China/Pottery in Arita

This week has been fairly slow due to everything being canceled for Golden Week. I subbed on Wednesday for the kindergarten class on base. It has thirty-four students! Thankfully, it also has two TA's, so my job was again to be an extra pair of eyes, and in that class, they were really needed. Whew! The best part of that day was that on Wednesdays, the class has yoga because one of the instructors on base also happens to be the mother of a student in that class. It was absolutely adorable to watch a group of six year olds pull off their shoes and socks and sit down on the gym floor criss-cross-applesauce and close their eyes to get ready to start. Good stuff.
To complete our Golden Week Celebration, Mel and I went with the MWR tour to Arita for the china sale there. Arita is easy driving distance, but we thought taking the bus would be easier. I think we were right based one what I saw of parking when we arrived. The hard part was getting up at 5:45 to be on base by 7:00 to catch the bus. I don't think Mom would ever have imagined that I'd get up at 5:45 to go shopping, but this was actually worth it.
I thought the sale at Hasami was big until I saw the one at Arita. Theirs covers both sides of a street. It took us 2 hours to walk from one end to the other just looking in the stalls in one side! And that's not looking at every little thing (that would have taken all week), that's just stopping when something caught our eyes. It was enormous!
Despite the sheer volume of stuff, we managed to come home with money still in our pockets. I bought my tea pot for my set, though! Also I got a sake jar, so now that set has begun. We also learned that at this sale, we could bargain. Usually, this meant asking the price, then asking for a discount. From there it was usually just rattling numbers back and forth until you reached an agreement, but one guy spoke enough English to tell us a lovely story about the bowl Mel wanted to buy. It was a shade of blue that no one else had, and he told us that it was his only color of glaze and he had invented it himself. It was made from copper apparently, and very hard to make, so he couldn't give her the discount... at least until she raised her offer a little. Great story, though, especially because it was clearly true.
Walking through the crowds, Mel and I noticed a few things that were interesting other than the pottery. First of all, the majority of the Japanese shoppers were families. In the States, we realized, a place like that would be filled with women who had conviently left their hubbies home with the kids. Here, it was a family event. The dads didn't even spend the whole time rolling their eyes and checking their watches. And the kids were very well behaved. I can't imagine bringing a four year old to a street full of breakables, but these families had everyone in tow, and the kids were not screaming or running away or touching everything. I was impressed.
I was also impressed by the fact that everyone arrived back at the bus on time. Most tours, there's someone who is perpetually fifteen minutes late and we all wait. The bus actually pulled out of the lot at Arita a few minutes ahead of schedule with everyone on board. Odd...
Anyway, from Arita, our driver took us to China on the Park, which was another sale. After Arita, it was downright disappointing as far as shopping goes, especially since people on base had been talking about it and sounded enthusiastic. There just wasn't much there. But there was a stall that was called "Dog Land" where you could get your dog's paw prints on a plate. I'm totally taking Dory next year when she's out of the clink. Cracked me up. There was also a traditional drum group who performed while we were there. They were probably middle schoolers, but very good, and we were amazed that they could memorize their long routines. They played about three pieces, then we headed home. We got back to base around 3:00. It was quite a day.
In other news, other than a jelly fish sting, Zack's doing well. The sting must not have been too serious because he only mentioned it in passing. Beyond that, he had little to say that wasn't the same as before: he's working working working. The e-mails are short, but it's good to know he's still functioning.
So life goes on, and next week the pace should pick back up again.