Minnesota (majority part) had a wonderful weather over the Labor Day weekend. John and I went up North to visit Duluth, Two Harbors and Grand Marais. We found many art galleries and pottery products along the way. We also stopped by a few Antique stores and purchased "Made in Japan" items. They will be up on our store soon...
We plan to visit Mashiko Pottery Fair in Japan in November. Hope to see many more nice pottery works there. We also plan to introduce two exciting new product lines soon. They are nothing new, but no US online stores are selling the same items!!
August 27, 2011
We uploaded more products on our website tonight. These are some of the items Kazuko purchased at Kyoto Gojo Pottery Fair early this month. Still many more products to take pictures and upload....
We also went to the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis to meet with a young potter from Japan. Her name is Rina Hongo. There will be an exhibition on 9/22 at NCC. The exhibition will showcase 7 young Japanese potters including Rina. This is open to the public. There will be more potters coming from Japan for the exhibition. If you live in the area, please stop by!
August 21, 2011
We went to the Japanese Lantern (Obon) Festival at Como Park, St. Paul, MN today. We had a very nice weather here in Minneapolis/St. Paul area today. There are many people who dressed up like Anime characters. it reminds me of Harrajuku or Shibuya area of Japan. We enjoyed traditional festival games, music, dance and street food..evrything was very good.
We posted a few pictures of Lantern Festival on Facebook. Please take a look at them!
www.facebook.com/pages/theJapanStopcom/140399119339407
August 11, 2011
Japan is really hot and humid and there is no escape. I was in Kyoto Gojo pottery fair two days ago. Kyoto is famous for its hot and humid summer and cold and damp winter. I've never perspired that much in my whole life....
I felt customers there were a little more sophisticated than the ones at Arita pottery fair. Arita pottery fair is so much bigger and there are so many shops that sells mass manufactured pottery for Y100 to Y500 each. I was looking for very special all hand made and hand painted ones.
Since it was so hot, I was walking through shops fairly fast and stopped by places that caught my eyes. In the end I found several items I liked. They are all very unique and one of a kind.
I also visited master potters at Iwakuni Kikkougama and Toetsu pottery in Kobe. They were both very energetic and enthusiastic about new works and challenges. I picked up many items from them, too.
We will upload the purchased items on our site very soon. Please visit our Facebook page for pictures and videos!
July 24, 2011
It was a nice day today. We went to the Red Haddox field in Bloomington to see two nephews' baseball game. Coincidentally they played in competing teams. One team lost of course, but it was a great game.
Kazuko hasn't prepared for her Japan trip yet. It was just too nice to stay home to do the packing.
We are trying to set up an USPS shipping method into our website. We offer many items under 1 lbs.and it tends to be costly to ship by FedEx. Please be patient, it should be effective in a few days.
July 13, 2011
Website has been launched and more people are accessing our site. Thank you for your interest!
Kazuko is going to visit Japan early next month and go to the Kyoto Pottery Fair. Kyoto is also famous for its pottery (Kiyomizu-yaki). Other than many local potters, the fair also features many young potters and different pottery from around the nation. It is said over 400 shops will open during the fair. She is looking forward to going, but worried about very humid and hot weather. Kyoto is notorious for its heat and humidity in summer and damp coldness in winter.
She also will visit one of our partnered potters, Ms. Orihashi(Toetsu Pottery) in Kobe. We love her very exquisite pottery. Kazuko will bring Ms. Orihashi’s newest works home!
July 01, 2011
Welcome to The Japan Stop. On our inaugural shopping trip to Japan we visited many interesting places and met a lot of interesting and talented people. One of the places we visited was the Arita Ceramic Fair. Arita is located in the Saga prefecture in the Kyushu region. The Arita Fair is one of the largest ceramic fairs in Japan. There are thousands of pottery stands stretching along nearly 4 miles of main road. We walked, shopped and ate for 2 days and we still didn’t see it all. We did, however, made some new friends. Since we couldn’t buy everything we liked, we selected a handful of artists that really caught our attention with their passion and their skills. We explained that we were looking for potters that we could highlight and sell their products on a website we were starting in the states. All the artists we spoke to were very open to this idea.
We then traveled to the Kutani Pottery Festival in the Ishikawa prefecture. Once again we walked, explored, purchased and made valuable contacts.
In this same trip we stopped by Tsugano Pottery in Fujioka, Tochigi prefecture and Iwakuni Pottery in Yumaguchi prefecture. The Tsugano family we had been corresponding with and Iwakuni Pottery is in Kazuko’s hometown. This pottery trip was truly unforgettable and we are looking forward to our next one.
Subsequent trips have carried us to the far reaches of the country. (The JR Rail pass is a must on these junkets). We have been to Kimono factory for fabrics, many Japanese paper and stationary stores exploring their variety of beautiful products, including wrapping paper, luncheon mats, gift bags, high quality pens and coasters. We have also visited and witnessed the preparation of bamboo charcoal. The owner of the company was a very interesting character, very passionate and particular about his work.
We make a point of not passing a flea market without checking it out. A Japanese flea market is very similar to US flea markets. There are many unusual and interesting items to be found.
Since we will not purchase items without first hand picking them ourselves, we look forward to many interesting journeys to find more high quality Japanese products.
