Day 7: Trevor and Katie go to Shigaraki

Today we split up into two groups to suit our interests. Trevor and I went to Shigaraki to see the pottery/ceramics town and Ceramic Cultural Park. My parents and Sarah explored the north west side of Kyoto. Here is our part of the day below followed by my mom's post:

We got up early to get to the Miho museum. We accidentally took the wrong bus the Kyoto station, and my dad called to help us out (which probably caused him to worry about us getting lost on our way to Shigaraki). Luckily, we got on the right bus making it to the next train to Ishiyama station. There we had to transfer onto the Miho muesum bus.

The bus drove by little farms and up into a canyon with beautiful scenery. It reminded me of the canyons in Utah, but with different trees. I wanted to show you pictures, but it was difficult with the bus driving so quickly. There was a river that ran through a thick forested canyon and beautiful waterfalls. In fact, we were on a tiny mountain road that often was only wide enough for just our bus. It was slightly nerve racking to maneuver around on-coming cars as we went up the mountain. 

After the 50 minute bus ride, we arrived at the Miho museum safely. This museum is beautiful was beautiful! The interior reminded me of the Getty, but it was much smaller in size. It is a mix between modern and traditional Japanese architecture. In fact, the architect is I.M. Pei, who designed the glass pyramid of the Louvre Museum. You can see some similarities below in the interior shot.

Entrance to Miho Museum

 

Inside of the entrance

We were not allowed to take photos or sketch inside
the galleries, but here is a shot we snuck of this
beautiful vase.

There were exhibits on Egypt, West Asia, South Asia, China and Persia. We especially liked the China and Persia exhibits because we haven't really seen those country's art in America. We also saw an exhibit on lions and the history and symbology of them in Asia, which was our favorite. Unfortunately, we had to leave early to make it to the bus on time to the Ceramic Cultural Park.

We got off the at the bus station in the center part of town and had no idea where to go. Everything is in Japanese and there was little English signs in the country. We asked an older lady, who we were on the bus with, where the Ceramic Cultural Park was. She didn't understand us, but she did point us toward the train station. We walked down the street toward the station to find a map, but we saw a pottery shop and went inside. We asked the shop keeper directions, but she had no idea what we were saying. A lady working there over heard us and was so kind as to lead us down the street to an information center. There we picked up a map and got directions. In the information center was a museum of wood fired pottery and we looked around for a little while admiring all the Japanese art. 

We walked for about 200 meters up the road to the Ceramic Cultural Park and then hiked up a steep hill to the top where the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art. I kept stopping to catch my breath and commenting on how out of shape I was. Trevor was patient with me as he was eager to get to the museum. Here is the view from the top of the hill.

I forgot to mention is was really cold and windy at the top and we quickly went inside where it was nice and warm to view the exhibition. The exhibition title was "What is pottery?" and it was on the controversial question; can pottery be art? Again we could not take any photos and this time instead of sneaking photos we bought a book with photos of all the art pieces. 

Since all the explanations were in Japanese, we went through the exhibit fairly quick and we went back outside to view the rest of the park. In the main plaza were pieces on display from all the residential artists that have studied at the school there. Here is one of our favorites:

We wandered over to the kilns to see what they looked like and there were 8 wood fire kilns of all shapes and sizes. Only one of them was being loaded and another was cooling off. Below is one of my favorites:

anagama kiln that is dug out of the hill and the flame shoots out the back.

Here is an example diagram

on the way down the hill we saw this piece which is
similar to Trevor's tall pots.

We wanted to leave before the stores in town closed so we could buy some Shigaraki clay pieces. We went to a store at the bottom of the hill and looked at an open warehouse full of pottery looking for something to buy. We bought a piece and continued our journey back to the main part of town.

The sunset was stunning as we walked back to town.

We went back the shop where we asked directions earlier. The ladies there were so nice to us we wanted to repay them. We bought a few bowls, a tumbler, and a little Totoro (I can't leave Japan without one). After, we walked over to the Kamamoto Sansakuro Street. It is an old road that continues from Shigaraki station square to Tosei-cho and Yakiya-cho. It is believed that pottery first began in this area at Tosei-cho. The name Tosei-cho literally means in Japanese that pottery came from here. Also the name Yakiya-cho refers to the kilns used to makes the pottery. Many kilns in this area are still in use today and you can visit them along the road. Below is a photo of a multi-chambered noborigama kiln. It was getting dark and we were only able to see this one.

It was freezing cold at this point and we quickly walked back to town to the train station. The station was small and empty. Very different from all the train stations we previously have been to. We had to buy tickets, but there was no one at the ticket booth. I knocked on the door and I startled the ticket takers causing them to jump. Two men rushed to the door and started speaking in Japanese. We started trying to figure out how much a ticket would cost to get us back to the Ishiyama station. They were so kind and helpful even though they couldn't understand us fully. Unfortunately, we had to wait 45 minutes for the next rain to arrive. Here is a picture of the cute little train with raccoons all over it:

It ended up taking 2 hours to get home between all the train and bus rides. When we got home Sarah was finishing up making yakisoba. It was so good, especially after a long ride home!