Kanazawa

At the end of our trip, my husband and I did break off from our friends to go visit one of Japan's ceramic areas for a day and night, a town called Kanazawa. Noted for its beautiful landscape garden Kenrokuen (with ancient twisted trees, lakes, and lovely greenery, it was Ray's favorite part of the town), it is also home to two styles of ceramics: Ohi ware and Kutani ware.

In short, Ohi ware is the textured, handmade style prized in the tea ceremonies. Kutani ware is bright 5-color overglaze designs on porcelain. A great website to describe these two styles is here, with specific sections for Ohi ware and Kutani ware.

Neither one of these styles is a favorite of mine, but I appreciated seeing the different styles and methods of creating the forms and glazes. We never made it to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art but we loved the woodwork, textile creations, lacquerware, ceramics, and more in the Museum of Traditional Products and Crafts.

We stayed in a traditional Japanese inn called a ryokan, with tatami mats and a futon mattress and paper-screen sliding doors on the closets to make it peaceful. The next day we went to Tokyo and stayed in a capsule hotel, where $30 will get you a coffin-sized cubby to sleep in and a shared bathroom. To the right is a picture of the row my cubby was in. It wasn't as claustrophobic as it sounds, and I actually got a good night of sleep in it before we flew home the next day!