Black Friday in Tsuboya

11/23/12

cups and dishes
Rather than flocking to the nearest Best Buy or Walmart (they don't even exist here, and if they did I still wouldn't be there!) I went running in the opposite direction of Americans!
I ventured off to the Tsuboya Pottery Festival and Kokusai Street (note: nowhere near the BX madness!)

chopstick holders
Tsuboya became a pottery village because of the quality of the dirt (perhaps they call it clay, I'm no potter). Because of this crafters started settling here, and up popped this little village of amazing artisans. The Tsuboya Pottery Festival was hosted at a local school in the outside school yard. On a beautiful day this would have been wonderful to stroll around. Unfortunately today was less than "beautiful". It was rainy, and that combined with this wonderful clay/dirt resulted in my shoes getting little works of art formed on them. I look forward to scraping it off tomorrow when it finally dries!

It was really neat to see the different pottery styles from the various artisans.

one side of the school yard
Walking in to the school yard I quickly developed a game plan. Walk the perimeter then the center. Buy nothing until lap 2. I stuck with the plan and was happy. Had I purchased what I thought I wanted in round 1, I would have been disappointed because by the end I found much better things. The window shopping then actual shopping method worked well.

I also learned that Okinawan pottery is EXPENSIVE! Wow! I did some major bargain shopping. If there was an outlet version of this festival, that's where I was! With unlimited funds I could have done some serious damage because they really did have some beautiful things. But, on my budget I just couldn't justify spending $50 on a sake cup. ONE. SAKE. CUP!

Why do I not have artistic talent that brings in the bacon?

This is precious. Someone is getting one for Christmas! Piece of clay with holes going through, put water in the dish, then place a flower cutting in the hole. So simple and so wonderful.
I couldn't resist this picture. So sweet. I watched them walking through the pottery festival. He was careful to make sure the umbrella covered her head, and she kept her hand on his arm the entire time. 

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