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I had such a good day today I wanted to write about it before too many details escape me. I recently read about some rural Japanese towns not far from Kobe which are famous for the pottery that is produced in small studios by local craftspeople. So after consulting 3 different sources and getting 3 different sets of directs I decided to visit one of the commmuities, Aino. To tell you the truth I´m not sure if the towns named Aino or just the local train station that I got off at, but nevertheless they make pottery there so I know I was in the right place. A scenic 1.5 train ride from Kobe, I found myself literally in the middlle of nowhere, with just fice fields as far as the eye could see, but I wasn´t too concerned because as I fumbled for directions to the pottery studios, usually by point to a picture of a bowl in my travel guide and smiling, everyone reacted warmily and I could tell they understood where I wanted to go. Thankfully, so did the friendly local bus drive who delivered me to the a small cluster of pottery studios nestled between endless rice
fields and a scenic moutain ridge.
One of the truly remarkable things about Japan is how you can find yourself crammed on an overcrowded train, cheeck to cheeck with the person next to you one minute surrounded by urban sprawl and a short time later be surrounded by rice fields and little else .
As I made my way from one studio to the next I was suprised to find many doors open but not a person in the place. The Japanese are incredibly trusting and when I bumped into the only other foreigner I would see today, Angelicia, a prof from North Carolina who´s husband is teaching in Kyoto for the summer, we laughed about the open door policy that seemed to exist amongst the stores during lunch time!
After a wonderful few hours of strolling between the rice field, literally-it was a lot of fun!!!, I decided to make my way back to the train station. Catching the public bus to get back to the station proved to be a little challenging. I´ve taken quite a few city buses around Japan - in Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Hiroshima and each place does
things a little differnt, but in all the cities you board the bus through the back door and get off in the front and pay at the end of your trip not the beginning. While I´ve figured out the logistics of bus riding, I still can´t decifier a bus schedule for the life of me, because they are written in kanji. So as I settled in at the bus stop amongst the rice fields I tried to decipher the schedule and felt fairly confident that my bus would arrive at either 1:05 or 1:55, at 2:00 with no bus in sight I was feeling slightly less confident that I´d read the schedule correctly! Just then a bus approached and I jumped to my feet only to be disappointed that it was a school bus dropping local kids. About 6 kids got off, and everybody seemed curious as to who the gaijin in the rice field was - everybody gawked but only one was brave enough to talk to me. One of the girls turned as she was walking away put her hand out to shake mine and in excellent English said to me ´Hi, my name´s Mao. What´s your name?
Turns out Mao´s 10 years old and lives with her parents and grandparents in the house across the road from the bus stop. She helped me figure out the bus schedule and when we realized my bus wouldn´t be there for an hour she kindly kept me company. When Mao went home to tell her grandma that she´d be hanging out at the bus stop with the gaijin, both she and her grandma emerged from their vegetable garden with a bag of home grown goodies for me a short time later. As we wait for the bus, Mao tried out her English on me , which didn´t extend too much be her initial introduction, but we had fun as I mimed actions about Canadian winters - S-N-O-W, and C-O-L-D. And she told me about the 90 year old women passing by us who literally took 15 minutes to cross the road, good thing there was no traffic. Soon my bus came and after Mao and I said our goodbyes I watched as she waved to me until the bus was out of sight.
It´s memories like this that I will always carry with me of my time in Japan.
And you thought you had a tough job...
Mao told me this lady´s 90 years old and everyday she pushes this cart up the hill, when I asked Mao whats on the cart she said watermelons. I offered to help the woman but she politely declined, when she smiled at me I noticed all her teeth were gold!!!! Hope you are well.
love, Melissa
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Connie
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rice fields and pottery
Melissa ...you are quite an adventurer! Mao was so helpful. Congratulations ...your Masters Degree came in the mail today! Be safe. Love, Mom and Dad