Golden Week (Part 2)

We spent the second 3 day stretch of Golden Week mostly relaxing. Lots of trips to the park, wandering used book stores, trolling arcades. We did take the advice of our tutor, though, and wander up to Arita/Hasami on the last day (5/5). She said they had great deals on Japanese ceramics, especially in the afternoon. Given that I want a nice set of rice bowls to use at home, it seemed like a good thing to take advantage of. Japanese ceramics are truly a wonder...light, durable. I wanted some to take home and what better than rice bowls to commemorate our visit.

We started with Arita, the farthest away. We used our new tollroad friend to get us up to Saga prefecture and then took the fork toward Arita. We stopped at their ceramic park and saw lots of nice stuff in the shops. It was all regular price and very pricey so we got back in the car and kept driving. In central Arita, we found what I'd been looking for. There were tents lining the streets and they were full of porcelains. After stumbling onto some parking, we started walking. There was a ton of really beautiful Japanese pottery - meaning that it was heavily decorated in mostly reds and blues and not my style. I did see one piece, a decorative plate, that I should have bought despite the overwhelming price tag - $250, supposedly half off of the normal $500. (It was probably 16"-24" in diameter. It was mostly blues with some silver metallics. It was a sakura tree in full bloom. Gorgeous! I'm having severe frugality induced remorse over leaving it behind. Oh well...) I left empty handed.

We went back to the fork and turned toward Hasami. At their ceramics park, we found more tents. They were full of more ceramics at even better prices. We walked (and walked and walked...it was huge) around and saw lots of cute designs that I knew wouldn't last in our kitchen. They were too cute to keep using for years. They were sold out of an intricate sakura design on a white bowl that I would have loved, but I kept on. As the vendors began to close, I settled on a nice set of plain white bowls. They actually had 10 of them once I dug into a couple of bins. The best part...they cost 100¥ each. Yup, that's about $10 for a set of simple, handcrafted, but elegant, ceramic bowls that will last me for a very long time and look wonderful with my existing china.

I even know just the set of chopstick holders to go with them. Guess I have a reason to go back to Arita (to look for that wonderful plate) after all.