Mashiko Pottery Japan

Another start to an early day, Teresa is picking me up on the other side of Utsunomiyia train station at 9am.  In the car  with Deb and Teresa and on our way to pick up Sue.  Trucks are blocking the street in front of Sue's house, so she is going to have to come out and meet us on the corner. Its a nice cool day to be going to Mashiko, no Rain.  It was a nice beautiful drive to Mashiko. As soon as we arrived in Masiko we started our shopping adventure. We were surrounded with shops that were locally centered to where we are parked. Most of the pottery in Mashiko is made by the locals. I just have to somehow buy a piece of pottery as a souvenir. :-)

Deb and Sue wanted to go to a couple of shops close that they wanted to go to. The shops they wanted to visit were off the beaten path but they knew where they were going.  How nice I would have missed them if I would have came on my own. The original place they wanted to go was closed so we shopped at another shop. I am so impressed with the amount of pottery in the stores, totally in awwww as i stood in front of this store.  You could spend alot of money here very easily, the pottery is so beautiful.

The original shop was open now so we walked back down to it.  All the ladies wanted to see the Halloween stuff in this store and some kind of baskets.  Deb and Sue really enjoyed looking through all the Halloween items.  They got their ceramic pumpkins they had their eyes on. LOL  The baskets sitting on the steps is what Teresa really wanted but she did not buy one.

Deb is thrilled with her purchases !!!

Heading back to the car to put all our purchases in the car they are just to heavy to be lugging around. 
NOW HERE'S THE VERY FUNNY PART....on the way back to the car a bird pooped on Sue's hand and down the front of her shirt.  She's yelling to get it off her and we are laughing so hard when we see why she's yelling. We got her a cloth to clean it up.  OMG I can't believe it happened I never saw one bird in the sky.  Bird must have been in a tree and we walked under it and Sue got the bomb that the bird dropped. this is Sue's face when she noticed the bird had pooped on her.

Poor Sue was totally upset about this ........but didn't take her long to laugh  about it and continue shopping.
I liked how the walls leading into the bathrooms were decorated with pottery pieces..so unique.

While waiting on the ladies I took a picture of this tree growing out of the roof of this pottery building.  Funny how the building was built around the tree. The fellows working are cleaning the roof off from the leaves that fell from that huge tree.

Before we left the main square where we parked we got our picture taken in front of Woody the famous statue for Mashiko.  the Giant ceramic Tanuki at Mashiko greets visitors. This Tanuki has all necessary attributes: a bamboo hat, oversized testicles, friendly smile, a big belly, a promissory note, a big tail and big eyes, and, of course, a sake bottle.

Time to mosey on down the street and look for a place to eat lunch. Lunch in this area seems to be a little expensive but we have to eat and so far have found only one place to eat. As we walked down the street we did of course shop!! Found some beautiful flowers along the way; man I love being here with friends.

 Cute but too much money...........

Kept walking and shopping and found the place Nobu had taken Marlon and I to eat last time we were here. Think we are going to eat there but we hear the sounds of a band practicing. Our curiosity has the best of us. so we are going to see if we can find where the sound is coming from.  Ventured over on the other side of the street but there was a big hill that blocked anybody from invading on the other side. So we gave up on trying to find the band. I can say one thing MAN it stinks on this side of the street.  we smelt an awful smell and went to the location where the smell was. Sue and Deb told us the smell was coming from this house we were in front of. It is the oldest indigo making place in Japan.  Talk about smell wow it would be hard to live near that place.

We went inside and I was so shocked because it was dark making it hard to see what was going on. There were holes in the ground with dye in them.  That is where the smell is coming from. There was only one young man working and an older person watching him and giving guidance as he was dying the cloths.

The dyed cloth was then hung up to dry. The cloth still has a 
long way to go before it can be sold.

I shopped in this factory for something to purchase made of the indigo cloth but man its too expensive for me. ;-(

Time to walk back across the street and go over to eat. I am really hungry now.











Looking at the menu brought a smile to my face.  Can you find a couple of things on the menu that would make you smile or chuckle to yourself?

Our food was so pretty when it was served and very delicious. Our food was served in these elongated dishes and at the very moment we all decided we had to have them. This bowl has vegetable curry and rice in it.  Boy was it so good and spicy. Thats my kind of eating.

It was pretty awesome to watch the lady go out and pick some herbs off the plants outside to spice up some of the food.

 Talk about FULL I am stuffed OMG I have to get up and start back down the street.  We are all on a mission to try and find an elongated bowl that doesn't cost $27. On the hunt for the dish a shop had some items needed to perform a tea ceremony.  The shop was very interesting especially since I have been to 3 tea ceremonies. I knew exactly what I was looking at and what they do with it.

 The pot contained beautiful fall leaves growing from the little tree.....What a wonderful day we have to shop in Mashiko.

 

 After going in and out of many, many shops we did not find even one dish that was like the one at the restaurant. I can not believe that out of the hundreds of pieces of pottery that is in Mashiko that no other pottery store makes that shape of bowl.  Unbelievable is all I can say Well that leaves us with no other choice but to go back and pay the price the shop wants.  Down the street we go AGAIN to find the restaurant we had eaten at so we can buy those elongated bowls. Teresa and Deb bought 2 bowls a piece boy are they beautiful. They are both smiling ear to ear as they make the purchase of the day......

 I ended up buying some dark blue elongated bowls that were smaller and not as pretty but gotta do what I have to do....

Sure glad that Teresa has some trunk space to put all our packages!!!Spending time with my friends here in Japan is so great.  I thank you all again for being a great friends to me. You ladies have made this trip so wonderful.