Butter wouldn't melt, eh?

Butter wouldn't melt, eh? Some of the Nova kinder kids
Originally uploaded by emkuntze.

I'm knackered. After work last night I decided to head for the gym. Its like many other gyms, in that its a very different place in the evening. I'm used to going in the afternoon or early evening, pre-dinner when, as you would expect, the place is mostly frequented by the retired who use the gym as an excuse to do what they do best; put the world to rights, have a good natter and spend hours in the baths and sauna. At night, its full of blokes lifting weights that look bigger and heavier than they are, professional women in designer gear and die-hard swim fanatics. I did, therefore, feel slightly out of place. I solved this problem by the toddler method, i.e. I believed if I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me, so I took my glasses off and everywhere looked instantly blurry-er, and a little less like a Soviet training facility.

Had a fabulous run. Fabulous, insofar as I was so busy trying to get the connection sorted out in my headphones that when I actually looked at the display I had run considerably further than I thought I could. So please, send you faulty headsets this way, I may yet have a use for them...

Today has been pretty tiring, partly because of my fitness hangover, and partly because I had Ataru the human atomic bomb this morning (remarkably restrained I might add, and to be fair, he may be genki as the day is long, but he's never, ever a chore), inadvertantly taught the same lesson twice, forgetting what I had just said, and confusing it with something I had told the other class earlier, and to top it all I had my new Kinder class last lesson.

Boy oh boy.

My other kinder class has two little girls in, one of whom is 3 and has the attention of someone who is, well, 3 and the other one gets distracted to say the least, so in any given lesson I could well have two small children looking with great interest at a spot on the wall. This class was somewhat different. The bell went off so I wandered to the kids room. I could hear me coming from the shouts of "Its Emma K!" and much squealing. Two of them dragged me into the kids room (remarkable strength for a [tiny] four year old) before I could take my shoes off. Bless. 40 minutes later I was ready to drop off in the staff room.

Only two more days until a lie-in.

Potty about pottery

Its my cuppu! Much better than the last effort, methinks...
Originally uploaded by emkuntze.

Oh er....! Today was a good 'un. Up early (okay, not so good. The humidity is making me very, very lethargic), jumped on the ol' mama chari, picked up Katie and headed up to out very first pottery class. Bit of a slog up the bastard hill (they never look as awful as they feel, do they?), but rewarded with stunning views and a distinct air of calm. Turns out there were only the three of us at this morning's class, plus Hatabe-san, Mrs Hatabe-san (I'm ashamed to say I've forgotten the lovely lady's name), and a couple of helpers/offspring/spare bodies.

We set to making tea cups (Japanese style, so no handles. Much easier for us novices), and between the soothing action of rolling out long ropes of clay, the faint smell of elephant coils/mediterranean herbs and the lovely iced tea and strange orange sweets bought to us mid way through, it was a fabulously relaxing way to ease oneself into a Thursday morning.

It was, therefore, a total bummer to have to go to work straight after.

Photos.... coming slowly but surely

I'm a little slow on the uptake really. A bit slow to post posts. A bit slow to get my flickr account sorted out. Did that the other day, but true to form it sat with one photo on it for about three days before Jack pointed out that there was in fact no link from said photo to blog. Have sorted that out now, but still have only 5 photos.

I'll get there eventually. Its the humidity. Perhaps.

my little sake cup

my little sake cup
Originally uploaded by emkuntze.

Ooh er! Well, about a month or so ago Katie and I went in search of all things pottery related in a town called Karatsu, just west of Fukuoka. We wanted to see the famous potters at work, watch stuff being cooked in big kilns and perhaps secretly hoped a pottery master would offer us both an all expenses paid apprenticeship.... Actually it was a bit of a wash out and weather wise, literally so, as it pissed with rain for most of the day and I couldn't fathom how the umbrella I nicked off Jon managed to open the wrong way every time... also, the 'kilns' turned out to be little galleries displaying beautiful but extortionately priced cups and the like. Niether Katie or I have any kind of understanding or appreciation for the different styles of pottery and I'm afraid that any admiration for what we saw was more in the vein of "bloody hell, 4 man (40,000 yen) for a plate? That's two hundred quid! And it looks like the one I got from the Hyaku Yen (100yen) shop last Thursday!". Yes, we are philistines...

What would have been a very disappointing day, turned out to be brilliant, thanks to the misinterpretation of the lady working at the station. After the kiln incident, we went to the station to see if there was anywhere within walking distance where we could actually see stuff being made. I think we managed the words 'see' and 'pottery'. She very kindly got on the phone and minutes later and with map in hand, we arrived at a little shop near some boutiques in a shopping mall. The lovely lady there was under the impression we wanted to make stuff and had set up a little table in the corner. Being a bit knackered, wet and clean out of any new words, we did as we were told and set to making little sake cups. Think both our efforts were looked at with much amusement and we were shown off as the in-house entertainment to any customers who happened to come through the shop whilst we were in there. Anyway, I was quite pleased with the 'rustic' quality of mine, which reminded me rather eerily of a similar pot I made when I was in junior school. Nice to see my motor skills have progressed since then....

So, obviously we weren't around to pick up said cups after the firing, so the lovely lady posted them to us. Katie's cup had kanji on it, kanji that Kumi reckons is wrong.... Mine's more wobbly than I remembered but does the job nicely.

In further developments the ever well connected Mutsuko found out about a pottery class in Nakatsu that is open pretty much every day. Mutsuko kindly took me and Katie to check it out on Thursday and we're all really inspired (even Mutsuko, who had gone in chaffeur/interpreter/good company mode thinks she's going to have a go). The owner Hatabe-San actually trained in Karatsu, as fate would have it and his wife speaks English very well and crochets too! First class on Thursday. Nice one.