Me tooooooo

And I carve the finished product. Yay yay.

Pot pot pottttery

No don't worry. I didn't make this. It is a style called 'Bizen-yaki', one of the oldest pottery style in Japan. I am too lazy to explain what this is, so i am just going to steal it from wikipedia. Voila:

Bizen ware (備前焼, Bizen-yaki?) is a type of Japanese pottery most identifiable by its ironlike hardness, reddish brown color, absence of glaze, and markings resulting from wood-burning kiln firing.
Bizen is named after the village of Imbe in Okayama prefecture, formerly known as Bizen province. This artwork is Japan's oldest pottery making technique, introduced in the Heian period. Bizen is one of the six remaining kilns of medieval Japan.
Bizen clay bodies have a high iron content, and traditionally, much organic matter that is unreceptive to glazing. The clay can take many forms.
The surface treatments of Bizen wares are entirely dependent on yohen, or "kiln accidents." Pine ash produces goma, or 'sesame seed' glaze spotting. Rice straw wrapped around pieces creates red and brown scorch marks. The placement of pieces in a kiln causes them to be fired under different conditions, with a variety of different results. Considering that one clay body and type of firing is used, the variety of results is remarkable.
Because of the clay composition, Bizen wares are fired slowly over a long period of time. Firings take place only one or two times a year.

Right so why am I talking about this bizen-yaki? Because................ there is a pottery artist living in Hazu. Mr. Fukaya his name and he has a small gallery in the middle of the rice fields, at the end of a small path.

The gallery is called Genro-gama. The building itself was once a silk-worm factory ran by Mr Fukaya's grandfather, hence the staircase is as wide as a castle and the ceilings are high.

Now........... There is a huge, huge difference between seeing the finished cups and plates etc, and actually making one. Without even slightely thinking about 'Ghost' (I promise!!!), I watched my family get carried away in the world of clay and mud and goo.

It's amazing how just a blob of clay suddenly turns into something very familiar like, voila, a saucer.

And my sister, (yes that's my sister) makes a plate, struggles with the hard mud.

It is a weird concept to believe that this mud, although simply 'mud', is something very very expensive.

ANd finally the work of the master, Mr Fukaya.

Another good reason to come to Hazu, right???

A festival without a name

Last weekend was the first weekend that I organised an official event, which was an open-air cinema night outside a lonely trainstation. A lonely trainstation that has suddenly become not so lonely, comme ça:


It was a great evening, although hot as hell, with many people enjoying the breeze(thank God) in the evening. Except of course, I was in a state:

What happened was that we had no budget whatsoever for lighting the stage, so I ended up having to hold the emergency lantern up for the duration of the evening. Ahaaaaaaa.


Annyway, the interesting happened the day after the success of this event;
When you walk up the hill up the road from this train station, you reach a path that leads you up to a shrine. The path is very steep and winding
and on top of the small mountain, there is a tiny, tiny shrine. Every year, on the first weekend of September, the locals go up this mountain, offer rice balls and sake to the gods of the mountain and thank for the protection. Everyone goes up, children from the age of 3, to grannies. It was such an amazing sight. It isn't even a festival. It is a tradition carried out from generation to generatin.



And I feel happy; because I don't need to protect this. They will take care of themselves and there is no worry.


At the end of it, everyone gets the 'leftovers' from the Gods; the offerings made to the Shrine are given to the people who visited to pray. OK I must say I didnt pray; but hey, I was there and I saw it happening in front of my eyes, and I sure was impressed.

La ville des Chats

For some reason there are so many cats in Hazu. Some of them are, I presume, stray cats, but most of them are pets, just wondering about the streets and return back to their homes when they feel like it. Almost everyone has a cat chez eux.

Almost.

Except me, grrrr just because my flat is too new for the bastard landlord to let me keep one. Grrr indeed.

But hey there's a semi-stray-semi-pet cat with a warped tail in the garden of a temple that I always go to. He is the most tame stray cat I have ever seen. I play with him and he keeps following me, heee hee. I named him Michaelangelo just to compete against the cat whose name is Da Vinci, living in the neighbourhood.

A Typhoon is on its way. I think it started raining outside. The sea is nice just before the storm.

A Grocery Store

A store that you don't even notice unless someone points it out at you. A store that everyone knows, except for the people who don't know. A store that is always there. A store that sells everything from batteries to ricecakes.

A store whose owner gives you free drinks or free snacks to take with you when you just pop in to say hi.

I thought it didn't exist anymore.

Mr. and Mrs. Toyota (!! Whoa it gives the name a totally different meaning when I type it alphabetically..... when actually it is one of the most common sirname in Japan), you are the best.