My Recent Kintsugi Work

My porcelain painting blog

Happy 2020 to everyone from Japan! We are in our New Year’s holidays now.  I came back to update my blog constantly again!

Today I want to show you my recent kintsugi work.

This one is a bottom of my Dresden teacher, Alfredo’s hand-painted piece which was broken by the earthquake in 2018.

I bought these pieces at Gojyozaka porcelain festival last summer to fix them. When I bought them, they were broken pieces, and I got them very cheap.

The porcelain is called Kiyomizuyaki in Japanese, and the perfect ones are expensive.

The last one is an antique. I got this at an antique shop in Kyoto.

I think I am luck to live close to Kyoto because the city is a porcelain city, and I can get lots of broken pieces for my kintsugi work.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished my first gintsugi work. Gintsugi is…

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Kintsugi

My porcelain painting blog

Hello there! How are you doing? I am doing well, and I am excited to introduce one of Japanese traditional techniques called Kitsugi.

I guess many of you wonder what the Kintsugi is. Well, it’s the techniques to fix broken pottery. I started learning it to fix my broken porcelain from the earthquake last year.

A couple of days ago, I finished my first work of it! It took more than six months for me to finish it, but I am very happy with the result.

Last year earthquake broke my favorite Dresden piece painted by Alfredo Toledano who was my Dresden teacher. I bought his hand-painted piece more than eight years ago in Arizona, the United States from San Do who was my other teacher.

When I looked at the broken piece, I was very shocked. That’s because Alfredo has passed away, and it’s impossible for me to buy…

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Japanese Cuisine in Kyoto

Hello there! How have you been so far? I think I haven’t posted anything on my blog for a while, and I apologize for my laziness. You know once we get lazy, it’s hard for us to start again, right?

Today I want to write about Japanese cuisine in Kyoto and the cuisine is called Kyo-ryori in Japanese.

I went to a Japanese fancy restaurant called Tan-kuma (たん熊）with my husband and two of our mutual friends and ate together. We had a lot of fun there while chitchatting.

This is called sesame tofu made from sesames.

Fish soup called sumashi-jiru

 

 

Fresh raw fish called sashimi

 

Main dish

 

My favorite, eel rice! Mmmmm, yummy!

Dessert: green tea ice cream and kinako mochi with red beans

 

I went to Kyoto again with my other friend on a different day, and she and I ate different Japanese cuisines at another fancy restaurant. The restaurant name is Gion Yuyama. ( 祇園ゆやま）

Sesame tofu made from sesames

The restaurant chef. We sat in front of the chef, and we could watch him. It was fascinating.

 

Main dish

 

He is cutting tiny fish bones from a hamo ( a kind of fish which we eat in summer in  Kyoto)

 

Egg plants, okura and oriental melon

 

Rice with shirasu (dried tiny fish), miso soup and some Japanese pickles

 

Dessert: Ice cream, sesame flavored pudding and coffee flavored gelatin with water melon

Both restaurants were really good, and I hardly can choose which was better.

Since we were in Kyoto, I want to introduce summer in Kyoto as well.

The street where we walked was very Kyoto. Each house has some blinds called sudare to block sun shine and keep inside cool.

 

 

 

I think this house is a tea house called ochaya which has geisha and maiko (geisha’s apprentice)  because we can see square wood printed maiko and geisya names above the door.

After that, we went to another place to look around the pottery festival in Kyoto.

Since I went to the festival last year as well, I didn’t take many photos this time. I am sorry for this.

 

 

I bought some pottery for kintsugi techniques Japanese traditional techniques for pottery)  which I am currently involved in.  I will write about kintsugi techniques on my other blog entry soon. You will see what it is then.

 

Thank you so much for visiting my blog again! I will keep posting, stay tuned!!

 

-Yumi

 

 

Purple Shower in Japan

Hello there! How have you been so far? Our beautiful spring  has passed, and we are now in humid early summer. Every day is really muggy, and in the northern part of Japan, Hokkaido recorded it’s the highest temperature ever for that day. It was 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit ) yesterday even though we are still  not in our rainy season. This is really strange for us.

Anyway, I want to show my favorite flowers, wisterias today. My husband and I went to a park close to our house a couple of weeks ago and I took a bunch of photos of them.  Unfortunately, they are all gone now, but you can enjoy looking around them in my blog.

We have both white wisterias and purple ones.  Which do you prefer?

 

 

Look at the pretty Japanese garden. Since the day had no clouds, the view was just amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

They look just like a purple rain shower to me! The wisterias are my university’s symbol and they reminds me of my uni’s campus a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isn’t it a nice shot? I am happy that I could take the photo of wisterias and a bee together!

The bee was huge and just like the same size as a humming bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this photo above is the best photo of  wisteria I took! Don’t you think so?

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed other flowers as well. I love purple or blue flowers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wisterias are called Fuji in Japanese and we have loved the flowers for more than 1800 years. We have painted the flowers a lot in the Japanese style of paintings. I am from Otsu, Shiga prefecture and Otsu-e ( painting below) is popular with the flowers.

She is called Fuji Musume in Japanese. The Fuji Musume is played in Kabuki as well.

As you know, Kabuki is played by only male actors.

Thank you for visiting my blog! I will update it soon again!

See you soon!

 

-Yumi

 

Spring Flowers in Japan

Hello there! Long time no see! How have you been so far? I am sorry that I hadn’t posted anything on my blog for a while. Now, I have returned!

In Japan we are in the mid spring and I would love to show you what kinds of flowers we can see in this season.

A couple of weeks ago, I went into my neighborhood and took some photos of these flowers called Renge in Japanese.

They bloom only in Spring. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astragalus_sinicus

I love these tiny flowers because they are my favorite color purple! They bloom in rice fields.

 

 

 

When I was a little girl, I used to make crowns or necklaces with these flowers with my childhood friends.

Look at the center of the photo! Can you see a bee?

The bee seemed to be busy to gather honey from the Renge flowers.

 

 

What kinds of flowers can you see in your area where you live now?

I will post other flowers for spring some time soon! So, stay tuned!!

Thanks for taking a look at my blog post! See you around!

 

-Yumi

 

I Went Antiquing with My Friend in Kyoto

My porcelain painting blog

Hello there! How have you been so far?

I am excited that I finally can update my blog again, lol. Today I want to show some photos of Japanese porcelain shops. A friend of mine and I went antiquing in Kyoto and I took some photos there.

First, we stopped by an antique shop. Here you can see bunch of Antique porcelain.

The shop owner was very nice and when I asked her to take some photos of inside, she let me take some photos. So, I can show you them.

The shop owner explained to us that she has owned this shop more than for thirty years. Most of china here are made in the Edo period. It means they are 500 to 600 years old! Wow!!!

I bought some antique porcelain to practice Kintsugi techniques. Kintsugi is a part of our traditional techniques to fix broken porcelain. I…

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Who Is The Most Famous Japanese Person in The World?

Hello there! How have you been so far? Here everyday is cold and we are fed up with this cold weather. We can’t wait for spring.

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine from America and I talked about Japanese people and all the sudden, he asked me who did I think was the most famous Japanese person  in the world, dead or alive.

We talked about what we thought about this for a while but we couldn’t agree with our answers. My friend told me that in the States students don’t study Japanese or Asian history and they don’t know even where Japan is on the map. Well, I agree with him. Japan is a still very mysterious country for westerners.

I am very curious, when you have to think of one Japanese person (dead or alive), whose name pops up in your mind first. Maybe, some historical people, actors, musicians, artists, athletes  etc. I know you have known of some anime characters like Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Godzilla and so on, but can you think of a real Japanese person?  Just write down one Japanese person’t name as your answer on my comment section and give me the reason why you picked up the person.

Thank you so much for co-operating.

I hope you all are having a lovely weekend!

See you around again in two weeks:)

-Yumi

 

How to Keep Our Motivation

How to Keep Our Motivation

Hi there! How are you doing? I am glad that I can update my blog again!!

Today I want to write about how to keep our motivation. I think everybody has experienced to set up some goals. When you do this, I am sure you have lots of motivation. However, after a while, you figure out that the goal is more difficult than your imaginaion and start losing motivation. It happens to everyone.

To avoid losing motivation, I like setting up small goals. Every time I achieve the small goals, I can feel accomplished and fulfilled. The feelings are good for me to keep motivation.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, I finshed reading a book which has around 1000 pages in English. When I started reading books in English, I had set up the book called ” The Pillars of the Earth ” as one of my small goals. I started reading some kid’s books like “Magic Tree House series” for the first time in English. Since I am a grown up, I couldn’t enjoy reading such books at all. Every time, when I almost gave up to improve my reading skills in English, I imagined the 1000 page book in my mind. It took eight years to achive the small goal, but I finaly did it!

After finishing to read the 1000 page book, I could feel more confidence to read something in English. I think I have improved my reading speed as well. I think before the 1000 page book, I had set up much smaller goals to read as well. When you conquer something, you can gain more confidence and this brings you more motivation. When you achive more difficult goals, your motivation increases.

I want to set up “Gone With The Wind” as my next small goal. The book has over 1000 pages and is a classic. I am weak at reading classics in English. So, it will bring big confidence when I finish reading this! I hope this blog post sounds useful to you to improve yourself.

Thank you for reading my blog post. See you around in two weeks!

-Yumi

What a depressing business it is in Japan!

Hello there! How have you been so far? It’s almost Christmas and I can’t believe that time goes by so fast! Do you have any plans getting together to spend holiday time with your family?

In Japan we have a very weird service ( business) and I would like to introduce it to you today because you might need this kind of business.

The business is that we can rent people for our occasions. It means if we have a shortage of friends for our wedding, we can hire strangers for our wedding party, or if we need some more people for a funeral, we can hire some for it, or if we need a boyfriend/girlfriend/parent/wife/husband/ for our occasions, we can hire them.

Are you interested in this kind of business? If you are short of friends for your Christmas party, you might be able to get more people for it! Of course, if you want to hire people, you have to pay, but you can get people whom you want for your occasion.  I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but you can receive more details here:

http://family-romance.com/

 

 

What do you think about this business? Do you want a fake boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife to show off? It’s possible!

I think it’s a depressing business if people need to show off. I don’t understand why people can’t show their true situation. I don’t want to use this business and I am not interested in showing off something either. However, there is a business because people need this.

This business reminds me of Instagram, Facebook or Twitter because people love showing off what they have or do on them. I have seen so many people have posted Christmas trees or decorations on Facebook. It just looks like a competition. I guess people need this business for the social network sites to make their occasions seem to be better. It’s a new business and very smart, lol. to use people’s mind (pride, lol).

Thank you for reading. I hope we can see around again in this year!!

Have a lovely week!

-Yumi

Keep Going Is Very Important!

Hello there! How have you been so far?

It’s been a while since I posted my latest blog entry. I am sorry for the delay again. I had been in Italy to make my dreams come true! I will write about my studying abroad in Italy on my other blog later. Please check it out if you are interested in what I did.

Today I should say I want to show off what I did a bit because I have been writing journal entries in English almost every day for ten years! I started writing something in English on the 15th of November in 2008 on Lang-8 (It is a langauge site, mainly to improve our writing skills.). Since I was in Italy this month, I couldn’t check out the date.  Today I posted my 3138th journal entry!!! Woo Hoo!

Of course, it was not easy at all. First, I started learning conversational English to study abroad in the States to take many porcelain painting classes. I don’t count how many classes I had taken, but I had kept going back to the States every year for eight years. I sometimes stayed there for six months! ( I can’t stay there straightly for 6 months, so, I stayed there for two months, went back to Japan and stayed there for two months again, went back and stayed there for another two months.) I really do appraciate my husband and daughter who have supported me a lot to make my dreams come true! I also do appreciate my American friends who have supported me to let me stay at their houses or teach me English!! Thanks to them I have learned American culture which relates to their language a lot.

I think writing in another langauge helps our reading skills a lot. In ten years, I can come to read more advance books in English. I have read 310 books in English and am still reading 8 books now. I also think writing skills helps our thinking skills. While keeping to write something in English, I think I have improved to think something what I want to say in English. It really helped my conversational skills. I can respond English immediatly, write something in English immediatly and I don’t translate what I want to say or write in English from Japanses at all. I read books in English without translating Japanese as well. You know, conveasations are going through so fast and if you can’t catch up with them, you don’t understand what people are talking about. You have to understand the conversations right now in their langauge without translation. I think writing journal entries helped to improve my such skills a lot.

I know my written English is not perfect enough. So, I would love to keep writing something to improve them more in English! Even so, I am happy that I could achieve one of my goals that I have set up when I started learning conversational English.

Via learning conversational English, I feel like I have learned life lessons. We can’t build something one day. If we want to complete something, it will take a long time. So, every time I feel like I almost give something up that I really want to complete, I try to say this to myself. I could achieve some goals in English, so I can do anything I want to do!! I think English gave me lots of self-confidence.

Compared to ten years ago, my goals have changed. I need to learn Italian more than English. I want to make my body better ( I am involved in bulding muscle things. Well, don’t misunderstand me. I am not interested in being a bodybuilder at all, lol. ) . Learning Italian and training muscles are not easy for me at all, but I would love to try them out because I know my life is only once! I hope I will be able to keep writing something in English for another ten years and will post another journal entry about this ten years later!!

Thank you for reading! See you around again in two weeks!

-Yumix