Carol-Ann Michaelson on sun 23 jun 02
Hi All,
I have been fortunate enough to be invited as a demonstrator to a ten day
festival on woodfiring in Aomori, Japan, this August. I will have a few
days to travel afterward, and I was wondering if any of you have any
recommendations, suggestions, places to see, avoid, eat at, sleep at, spas,
markets etc. I would like to see Mashiko but after that I am open to any
suggestions anyone has. I look forward to hearing from you. Thankyou.
Yours,
Carol-Ann Michaelson
Kym Valvieja on mon 24 jun 02
Dear Carol Ann,
I too will be going to Japan for the Aomori Festival. I am planning to stay
an additional five days and at this time I am thinking of visiting some of
the old kiln sites between Tokyo and Hiroshima, Shigaraki etc. Looking
forward to meeting you, if you would like to e-mail me please do at:
kymberlyv@aol.com.
Sincerely,
Kym Valvieja
Michele Williams on mon 24 jun 02
Folks,
For any of you who are going to Japan, I want to make a suggestion. I
visited the site that was mentioned a few days ago--Takaya Kaidou's site.
He makes some wonderful fantasy figures, and I loved them. I responded to
him on the "contact" spot. He wants to market his work to galleries in the
US, but I have no idea how to go about doing this. He said he is willing to
pay commissions, but I know nothing about that, either. I'm sure his work
will sell here--it is delightful. I'd like a couple of his bottles, one for
my garden and one in my family room. If I like his work, I'm sure others
will, because I'm just an ordinary person like 99% of the people in the
world.
I'm sure he'd be open to anyone from the US to contact him, visit, talk
about marketing his work if anyone on the list is interested.
His website is mostly in Japanese, which I can't read, but the part of it
that shows the best pictures of his work is at
http://www01.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/jc4/kaidou/munakata/homepage.htm , click on
the section below ceramic Animation theater". There is likely an income
opportunity here for someone who knows how to do it.
Michele Williams
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kym Valvieja"
To:
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 10:13 AM
Subject: Re: Suggestions for Japan
> Dear Carol Ann,
> I too will be going to Japan for the Aomori Festival. I am planning to
stay
> an additional five days and at this time I am thinking of visiting some of
> the old kiln sites between Tokyo and Hiroshima, Shigaraki etc. Looking
> forward to meeting you, if you would like to e-mail me please do at:
> kymberlyv@aol.com.
> Sincerely,
> Kym Valvieja
>
>
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Rick Hugel on mon 24 jun 02
One thing would be travel itself. If you plan to do it via the railroad
system you might look into getting a kind of train pass at your travel
agency. I believe it would save you money.
>Hi All,
>I have been fortunate enough to be invited as a demonstrator to a ten day
>festival on woodfiring in Aomori, Japan, this August. I will have a few
>days to travel afterward, and I was wondering if any of you have any
>recommendations, suggestions, places to see, avoid, eat at, sleep at, spas,
>markets etc. I would like to see Mashiko but after that I am open to any
>suggestions anyone has. I look forward to hearing from you. Thankyou.
>Yours,
>Carol-Ann Michaelson
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
Russel Fouts on wed 26 jun 02
Carol-Ann,
>> One thing would be travel itself. If you plan to do it via the railroad system you might look into getting a kind of train pass at your travel agency. I believe it would save you money. <<
Rick's suggestion is even better than it appears. GET the Japan Rail
Pass, it's a win win proposition. You not only save a considerable
amount of money but you can sell any vouchers you don't use back to the
travel agent where you bought them.
You buy the voucher from any Japanese travel agent in your country or
from JAL. You can get them for 1 week, 2 weeks and I think 1 month. If
you know you can use one for 1 week but think you MIGHT be able to use
another week, buy two one week passes.
When you get to Japan, you exchange the voucher for the actual pass.
Don't exhange the voucher until you are ready to use the pass. If you
don't use the voucher for the second week, you can sell it back to the
traval agent minus 10% or to JAL for the full price.
It's a terrific deal. I went from Nagoya to Kyoto, then Sendai, then
Koriyama and ended up in Tokyo. I covered the price of rail the pass in
the trip Nagoya to Kyoto. The rest was gravy.
I bought 2 one week passes and sold the unused voucher back to the
travel agent minus 10%.
Saved a LOT of money.
Other advice
- Regarding the trains, the schedules are EXTREMELY accurate, especially
for the Shinkansen (Bullet train). If the shedule says stand here for
the 14:23 train to Kyoto, believe it!
- make your main meal lunch, a bento (box lunch) bought at a department
store is one of the cheaper meals you can buy.
- Japanese food will be cheaper than western food.
- Lonely Planet's "Japan" and Kondansha's "Gateway to Japan" are
excellent guides.
Have a nice visit.
Fredrick Paget on tue 2 jul 02
I'm back from my travels.
After a month in China with the group at the Jingdezhen/Sanbao Ceramic
Institute, it is good to be home and relax in a familiar culture. Yes
China is indeed a Culture Shock. ( Any one going be sure to read that book.)
The last couple of days before the end of the trip I phoned home and my
wife said,
"We are going to Japan!"
Yes my application to the Aomori Woodfire Festival was approved and we
will be off across the Pacific again in just about a month. This next trip
my wife is coming and since she once studied Japanese I am relying on her
to do my talking. We still can't read the written language.
In China I bought a little pocket electronic translator that displayed the
translation in Chinese typeface.
There are plenty of these for Japanese too as I saw them at the Tokyo
airport when my return flight from Beijing stopped there for 3 hours to
change to a bigger plane. You can get ones that talk also but they cost the
most. A cheap one is around 30 or 40 US dollars.
I could type in a word in English and push a button to display the
translation in Chinese. Since almost all Chinese now are literate they can
read the word and with much use of sign language and an occasional picture
I would draw on the spot I got my idea across. It was funny when I went in
a hardware store to buy a fly swatter. They were mystified until I drew a
picture of one and pretended swatting a fly. It cost 1 Yuan (12 cents US).
Yes a dollar goes a long way in China- How about some 18x18 silicon carbide
kiln shelves for 11 dollars each?
Another good idea that we used in China was to always carry a card or
brochure from the hotel we were staying in. You can show it to a cab driver
so he knows where to take you to get back to your hotel. When leaving the
hotel get someone who understands a little English to write out a sentence
to show a cab driver where you want to go.
In China when the group traveled by train (3 overnights in the "hard
sleeper" -an adventure in itself) we always had a native Chinese guide
along to keep us on the right track as it were.
Fred
From Fred Paget, Marin County, California, USA
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