandwiches in the room. Tom's son just sent a humorous web site - http://engrish.com/ - showing examples of the fractured English you sometimes see on packages, buildings, t-shirts, etc. in Japan.

10/14, Mon - No pictures today. Cheryl stayed home and packaged things up for mailing, while Tom went to a Noh play. Here's Tom's description of his day:

It lasted nine hours, with no intermissions. The only time I left was for the bathroom. I was one of twenty or so hardy souls there at 9:30am (theatre seats 600) and I think I recognized a few of them among the thirty or so at 6:30pm when it ended. There was lots of mournful recitation in ancient Japanese accompanied by drums, yelps by the drummers, a flute, and a chorus of four or eight men. The drummer yelp begins with a low, drawn-out "Yeow," rising in tone, and sometimes ends with a high-pitched, screechy "oooh!" and always with one bang on the drum. When the action heats up (an in-joke for those of you who know Noh) the yelps don't change but come at a faster clip. Most of the principal performers enjoyed pacing about, showing us that their fans unfolded, pointing in various directions, and kneeling. Several times very! slow-moving masked figures came down the entry ramp and onto the stage. They chanted at each other and paced slowly about. Some seemed unsteady - maybe because they couldn't see well enough. I don't know the story or the title of the play, but one of the female characters may have come back later as a ghost or old lady (whiter mask). I think she was unhappy. Anyway, it was quite an experience! But that one play may do me for awhile. I mainly like the yelps and drums and flute. I have one CD and plan to buy more. You will all be sad to learn that I didn't bring the cameras to the play , but I did keep detailed notes as to what was happening, making a note at least every fifteen minutes or so. If anyone would like to see these extensive and scholarly notes, please ask when I get home. For a brief introduction to Noh, see http://www.iijnet.or.jp/NOH-KYOGEN/english/english.html.

A highlight of the day (for Cheryl), was finding an import/export store a block away. They had Skippy peanut butter, honey, and Club crackers, along with Hershey's candy. We bypassed the candy, but used the others for dinner the next night.

10/13, Sun - Today was the 'Tajimi Chawan Matsuri', a twice-a-year 2-day ceramics festival at the same town we visited yesterday. They say that the area around here produces 60% of all of the pottery in Japan, so ceramics are very important. The fair was located in the ceramic wholesale area and covered between five and ten acres. There were covered booths, retail stores, and ceramics warehouses (at least one containing a very expensive and elegant gallery). And there were lots and lots of people. Cheap pottery started at 80 cents, but there were pieces in the tens of thousands (inside the galleries). The prices were definitely better than we've seen so far. You can pretty well tell the molded items from the hand-built items, but almost all of the glazes were hand-applied and very pretty. We had to stop shopping when we couldn't carry any more! Some people had brought their own shopping carts. Well… we said we wanted to see pottery! For recreation night before last, Tom bought the cd-rom of Monsters, Inc., an animated film from Pixar, and watched it on our computer. Tomorrow Tom goes to a Noh play that lasts eight hours while I try to organize all this stuff and ship a lot of it home.

10/12, Sat - The other day Tom found a flyer for 'The 6^th International Ceramic Festival Mino'. The main event is the International Ceramics Competition Mino 2002. It's normally held every three years (since 1986), but was delayed one year to coincide with the grand opening of a huge new ceramics museum and exhibit center in Mino. It's called the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art Gifu. So this morning we took off on a 20-minute train ride to Tajimi (a well-known pottery town already on our schedule for tomorrow). Tom had fun trying to communicate with a darling boy, Tomoyoki (6 years old), on the train. His mother gave Tom a seat by putting Tomoyoki on her lap. Our first impression of Tajimi was a gift shop in the small train station. The pieces were gorgeous, and relatively inexpensive. (In Japan, only sushi and pottery seem reasonably priced.) Then we took a shuttle bus to the new center that commands the entire top of a hill. The shuttle bus had a guide who told us all about the festival and new museum - in Japanese. She started asking where everyone was from. When we figured that out and said Florida, USA, the whole bus clapped. We were the only foreigners we saw all day. The opening of the ceramic festival and the museum were both today, so it was a big affair, including a small musical group. The museum exhibit had more traditional work, and the International Ceramic Festival and Competition had more modern work. Our featured photo above is from the museum exhibit and is by Yasokichi Tokuda, and is about 20 inches across. You can see pieces from the competition at http://www.icfmino.com. One of the judges wrote that America was not well represented and more marketing should be done. Other areas of the Ceramics Park included a teaching classroom (teaching only painting right now, but throwing soon), a modern tea house overlooking a gorgeous shallow lake and waterfall, a demonstration area today featuring painting, throwing, and making molds, and an observatory above the whole park (with lots and lots of stairs). Two observations about Japanese pottery: 1) In our opinion, the simpler the better (less is more), and 2) there are so many ceramics made from molds and then hand-painted, that it seems the way to show something is hand-made is to make it uneven in some way. This fits in with the 'wabi sabi' tradition, the beauty of things humble and incomplete.

10/11, Fri - A couple of weeks ago in Tokyo we found a magazine - in Japanese - with a picture of a brush maker at work. We had it translated by the front desk. The brush maker lives in Toyohashi - near Nagoya. The telephone number never answered, so this afternoon we just took off for Toyohashi on the train to find him. A taxi took us to the private house where the brushes are produced. We got out of the cab and were amazed to hear English immediately. Alex Stanley, from New Zealand, had married the daughter, Hitomi Kitamura. They have an English teaching business, but happened to be off on Friday, visiting her parents, which was amazingly lucky for us. They introduced the brush makers Yasuo Kitamura and his wife Yasue. We went upstairs, played with grandson Mik (pronounced "meek") and watched as they worked on a batch of sheep and horse hair capable of making 300 brushes, Alex translating. They showed us all kinds of finished brushes, and I picked several to buy. The prices were reduced because we were buying from the source, and they threw in quite a few other brushes at no charge. They are a very gracious and generous family. I have a brochure and Alex's email if anyone wants to order some of these fine brushes. Cheryl also took a good amount of video while they prepared the hair. On the way to the tram, Alex told us that Yasuo apprenticed himself in Toyohashi for ten years after Yasue's father, who started the business, passed away - all while holding down another full-time job! Tired and happy, we trained home, got take-away sushi from the basement of the Takashimaya department store, and ate in the room.

10/10, Thu - Had a funny surprise in the taxi this morning. We were in the back talking about the day's trip to Takayama, when from the front seat came the words "Takayama - about 2 million people there today." What a surprise, since almost nobody speaks much English here. He learned his English from American jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holliday, Frank Sinatra, etc.). Actually there were a lot less than two million people. We took the 2-hour train ride into the mountains to Takayama. It's noted for three pottery areas, but today was the second and last day of their autumn festival, the Hachiman Festival, so we concentrated on the festival instead. The heart of the festival is a parade of eleven tall floats, each from a different district and maintained by a club. We missed the parade (yesterday), but most of the floats were on display. It was really a festive atmosphere, though, with street vendors, smaller parades during the day, and a gob of people. The spring fair, which is larger, brings in a half million people. There was a priceless (but un-photographed) moment with a street vendor. Tom was hungry for a banana, but couldn't find one. Finally, he saw a vendor that was selling bananas on a stick covered in chocolate. So Tom walked up, tore a banana off the guy's display of fresh bananas and handed the guy enough money for a chocolate banana. The fellow's look at this stranger who tore up his display was one of shock, amazement and incredulity. We still chuckle when we remember his expression. He just didn't understand that that's Tom! The floats were incredible, with ornate wood-working and ornamentation. Near the floats was the large Sakurayama Hachimango shrine. It had a great view over the town. Tom also noticed a go school and went in. Go ("igo") is a Japanese game played with black and white stones, as complex as chess. The master had a rank of six dan (out of nine) - pretty high. He gave us a magazine about go and a fan with a picture of people playing. We then went to the Hirata Museum (an old merchant's house) that didn't interest us much. We only got to one pottery place, the Hokokusha Pottery Works. It's a production facility with six people working while we were there and room for about five others. They make a painted white porcelain, Shibukusa-ware, that we're not fond of, but the process was interesting. Everything is, indeed, hand-painted, but in a production manner. A walk back across town, a meal at a noodle/tempura restaurant - the owner is a sumo fan - and the train ride completed the day. You'll find 98 photos of Takayama.

10/9, Wed - We changed hotels today (in order to get in-room high-speed internet). Then we went to the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya. Their regular exhibit showed a typical tea room, and several rooms of items from the Tokugawa family and from Ieyasu - armor, swords, Noh costumes, and parts of a scroll illustrating the Tale of Genji. They had a special exhibit on ceramic tea bowls that was very impressive. Tom took some photos of the catalog. At night we 'thought' we were going to a Noh play at the Nagoya Noh Theater. Unfortunately (or not, in Cheryl's view), it wasn't a play at all, but six different musical groups and pieces that are often used in Noh plays. Tom thoroughly enjoyed the koto, shamisen, and flute music. It was up to me way in the rear to annoy people by turning on and off the still camera and video camera. We got lost by going the wrong way out of the subway at night, but it was fun to see the night sights - mainly groups of friends, slightly drunk. Our new hotel, the Tokyu Inn, is in the heart of the entertainment district. And just around the corner is a Haagen Dazs!

10/8, Tue - We spent the day in Tokoname - it's the first of the "six ancient Japanese kilns" (we're planning to see all six). It was supposed to be a 40 minute train trip. But getting a ticket and actually getting there (via train and two buses) took almost 3 hours. We somehow made it to the city information center (where nobody spoke English). But they were able to give us a Japanese map of a 2.5km 'Pottery Path'. Tokoname has been a pottery town since the 12^th century. There are a hundred kilns in town, and most are wood-fired. Most of the clay is local and simply dug from the ground. They have a gorgeous black/gray clay and they're known for the red clay that is used for teapots. Because we got there so late, we started with lunch. Tom got a lot of goodies that we couldn't recognize. I ate rice! Most of the places to see were local potters who had their wheel and workshop combined with a gallery. Most used electric wheels. Our first potter was Soko (hope I got her name right), and she spoke wonderful English, and told us about an upcoming koto concert. She had some nice pottery pieces, especially an ash-glazed pot that Tom took a photo of. We stopped at a small workshop where a young girl was doing some trimming on the wheel. (She centered it by tapping it with her finger as it rotated. Amazing!) She also did all of her trimming with an L-shaped piece of metal. Her father or grandfather soon came in and offered us tea. That was so nice! He seems to be a well known potter because he had some awards and was listed in a book he gave us. (But we still don't know his name.) We had three highlights of the day: 1) a working production factory (today with about six employees working) who made pots faster than I could imagine (mostly with molds), 2) a huge climbing (Noborigama) kiln (it was built in 1886 and is 70' long and 40' high), and 3) meeting Olivier Fuchs, a Frenchman who has been doing pottery with his wife in Tokoname for the last year. He was full of great information! We saw some gorgeous colors on some of his pots. Although they looked like interesting glazes, it was actually the ash from the wood firing. You can see an example in the photos. He also had some terrific looking pots that were nearly red and white. It's actually a copper red glaze that he alternates with 30 minutes of oxidation followed by 30 minutes of reduction. Reduction turns the copper red a red color, and oxidation keeps/turns it white. He talked about a 5-day firing of one of the climbing kilns, where you have to keep the temperature even for the 5 days. That's a lot of wood stoking! They work in shifts. After we returned to Nagoya, we checked out the Internet café (only open until 7 pm), answered some email, got sushi for Tom and pizza for Cheryl, and then arranged for a different hotel tomorrow (one with Internet access). Reminder: our cell phone number in Japan is 011-81-90-8173-5363. We keep it on 24 hours. Another reminder: click on the "10/8, Tue" at the beginning of this paragraph for pages of thumbnail photos, and click on any thumbnail to enlarge it. Go to each successive page of thumbnails using the right arrow in the top right-hand corner of each page.

10/7, Mon - (See 10/8 for supper photos.) Today was a travel day to Nagoya (about a two hour train trip). Everything took longer than expected, so we didn't arrive until 2 pm. Our hotel, Hotel Associa Nagoya Terminal, is nice and handy for travel, but nobody speaks English. We spent way too long trying to use the phone for dialing our Internet service provider. After 24 hours, we're still no closer to access, so we'll be moving to a different hotel on Wednesday. We ARE located right next to a huge department store, where we went shopping for some minor necessities (shoe laces, etc.). They also have three floors with over 30 restaurants of all types. That's handy too. Cheryl was happy with her pizza tonight.

10/6, Sun - We're in pottery heaven! Yesterday we stayed home because Tom was fighting off some bug. Some people here have a habit of sneezing and coughing without covering their mouth and Tom sat across the train from one on Friday. He started perking up on Sunday as we headed for Mashiko. This town was the home of Hamada Shoji, one of the most well-known Japanese potters. Bernard Leach, an English potter, studied here with Shoji for a couple of years. There are 380 to 400 kilns in the town, and the main street is lined up with gallery after gallery of ceramics. We couldn't see everything here if we stayed a week. They have an excellent exhibit area called the Togei Messe. The 4^th Mashiko Competition 2002 started today at the Messe. The ceramics were all contemporary pieces from active potters. No photos were allowed, but we bought the exhibition book and included a few of the photos of photos in our diary today. Near the Messe was the restored home of Hamada Shoji, his original kiln, and a few of his original pieces. There was also a woodblock gallery. Then we headed for the galleries along the street. There were dozens and dozens of them, and each one was stuffed with unique, pieces. Mashiko pottery was originally patterned after Kasama pottery (see 10/4), so the pottery was somewhat similar. Today's photos will probably be of interest only to potters or those who love ceramics, but we have to include them!

10/4, Fri - What a fascinating day! We headed for Kasama, using a train and then a bus. The bus came as a surprise - a rail line was undergoing repair. But we arrived just fine, without using a word of English. Kasama is a little over an hour north of Tokyo and has been a pottery center since 1770. They produce 'Kasama-ware' from over 100 kilns in the city. From the looks of it, they have at least a hundred galleries too. This is like a large Seagrove (North Carolina), but in a smaller area. And there are hundreds of these towns in Japan. We only saw two kilns, about ten galleries, and an incredibly beautiful museum complex. We were the only non-Japanese people we saw in over seven hours, so we were usually treated quite well. We also saw very few English signs and heard no English all day. The reason? Not a single guide book (even Lonely Planet) even mentions this town. Only the Japanese Tourist Office mentions them on their great Web site - a must for anyone planning to travel to Japan. We printed out some of their "practical travel guides" to carry along with us. They're at http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/RTG/PTG/index.html. The museum park in Kasama is called the Kasama Geijutu-no-mori Park and contains, among other buildings, the Kasama Crafts Hall, where they were having an exhibit by Kosei Matsui, a Japanese 'Living National Treasure'. His specialty is neriage, which is a marbling technique. There was a smalll building next to their dragon kiln (the one with the neat, wavy, roof - it's also called a 'climbing kiln') where a local Ikebana society was having a show. They served us tea and cookies. We didn't have time for a walk in a HUGE sculpture garden, but we saw a very modern outdoor stage. The Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum had a 30-minute video showing pottery techniques used in Kasama. It was riveting! There was also a very large research center where they experiment with glazes and clays. Ann, the test glaze tiles look just like yours! On the way to two of the oldest and largest kilns, we stopped at several galleries. The variety was incredible. If we took all the pictures we wanted to, we'd run out of space on our Web site. What neat ideas. One woman was a real treasure. She had a small tea room in her gallery and invited us for tea. It was the type of green tea used in the tea ceremony, made from a powder. She spoke no English, but hospitality is a universal language. As we were about to leave (without buying anything), she called us back to give us a gift - a set of several chopsticks wrapped in decorative Japanese paper (washi). The first old kiln, Okuda, wasn't anything special, but they did have a dragon kiln and a large showroom. The second kiln, Fukuda, has been run by the Fukuda family for over two hundred years. The current owner is the fifth generation. They have both a family museum of their older pots, and another museum with works from over sixty countries. When you approach Fukuda, you see some huge ceramic vases outside - they claim that one is the biggest ceramic vase in the world (35'1" tall). The designs on those huge vases were beautiful. The workshop had about five people working. They use an electric wheel, but it's set into the floor and they kneel over it Japanese stype as they're throwing. Wow! We also watched one woman molding a piece over a wood block. Their showroom had some beautiful pieces in it, and we were served more tea. They use local clay, which they say has been formed from weathered granite over the last two million years. Tired but happy, we made our two hour return trip, grabbed some sushi, and proceeded to upload our photos. And tomorrow we do it all over again!

10/3, Thu - Cheryl was excited to be able to have a regular breakfast with eggs. We uploaded our pictures from Kikugawa and took it easy. Then we moved our bags to The International House of Japan, and their faster internet connection. We walked around our neighborhood (in a different direction this time) and found a very modern design store, a Ramen (noodle) restaurant for Tom, and several antique stores. Dinner was at a great Yakitori restaurant near our hotel.

Some musings from Cheryl: Tokyo seems very different than when we were here 15 years ago. Everyone has a cell phone, of course, and many of the phones have email. Our new phones do too, but we can't read the directions on how to use it. I remember the toilets on the floor, with only hotels having 'Western' toilets. I haven't had to use the floor toilets yet, because almost every place has a Western one. In fact, they are even fancier than ours. Several of them have an attachment with buttons. (One turns on a flushing noise to mask noise, one turns on the bidet, one plays music, one adjusts the temperature of the bidet, one produces a spray, and one blows warm air to dry you off!). The architecture here is unique. Almost every third building seems to have a new and different style. I didn't realize how boring all of the U.S. squared-off buildings were. So that's why we include some of the buildings in our photos. Tomorrow we start on our pottery town visits, and we have been amazed at the pottery we've seen so far. Many, if not most, restaurants serve each dish in a different (and non-matching) plate or bowl. They're all unique and gorgeous. Even our Japanese hosts used dozens of different pieces of unique pottery for meals. It's one of the reasons we've been photographing our food. We've probably seen a hundred different sushi plates since we arrived, and no two were alike.

As we mentioned earlier, we're concentrating on pottery this trip, so almost every day is either train travel or a visit by train to a pottery town. Each pottery town usually has a museum and many different kilns to visit, some of which offer lessons or demonstrations.

10/2, Wed - We bid goodbye to our wonderful hosts, the Sasakis, and took the Shinkansen "bullet train" back to Tokyo. The typhoon ended last night and brought a wonderfully sunny day. This sunny day after a typhoon must be common, because the Japanese have a word for it. We were therefore able to see Mt. Fuji on the return. We checked into the Hotel Okura, one of the classiest places in town (the elder President Bush stayed here). It features remote control drapes and jaw-dropping restaurant prices. One of the restaurants had small meals that started at $250 per person. We left the next day! (International house was booked solid that one night.) In the afternoon, we headed to the Mitsukoshi department store, which was hosting The 49^th Exhibition of Japanese Traditional Art Crafts. There were some fascinating pieces of ceramics, kimono, wood crafts, glass, etc. We picked up not only the exhibition catalog, but at least ten other books on Japanese pottery. Since no photos were allowed, Tom took some shots of the catalog - just a few that we liked. There were many, many more. We also found a wonderful bookstore with LOTS of English books (and bought some, of course.)

10/1, Tue - We drove an hour to Shizuoka to see a park in the center of town. The Momijiyama garden and teahouses were recently built and were extremely beautiful. The Saskai's son helped build the teahouses. We had tea and cakes in one. It was very rainy because a typhoon is headed this way (it should pass tonight), but the gardens were still quite something. Lunch was at a favorite restaurant of the Sasakis. It's in the Mariko neighborhood of Shizuoka and is named Chojiya. It's 400 years old. It was the 20^st stage of 53 stages of the shogun's Tokaido (east sea way) road from Tokyo to Kyoto, and was depicted as such in the series of woodblock prints by Hiroshige Ando published in 1833-34. We got a private tour of the rooms - newer sections of the building have been added that are only a hundred years old. The specialty of the restaurant is a hot yam puree ("tororo") that you pour over your rice. We also had hot fried potato dumplings. At four Tessin demonstrated drawing grapes and a vase with flowers, put a wash on one of yesterday's landscapes, and then drew a squid. Then it was my turn for a plum, and two bamboo paintings. He's a very tough act to follow, but he seemed to like my second bamboo, painted in a manner I learned watching him. Supper was at Tarumasu, an inexpensive restaurant with great dishes such as kolooke (potato dumpling) and yakinasu (grilled eggplant). We also had tofu salad, potato salad, spinach, stewed potatoes, a big bowl of udon noodles, and edamame. I bet we gain weight in Japan!

9/30, Mon - We headed out to the country with the Sasakis and Yukako to have lunch at Kazui's sister's restaurant (named Unoki) in Suisha-mura. It is a soba restaurant in the mountains, and we had our largest and most delicious lunch so far. It started with appetizers, then tempura, then soba noodles, then soba dumplings, then sweet beans and ice cream. They used herbs from the garden for some of the tempura. Most of the serving cups and dishes were hand-made by Kasui's sister and niece and were quite beautiful. We then drove to a traditional crafts center (Sumpu Takumi Shuku) in Mariko. They had a pottery studio, a place to make bamboo items, a workshop for hand-painting cloth, and several other studios. On the way home we paused to view the longest wooden bridge in Japan (the world?) - 870 meters long. It's called the Horaibashi bridge and it's in Shamada. Back at the house Tessin gave us another demonstration of some of his painting techniques. One technique used a shiny, non-absorbent, paper so that ink pools and make fascinating designs.

9/29, Sun - Kikugawa. In the morning we watched a demonstration by Tessin Saskaki for invited guests to his studio open house. He created several ink paintings. We then had tea with the friends and neighbors who attended. Later we took a long walk in the hills around their home. The area is famous for its green tea, and the hills were full of tea fields. We saw some tea being cut. The spring is when the best tea is picked (often by hand). In the fall, picking is by hand-carried machines. After lunch, we drove to the Kasuisai Temple, the only fire prevention sacred ground in Japan. This is where Tessin had painted several large panels, dividing two rooms covered with tatami mats. The paintings were beautiful, of course. Dinner was at Nodoka, a type of restaurant where you cook your own food at the table. We had two main dishes: yakisoba (soba noodles, vegetables, shrimp, pork stir-fried on the grill) and okonomiyaki (egg, shrimp, vegetables, cabbage). Then, when we were full, out came a huge plate of sushi. What was expecially neat about the restaurant is that the owner was also a potter. His wheel was inside the restaurant and all of the dishes were hand made and were quite unique.

9/27, Fri - 9/28, Sat - There are no pictures for Friday because we stayed in and studied for the rest of the trip. On Saturday we headed for Kikugawa (two hours south of Tokyo) where Tom planned to take some brush painting classes from a well-known artist and teacher, Tessin Sasaki. For lunch, I was surprised at my fried rice dish (it was covered by what I thought were little worms with eyes). It turns out that it's a well-known delicacy and very popular dish of baby sardines ("shirasu"). At noon, we took the Shinkansen ("bullet train") to Kakegawa, a town of about 60,000. Our host, Tessin Sasaki, his daughter Naomi, granddaughter Maria, and Yukako, a friend of theirs who helped with translation during our stay, met us and drove us to Kikugawa (a town of 20,000), where they live. There was an exhibit at the Sasaki studio/home where students and teachers were exhibiting their work. Dinner was at a local restaurant with Udon, Tempura, and rice. Mrs. Sasaki joined us for dinner. They are wonderfully gracious people who were kind enough to let us stay in their lovely guesthouse.

9/26, Thu - We spent the morning working on our plans for the next six weeks. Then we headed for Ginza, the glitsiest part of Tokyo, with high fashion stores, movies, and pachinco parlors (like game arcades, but just one game). We first found a well-known ceramics store, Tachikichi, which had some great art (and heady prices). Outside were the small figures we photographed. No photos were allowed of the expensive stuff. Then to the Jena bookstore for a couple of paperbacks and Ito-ya stationery store, which had some nice sumi-e supplies for Tom. Then we headed to the basement of the Matsuya department store where they have an acre of food stalls. (The photos can't do justice to the immense size.) Tom found some green tea and some Godivas. They pack the pieces you pick into a small Godiva box and add ribbon! We looked for a second Palm organizer in Ginza. (We have one with us, loaded with novels and short stories, but for the train trips we thought two would be nice. Beats carrying real books!) But of course all the Palms in Tokyo have the Japanese software and can't be converted. Next was the Sony building with hands-on displays of all its games, computers, robots, etc. Dinner, which was not that great, was back on the 8^th floor of the Matsuya department store. The Tokyo Giants baseball team won this year's season, so they had a big display on the streetside.

9/25, Wed - We spent the entire day at the Tokyo National Museum, which contains the largest collection of Japanese art in the world. Unfortunately, only a portion is on display any given day. The paintings were not the older ones Tom had wanted to see. There are four buildings with exhibits. There were two exhibitions where photography wasn't allowed at all: Life on the Silk Road, and Enamels. We kept all of our photos (110 of them), even if they were blurry, so we could better remember the day. (No flash was allowed, making for slower shutter speeds, and sometimes the glass or glare interfered with focus.) We had a great day! If you want more details on the pottery or art pieces, click here. "19C" in the photo titles means 19^th century.

9/24, Tue - It was a beautiful sunny today, so we went walking for 8 hours. First to Ueno Park, a huge park in North Tokyo . It has temples, shrines, and several museums. The Ueno Royal Museum had a special Picasso exhibit featuring his early works. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum had lots of recent Japanese art and a cafeteria just right for lunch. Ueno pictures are from #02 to 22. We walked around the local markets, then headed to Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, the largest temple in Tokyo. Dinner was at another yakitori restaurant near our hotel.

9/23, Mon - Today we wandered around our neighborhood in central Tokyo. We saw a small sumi-e exhibit and met the artist, tried out some pastries, bought some expensive green tea, ate at a noodle shop, glanced in at a Shinto shrine, found a health food store and then went back to the room to figure out where to go in Japan. Cheryl accidentally deleted our company web page while making yesterday's entry. Such excitement!

9/22, Sun - Sunday was the final day of the 15 day sumo Aki Basho (Fall Tournament). We both had seats in the balcony, on the south side. Across the way, also in the balcony, was the royal box, empty Sunday but used on the first day by the Crown Prince (Naruhito) and the Crown Princess (Masako). Cheryl took mostly video, and I just watched and enjoyed. Doreen Simmons stopped by to give me her notes from her NHK broadcast of the previous day. What a sweetie! As for the tournament, it was won by the 500 pound former Hawaiian Musashimaru (original name Fiamalu Penitani) when he defeated the other grand champion Takanohana. Maru then had to stand and receive the numerous prizes, always accompanied by a short speech on behalf of the sponsor. The dohyo (ring) was then swept, watered down, and covered up. We took the subway home and, anxious to escape the rain, ate at our hotel, the International House.

9/21, Sat - Another day of sumo for Tom, the fourteenth day of the tournament. He was trying out a new telephoto lens. We haven't had a chance to label these, but you can still get a feel for the action. The sumo day ended up on an exciting note. Saturday eliminated all but the only two yokozuna (grand champions), and they will meet one another for a final match (winner take all) on Sunday, the last day. One of them, Takanohana, is returning after a 15 month injury absence. The other is an American of Samoa and Hawaii, now a Japanese citizen, named Musashimaru. I spent the day reading about places to see. Two months is simply not enough time. We had dinner at a great yakitori restaurant (Ganchan) tonight.

9/20, Fri - No Web pictures today. Tom took the video camera to sumo today and I shopped for a telephoto lens and other accessories for our digital camera. The prices were even less than in the states - finally! I bought two lenses, a lens cap, battery, adapter ring, a backpack, got business cards with some Japanese on them (our names and company name). I managed to follow directions to a camera store that was 10 blocks away with several turns - all in sign language without a word of English. It's amazing what gestures and smiles can do. The sumo tournament is heating up. With only two days left, there are three wrestlers in a tie for first place. So it's an exceptionally exciting tournament for Tom. He also took today to pick up some sumo souvenirs. I'm sure he had the same 'opportunities' with language that I did.

9/19, Thu - Tom was up early to meet Doreen Simmons, a lovely lady who is one of the English NHK broadcasters for the sumo tournaments. She's extremely knowledgeable and was kind enough to take Tom to one of the heyas (training stables). Here, he was only a few feet away from the rikishi (wrestlers) as they did their keiko (practice). Then he somehow lasted through another 8 hours of sumo. But he seems to be loving it! I played with these Web pages using a neat freeware program called 'JAlbum' (http://www.datadosen.se/jalbum/), ordered business cards, and ran some minor errands. We liked the sushi place from last night so much that we tried it again (after wandering around book stores and shops).

9/18, Wed - We woke up at 6:30 am and felt refreshed and ready to go. No (or very little) jet lag. Before breakfast, we walked around our neighborhood. We're near several girls' schools, so we saw hundreds of little girls on their way to school. They're so cute! One sad thing we saw - the streets have vending machines all over, including ones for cigarettes. The kids have very easy access here. Prices are very high for things we're familiar with: McDonald's quarter-pounder for $5, 6 plums for $8, Subway sandwiches for $8. Tom headed off for sumo about 10 am. It was the eleventh day of the fifteen day fall tournament. Each wrestler competes once per day, trying to win at least a "kachi-koshi" - majority eight out of fifteen matches. Otherwise he would move down in the ranks. Here are here are all 44 pictures for sumo fans. The tournament (basho) starts at 9 am, but the attendance is very low until 3 to 4 pm. The junior sumo wrestlers start early in the day, followed by the more experienced wrestlers, and finally by the senior wrestlers. Tom bought a credit card sized AM/FM radio to hear the English broadcast that starts at 4 pm each day. It's the first of our miniature items. We bought a new Sony video camera before we left the US (fits in your palm) - see the picture from the '9/18, Wed' pictures. The hotel has cable modem service for laptops. Whee! (Found out about this only after an hour trying unsuccessfully to establish a phone connection.) We had wanted to rent a phone for our stay, but they were very expensive ($400 for the two months plus $2 per minute). Instead the local 7-7 (similar to our 7-11, but different hours) had one to buy for $40. Add a phone card to it and we're set. Tom wanted two of them so we could stay in touch. Tom got back from the subway at 7 pm and we headed out for dinner and a walk. Dinner was at a nearby sushi bar, Bikkurizushi, which is set up for speed. There is a conveyor belt with small plates of sushi that rotates in front of the diners. You take a plate as it comes around, and then they charge you by the number and color of the plates. The sushi was delicious, and it cost half of what it would have in the US. So it looks like we'll be eating a lot of sushi! We're in the Roppongi district, which is the center of nightlife in Tokyo. On one corner alone, there are probably 40 nightclubs (they're on different floors of tall buildings).

9/16, Mon-9/17, Tue - We left Sarasota airport at 7am for Atlanta, and then had a 13 and a half hour direct flight from Atlanta to Narita Airport outside Tokyo. Japan is 13 hours ahead of the US (during daylight savings time), so when we arrived on Tuesday the 17^th at 1 pm, it was really Monday night midnight according to our bodies! We don't have many bags for two months, but they're heavier than we'd like when it comes to dragging them around train stations. We'll probably send some stuff back. We took an hour train into Tokyo, then a taxi to our hotel, arriving about 4 pm. Unpacked, then a quick dinner at the hotel, a shower, and we slept for 12 hours. The hotel, the International House of Japan (http://www.i-house.or.jp), is wonderful. It's for members and guests only, but thanks to our friend Daphne, we get to stay here. It's located in the gardens of a 17^th century Edo period mansion, and the gardens are gorgeous (and we have a direct view from our room).