Arashiyama and ceramics

In the run up to the winter break I've been a little busy with deadlines and the like, but I did get a chance to go to the Arashiyama light up last week. Unlike the autumn leaf light ups, the reason for the Arashiyama one seemed to be... just because. It was pretty, anyway!

 This is one of the centerpieces, an ikebana (flower) display on the riverbank.

 This cute lantern has a picture of the local tram, the Randen, painted on the side.

 The next day was my last ceramics class. It's kind of sad that it's over, but I had a lot of fun. And it'll be nice to be able to sleep in on Saturday mornings.
We painted and glazed our first two pieces (the tea cup and bowl) last week, so we got the finished pieces to take home! We were all given the same instructions to begin with, so I love how everyone's turned out so unique.

 This is my Japanese tea cup. We were allowed to decorate these ourselves; my teacher was a little unsure about my design! (It's supposed to be a shooting star from the Ghibli film Howl's Moving Castle)...

 The pottery studio decorated our tea bowls for us, so it looks much more professional. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Our teacher also brought some matcha tea at the end of the class, and we all got to drink tea out of our own bowl!

As it was the last class, the head of the company took us all to the old ceramics factory nearby. Apparently it got shut down because it was way too polluting, but he said that it's very interesting in terms of the history of kilns, so it's been preserved (albeit under a lot of wooden scaffolding).

 This is the old tanuki statue (for good luck) outside.

 The company manager also told us that the sometimes have concerts there; this is a poster for an autumn concert of English love songs.

 During the war, Japan couldn't import metal, so this is a prototype for a ceramic grenade.

 This last picture is a daruma; you make a wish and draw in one of the eyes. When that wish is fulfilled, you draw in the other eye. I wonder how long it's been since somebody made this wish...?

That's about it for this week. I'm very much enjoying the run up to Christmas in another country, so expect a post about that soon!