Trip to the Ceramics Museum

One of the Chinese girls who lives here invited a Japanese friend for lunch. They cooked a lot of strange food that we did not know how to eat. Her Japanese friend talked to Jessica and Me a lot and we understood very little of what she said. And I think sometimes they were talking about us in Japanese. The instrument the Japanese lady is holding is known as the peepa. It looks extremely exotic but sounds just like a banjo. It even has four strings! ...like a banjo.

Here is a picture of me holding the instrument in the way I think It should be held. But how do I know, I am not a banjo player.


The following day on Saturday (Friday for Americans) the ceramics class me and Jessica are in had a mandatory field trip to a ceramics museum. Beforehand we decided to go around Owari-Seto (Downtown Seto) and visit all of the wonderful ceramics stores. Here is a picture of one now. The building is very beautiful both in and outside.

Here is a picture of a funny pot with googly eyes!

Another Shop.

These shops are filled to the brim with ceramics made locally and afar.

A picture of quaint Shinto shrine. These babies are everywhere.

Picture of Jessica purusin the store.

There are some really funny ceramic figures which can also be found in strange American Asian antique stores. Goofy, Strange, and Exotic.



Ceramics range in price here from roughly 70 cent bowls and tea cups to $10,000 dollar vase! Expensive!

You can see some of the cheap ceramics in front of the store. Some at 80 yen, which at today's exchange rate cost about 71 cents! The ceramics here are beautiful and cheap, probably as cheap as you can find Japanese ceramics in the world.

And of course a ROBOT! What would Japan be without robots?

After we walked around and got tired we found two of our friends here. Corey is on the left and Spring is in the middle. Jessica is the goofy one on the right.

More of our class came off of the bus. Don't expect me to name them. Its impossible. For me anyways.

The man on the right is known to me as "Jackie Chan". When I first met him I was talking to an International Student Office employee named Coomagai. He thought I looked like Tom Cruise! And now Coomagai calls me Tom. I call him Jacki Chan as retaliation... Even though he is Korean and Koreans hate being mistaken for Chinese. Now many many people here call me Tom Cruise. I wonder how long this nickname will last?

Group shot with some girls Jessica knows. There I am in the background doing a Zoolander face.

The bus was incredibly crowded! I have never been in a bus this bad. Everyone who got on were going to the world expo. They were not only incredibly crowded but they were also old Japanese people. The shot is a little blurry because the bus bounced too much.
Here is a beautiful shot I took when we all got off of the bus. This is the museum grounds.


The museum.

The museum grounds were incredibly beautiful. These are some artful rocks in a man made pond.


Now Japan has the most amount of spiders I have seen in my life. The walk to the museum had over 100 spiders on trees and bushes. At night there are some spiders the size of golf balls.

The museum was incredibly beautiful. It had ceramic art dating back around 800 years. That means a fragile bowl lasted over 800 years without being damaged. Many of the pieces were found underground. They also had Chinese and Korean ceramics. However, the most beautiful pieces were those made right in seto city.

That was my day. And what's a better way of ending this day than with some great shots of Engrish. Here are some cloths with intangible English on them.

"Merrily mind moke sun power"


"The mountain path of point"


"Florida Sweet Fruit: Natura slects "
"Taste to fresh banana!"

"Holiness depictto. A pure heart is expressed by the various colors."

"It tried to show what it thought of at that time without hiding what, too, by the color"


Yes that's right. I feel inspired and enlightened. I shall now go moke some sun power.

I love everyone. Fee free to leave a comment. The next installment will be my trip to Nagoya Castle!