Day 24: Nagoya to Kansai Airport

Day 24: Nagoya to Kansai Airport Hotel

QOTD:  The balance of nature is built on a series of relationships between living things, and between living things and their environments. You can’t just step in with some brute force and change one thing without changing many others.

Weather: mid 60s to low 70s and breezy, one of the better weather days on the trip, maybe the best given that there is little competition

Pics:  Building near Marriott Nagoya, many pics of Masamichi Yoshikawa work and in person (the signed Yayoi print is in the bathroom, bathroom slippers required to see it!), Tokoname museum shots, air buggies?, dinner at Brasserie in the airport Hotel Nikko, THB’s handy-dandy DIY CPAP travel case makes it through the entire trip, a boat dedication

Normal breakfast buffet, we leave our bags at the bell desk on 15^TH floor, and take the train to Tokoname. Well, we take a local instead of the limited express until DB corrects us by getting us off the local at a transfer point and awaiting the much faster limited express: GOOD MOVE!

We arrive on time (phew) and Masamichi Yoshikawa meets us at the train station.

Now for the long version of the story: this is THB and DB’s second time to Tokoname and we missed seeing Yoshikawa-san (Y-san for the rest of this post) the first time. Since then, we’ve been on a quest to find him after seeing his work in a great LA sushi restaurant: not for sale. Subsequent visits to the restaurant leads us to Minoru Ohira’s studio in the outer reaches of Pasadena (he’s the curator that placed Y-san’s work in the restaurant, still great so not exactly tough duty here) where we find a few pieces by Y-san: not for sale. We do buy a piece by Ohira-san, so not a total loss.

From there, we track down some work at the LaCoste Gallery in Concord, Massachusetts (are you getting a feel for our passion here?) where we buy a small “butter plate” style piece. DB works hard in setting up the visit to see Y-san, and it pays off, this is our last full day in Japan and it turns out to be another great artist visit.

While Y-san and his wife, Chikako (also a ceramicist, they more often seem to come in pairs) live in Tokoname,  they are in the process of moving. That means Y-san’s work is out at his primary studio, a half hour away by car. After spending time with Chikako (and admiring what little we see of her work) over tea, Y-san and the intrepid four pile into the small car and drive to the studio, not far from the ocean and near a few small mountains. Y-san has set up the house with examples of his work throughout the house, which we tour and re-tour, trying to decide on our purchases (you didn’t think THB came this far to not get his passport stamped, did you?).

We select a very large “rectangular” piece with Y-san’s signature porcelain glaze drips, a small sake cup, and a tea bowl, and E&J go for one of the small egg shaped orbs (another signature style). All happy, we settle in to eat delivered local eel and rice box lunches.

After lunch, back to Tokoname to visit several of the museums highlighting the history of pottery and tiles and examples of much of the ceramic work the town is known for.

It’s been a full day! Back on the limited express to Nagoya, retrieve our bags from the Marriott, on a bullet train to Osaka and a transfer to another limited express to the Kansai Airport and a late dinner in the hotel: pork cutlet sandwich and beer for THB, salmon and salmon roe over rice with wine for DB, $44 for two.

That’s the second dinner! The first dinner was very short: the four of us try the Teppan Grill, order drinks and look at the menu…it’s going to be something north of $150/pp!! DB channels her inner Davida and says: we don’t have to stay. We don’t, taking off our ridiculous cloth bibs and heading down to the second floor and our date with paper napkins and cheaper fare.

Book Review: On a Farther Shore, The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson, William Souder. An odd and fascinating book. THB thinks (though he cannot remember) that the author wrote this biography of Rachel Carson in the style of Carson. A mix of the details of her life and, in fairly lengthy segments, the major stories and influences on Carson. Carson was right about so much, primarily the integration of nature and how one thing impacts the whole. Dually influenced in writing Silent Spring by radioactive fallout from the nuclear testing program and the growth of pesticides, and even starting to write about global warming (known in the late 40s and 50s), the issues she raised are still with us today. THB wonders how many remember that Carson was a best-selling author before Silent Spring, her last book. Highly Recommended