Pottering About

James Taylor - Sunny Skies

Today was a big day, gym, a great Japanese lesson and meeting up with my friend for a camera trip in Tokoname with Odofuran. He always likes to organize trips and it's always a pleasure to travel with him. This area is famous for pottery and we went to make some pottery with this man who taught us how to use a potters wheel pictured with his, I assume, wife who drove us to the studio from the tourist information center. The sake cups I made were pretty cool although he said they looked more like rice bowls, which is very true. :-P

Walking around we saw heaps of pottery statues as well as random pathways with clay designs. It was interesting and we had a good chat about life in general and the fact that we no longer go on trips anymore. Our close friends who still live in Japan have conflicting schedules; I suppose that's just natural. We had beer to drink on the way but we also had great weather to take some photos. We found this Meat restaurant that lured us in with a welcome sign that read, "Pleased to Meat You." so we HAD to go in. Lovely cut steak to say the least and proper, freshly fried potato chips with whipped butter. We had pate also and had an amuse bouche of cold pumpkin soup. Very nice.

Our trip ended and I made my way home to have a bath, book and a beer. Then on to the local video shop to borrow some Japanese movies for study and English movies for entertainment. One Japanese film I borrowed was called Rent-A-Cat. I thought it appropriate because Tokoname has a lot of cat statues everywhere as well as a giant "Money-ki-neko" cat at the beginning of a bridge, overlooking a roadway. It was very cool. I hate cats, but in this animated form I can't say no. I'm a dog person myself, I always prefer the straightforward and rather dumb pets that just so love instead of defiance.

A great end to the weekend.