This post has lots of images, but thought it was worth it for the beautiful sights we saw today (not including the Quilt show). This morning was another brisk one and we were on the road by 9am heading to the Tokyo Dome for the International Quilt Show.

View from my hotel room, this is a building is called the cocoon tower and is 50 stories high, it houses three educational institutions.

Concierge in the hotel lobby.

There are signs like this all around the Quilt show, all signage is in Japanese and we obviously don’t understand them!

All the taxis in Japan are Toyota Crown, luxury model, old as the hills but clean and shiny.

This is near the Tokyo Dome and is a betting place, when we came out of the Quilt show it was packed and very noisy with lots of men placing bets and all watching screens.

There was a mosaic all around the edge of the dome. Apparently this is a baseball dome and it seats 50,000 people.

First glimpse of the show, looks small, but believe me we spent 7 and a half hours there today and saw about maybe half of it, it is massive and thronging with people. I went through 2 batteries in my camera. I will post some photos of one exhibit at the end of this post, but am too tired to upload a lot of photos and will do the quilt show justice in separate posts over the coming days.

Tonight Deb and I decided to not meet up with the other tour members and go to dinner, as we wanted to experience an authentic Tokyo experience and the restaurants that cater for 30 or so women aren’t the ones you should go to. So we headed off on our own.

This kind of dish is called yakatori, it was truly delicious, washed down, of course, with a nice French wine!

The following pictures were from one exhibit at the show, Hansel and Gretel. Everything was fabric and stitched.

The following pictures give you an idea of the amount of people there. For the first hour it was quite nice and you could get good photos of whole quilts but after than it was a bun fight, but quite fun. The above photo was the people in front of the Supreme winner. The photo below shows the people streaming in during the day, this was still going on when we left at 4:30. After fighting my way though to get a photo of the supreme quilt, I came out laughing and chuffed with myself as I was taller than most and could hold my camera above all the heads. There was an American girl doing exactly the same as me and we laughed together about this was the only time at a quilt show we were able to do that.

We awoke to snow this morning, a clear sunny day but very cold.

We went to the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine where on the 25th of every month they have a market day. This is a mixture of new and used items for sale along with food.

We then went to the last of our workshops held at the Shibori Museum. We were met off the bus by the enthusiastic owner who made sure we arrived safely without slipping over, we had a quick class of clamping and dyeing a scarf. This was fun and easy.

We then headed off to the Nishiki Market, Kyoto’s food market, was awesome, I have no idea what some of the foods were and forgot to take many photos, it was amazing.

Then onto the bullet train and off to Tokyo.

Today was freezing! It didn’t get above 2 degrees! Glad I brought my possum merino glove, socks, hat, jersey I needed all of it today.

This morning we headed off to the Heianjingu Shrine.

This was a kumquat tree with its winter cover.

Then we visited the Museum of Traditional Crafts. They put on a show for us with the director giving a speech and explaining about the regional crafts which are now revered and they are elevating the skills with government grants and special quality marks. It was amazing how many of the revered skills were textile based. They had some artisans come in and give us demonstrations, and some were able to make things.

We then had some free time to wander around and do some shopping. The two photos below are of a needle shop. It was so small you could only fit 4 people in it at a time, so beautiful he sold only needs and pins and small travelling needlework kits.

Then we were off to a Yuzen painting workshop, this was painting fabric with stencils, not my favourite workshop of all the ones we have done so far, but that was only because the stencils I chose were not great and the colours were very bright.

Next door there was a fabric painting workshop where men were painting five metre lengths for obi.

Loved their brushes

Most of the textile industries we have been to are in peoples homes – we don’t get to see where they live but the premises are either beside or under their houses. They all have little zen gardens, some of them as small as 2 square metres. You would not have any idea of what’s around, they are tucked down little alleys and no signage outside. The rooms we have been into don’t have windows out onto the street, the windows that face the street are covered with paper screens and the only windows with clear glass face into their zen garden, none of their windows face neighbours etc, they are covered with the screens so let in light but no view.

Kyoto is a lovely city with wide streets and older architecture. Today we divided into two groups. We started out going to the Kinkakuji Temple (Golden Pavilion).

We then went to the UNESCO world heritage zen garden

Then we moved on to visit the Orinasu-kan – this was an obi weaving studio. The looms were all operated by hand and the fine silk was hand woven using a complicated pattern. Unfortunately we were unable to take photos in the weaving studio. This company employed about 5 artisans and one 5 metre length takes about 1 month to weave, as opposed to the machine ones which are probably done in less than a day.

The garments were beautiful, the designs were so intricate they looked like embroidery but were woven.

This was the street the weaving studio was on. You can’t tell what’s going on in the houses/studios/factories as they just look like houses.

A lovely bit of modern Japanese architecture, would have loved to have a look inside this house.

These vending machines are everywhere, even contain alcohol!

This machinery was parked on a vacant section in a residential area.

After a brief stop for lunch (ops I’d already eaten some before I remembered to take the photo)

We went to the Yamamoto Rocketsu dyeing workshop. There was one man and three women, they were so lovely and excited to share their craft with us.

First we chose a design, then slipped it between the two sides of the T-shirt and painted the wax on. One layer of wax for a pale design and two for a bright design.

These were hanging on the wall, such an inspiring display.

Then it was time to put the t-shirts into the indigo dye, had gum boots on as well as all this gear.

The man then put the t-shirts into the boiling water to remove the wax.

The shirts were still wet so they bagged them up for us to hang up in our hotel room to dry.

Then we were off to the Gion district (the geisha quarter). These streets were very narrow and walking only, was disappointed not to see any geisha but was a lovely area.

They have lots of different manhole covers in the footpaths, these were denoting the geisha district.

The wooden panels below indicate how many geisha live in the house, this house has several. One wooden panel for each geisha.

The building below was the ‘big party house’ in the book Memoirs of a Geisha.

Our guide said it was not a popular movie in Japan as the Japanese felt it misrepresented them. The original writer of the story maintains that the English translation was dramatised and changed quite significantly.

Our guide took us to an Okonomiyaki restaurant tonight, was lots of theatre and very delicious.

We cut our food and ate it with the gib-stopping trowel!!!

This is the light in our bus!!! I think they do karaoke in this bus! When our guide got on this morning and starting using the mike it had weird sound effects.

Today we drove an hour out of Takamatsu to an indigo dying place. It was a room in the basement under the man’s house. From the outside it looked like a normal house. The smell was very unusual, a bit like fermented/slightly off plants. This was the natural way to indigo dye not the synthetic way we do it. First we were given squares of plain white cotton which we brushed wax designs onto. We then dipped it into the indigo vats, 5 dips for one minute and holding it out of the dye for 30 seconds. To get the really deep blue we would have needed to dip it 20 or 30 times, but time did not allow us that. Afterwards they washed the wax out with hot water, spin the fabric and two ladies ironed it dry for us, very spoilt, was a fascinating process and the man was very experienced, there were three other Japanese people there who were learning the craft from him.

His blue hands.

These were the hands of a young women who was learning the craft.

Ironing my piece. We then travelled back to the city to have lunch. Most restaurants are quite small but they all have plastic versions of their menu (even the beer has a plastic sample!)

I had a beautiful sashimi lunch, very tasty.

We then went to an Awa Odori performance, they performed various dances to their own music and then got some of the audience up to join them, I slunk down into the back corner!

A few of us decided that tonight we would like a bit of a change from Japanese food and decided to go to a burger place. I have to say, quite ashamed, it was so delicious. The Japanese food is so high in carbohydrates and low in protein its just a reversal of how I normally eat, its very delicious but a bit of an adjustment.

Deb, a lady on the tour, and I went to the hotel bar tonight after dinner amazing views and great cocktails and a few laughs. Good times

We woke today to a hard frost and the lake frozen. I have never seen pine trees look so lovely as they are here, below they are ‘training’ a tree. They also wrap parts or whole trees to protect them in the winter.

We then went to the Doll Museum of Yuki Atae, these were incredible dolls, he captured the figure so well, we were unable to take photos inside the museum so the picture below is from one of his catalogues. Absolutely amazing and intricate work.

We were allowed to take a photo of this one in the gift shop. The figures stood between 30-50 cms high and there were probably over 100 of them, all different ages, some fantasy some everyday.

We then took the bus to a nearby city and caught the bullet train. But before we boarded we had to purchase a bento box or similar for lunch, this was a laugh as we generally didn’t have much idea what was in them. I ended up getting a fish sushi, which was quite good. In the meal there was real wasabi and a little wasabi grater, it tasted fantastic and wasn’t green or like the toothpaste wasabi we get at home.

The train was comfortable with heaps of leg room, it wasn’t the fastest one, apparently we go on that one next week when we go back to Tokyo.

We arrived at Nagoya and proceed straight to the historical area of Arimatsu where shibori dates back to the 17th century. Street was very authentic and quaint and being winter was quite quiet. We had a tie-dying workshop with some Japanese experts (all women), the oldest of whom was 86, they were lovely and eager to share their knowledge albeit with hand signals and lots of laughing. We did all our stitching and tying and they will dye the fabric and have it sent to our hotel in Tokyo waiting for us to arrive there.

We then went to a very famous Kimono designer’s shop (I can’t remember his name) it was in a beautiful old house, complete with zen garden and beautifully dressed men and women in traditional kimono. The prices were steep, but the fabrics beautiful and hand done, so I guess were one-offs. I need to find out more about it, but from what I can gather, when you are 21 you go and get a kimono, some people get more than one but most people only get one, because of the cost. They can graduate in it, get married in it etc.

The picture below is created by tie-dying, lots and lots of tiny knots to create this one.

See the price on these ones, that’s about $50,000 (NZD) but they were mostly a lot less than this – even some sale ones for around 200,000 yen, which is around $2,500 NZD.

Tonight we went to a Japanese Brazilian restaurant, it was a meat-eaters paradise with lots and lots of dishes of meat brought out and a small salad bar you could help yourself to.

At the hotel we were given a little voucher that we take with us to breakfast, lots of hilarity after we read the bit about what to wear to breakfast. Especially after we wore our ‘dressing gowns’ to dinner last night!

Today we left Tokyo and drove to Kawaguchi, the second largest of the five Fuji lakes. On the way we stopped at a ‘truck stop’ which was massive, there were some interesting foods on offer. Lots and lots of sweet stuff and not much savoury.

Had no idea what was in these packages!

What the hell is this!!

At the lake we stopped at a cableway and went for a ride up to get views of Mount Fuji. I felt very fortunate to see the mountain, it was a beautiful clear day, apparently it is fairly hit and miss as to whether or not you get to see it.

You have to leave your pets at the bottom!

It was a smallish cable car and they crammed us all in! But so worth it at the top, stunning views and such a beautiful day, I would love to see this area in autumn it would be incredible.

We had lunch at a local restaurant, this is the local delicacy, Hoto, delicious broth with mushrooms, crab, one piece of carrot and noodles.

We then travelled around to the other side of the lake to the Itchiku Kubota Art Museum.

This guy used an ancient tie-dying technique (very time consuming and intricate) to create huge pieces of art work in the kimono shape. THe building was fascinating and the art works were mind blowing, we were not allowed to take photos but if you click the link above you can see some of them, although as usual, the photos don’t do it justice. It’s interesting, as he died in 2003 and his family sold the gallery but his family held the copyright for his images, so the gallery cannot sell anything which has images of his work on it – very frustrating. Apparently, they are fighting for the rights but it has been more than two years in court. Absolutely stunning building and reminded me a bit of Gaudi’s garden in Barcelona.

I pinched the above image from google

We then headed off to our hotel, which had a Japanese bath in it. Our guide went into great detail about the protocol etc, there is a certain way you wear the Yukata (cotton kimono) which is basically a dressing gown. Helen you would have benefited from this pep talk lol. You then proceed to the bath, wash yourself down and go into the spa, there were two pools one inside and one out – you don’t wear togs but go naked, got to see more of my tour peers that I would’ve thought I would!! Great fun though. Then you wear your Yukata to dinner, looked hilarious with practically the whole dining room in them.

The terrible view from my room.