#jpnupdate

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week jyuu san 

week 13 !!! 

made some tiles in ceramics inspired by swimming on Naoshima and helped run a kids art class in the uni! and did karaoke ! and when to see an opera performance because our Japanese teacher gave us free tickets!

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week ni 

we’ve been here two weeks now how crazy !!

this week our classes started and so far so good! Ive got photography, woodblock printing, two ceramics classes, calligraphy and a ‘sewing’ class that seems more like a screen/silk printing class! and Japanese lessons on a Friday. 

I get my own desk in our creative art practise (name of my course) studio, it’s a big big room with loads of assorted shaped and sized desks and spinny chairs, the dream ! 

for homework I’ve had to make rubber stamps for ‘sewing’ and have to sketch an actor/actress to then carve in woodblock printing (ukiyo-e) we also have to pick our favourite Japanese word for calligraphy and on Tuesday we’re going to try large calligraphy in the gym !

on Saturday Maki - French speaking Japanese lady who had been in touch with Ana - took us to Gifu where we attended her friends Cyanotype workshop! It was me and Ana and some tiny adorable Japanese children and we had to collect plants from the garden to use to print! It was so peaceful and fun to try something new ! 

Sunday today and it’s raining so plan is to do nothing, me and Felix cooked Ana and Yannick a sort of fry up from bits we could find in Lawsons, a success ! 

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week ichi 

have been in Japan one whole week now and loving every second ! 

all formalities are out of the way and we have our timetables ready to start classes tomorrow! this week has just been about settling in. 

I’ve seen Kanako and Ryoka and lots of cherry blossom !!

our land lady took us and her family for a drive to see the Sakura festival and then took us to sushi. the sakura/blossom is maybe the most beautiful thing ive ever seen!! mrs hirano our land lady’s seven year old granddaughter Miko-chan is very sweet, I basically ended up babysitting her which I was fine with, I don’t know if she knew that I had no idea what she was saying but it was cute ! she drew us standing under a blossom tree while we all scoffed sushi off the conveyabelt thingy ! fun and tasty ! oishi ! 

i’ve bought lots of stickers and coloured envelopes from LOFT and Seria, good shops !! and have eaten the same box of sushi from familymart maybe 4 times this week and have lost count of onigiri 

the baths are small but i still love them and i love that peach is the most common flavour / smell for most things i.e. soap shampoo and fizzy frink

momo is peach ! 

domo is please !

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week jyuu yon

can’t believe i’ve only got 3 weeks left in Japan !

busy busy productive week, made and trimmed lots of bowls for our ceramics review in a few weeks, waiting for them to get out the kiln to glaze. 

monoprinted a batch of 50 postcards, to give as thank you cards before I leave, and came into school on Saturday and finished my big big map screen!! 

Exhibition is next week so lots of prepping 

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week jyuu ni

time is literally flying by

I spent a lot of time mono printing last week, mostly images of Onsen as I was super inspired after spending two hours every evening in Kyoto in Onsen with sweet little old ladies

water is often a theme in my work and I’ve been thinking about how it’s likely because I feel most relaxed in a body of water, whether it’s a bath, the sea, a swimming pool or an Onsen. It seems like this is becoming a theme drawing together the work I make in Nagoya, as I map my feelings and address what makes me feel at peace, in times of stress or sadness. and then 

on Friday me and Felix got the overnight coach to Osaka, to then get a lot of trains and boats to Naoshima !! it was the most amazing place, my favourite so far alongside Fukuoka ! we camped on a beach near a Yayoi Kusama piece and swam in the sea every night with tiny fish that glowed when you moved, super magical

Teshima art museum and Chichu art museum where my favourites, I could have stayed in them for hours and hours, and the art onsen was amazing too, I definitely want to go back one day.

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week jyuu ichi

busy week in ceramics and rushing to get ideas down to get everything ready for our show which is in 3 weeks!!

did my first ever solo trip, to Kyoto ! it was really nice to spend a weekend walking around such a beautiful city on my own, went to so many temples and ate lots of good food and spent ages in book shops

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week jyuu

a good productive week with a trip to Osaka over the weekend for Ana’s birthday!!

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week kyuu

we’re at the half way point aaahhh !!! 

crazy stuff

had a bit of  a blip with work this week, happily working away on my big map but feel like doing more and not sure what.. planning to collage onto vases in ceramics but I’m impatient so need things to do in the meantime !!

passed the wedging test woooo!!

have spent a lot of time this week making the poster and flyers for our exhibition which is fun and exciting !

and then did a homestay this weekend ! we all went to meet the families and to make taiyaki in Iwakura which was funny, so many people taking awful photos of us ! my host family was super sweet, the mum was so young and has 4 kids aged 3-10 who were all super cute and crazy, very very lucky that I like children! we had a bbq in a garage and went to bed early, on sunday she took us to the library so the kids could get books and then we caught tadpoles in the rice paddys outside their house, a wholesome weekend that was less awkward than i thought it’d be !!

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week hachi 

last week was another super productive week !

we’re learning how to make tote bags in sewing, and we’re starting our second wood block print too. 

I got hinges put on my boards and started collaging onto them.

Yokoyama sensei took us out for dinner !!!

me and Felix cyled to Yoro park in Gifu, to visit the park of reversible destiny ! it was a very long cycle on the hottest day yet but so much fun, we stopped for ice cream and snacks and the park was loads of fun.

we also booked buses to go to Naoshima and Osaka in June!! woo !!

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week nana

this week I really got into my own work, I’ve decided to focus on my love for maps and make a really big map of my thoughts, sights and memories of my time here in Japan. It will be something I add to up until the exhibition ! I decided to make it in the style of a Shoji screen, so that it resembles a big fold out paper map !

I really really love this uni, I found the right sized wooden boards from the scrap yard within minutes of having the idea, I got the sandpaper and gesso from the shop and took the boards to the ceramic assistant (because he’s super nice and super helpful) and he gave me a saw to cut them to size! 

exciting stuff to come !

I stayed at Ryoka’s for the weekend, her parents took us to a guide dog convention and then we went to the house from Totoro ! Kawaii ! She took me to a really modern onsen, completely opposite to the one me and Felix went to in yakushima but still amAZING, I want to go to as many as possible. Her parents cooked an amazing dinner, we each had a set of like 12 mini dishes filled with pickles and plums and seaweed and bits and then her dad grilled this kind of Okonomiyaki thing, OISHIIII

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week roku

can’t believe we’ve been here for six weeks

this week I tried to focus on getting personal ideas onto paper, which will hopefully lead to thinking about what I want to make for the exhibition

we learnt how to tell the time in Japanese

me and Felix cycled to Mami Kato’s exhibition which was a while away, so a good cycle

we visited the Nagoya art museum but it wasn’t very good 

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week go

GOLDEN WEEK !!

this week was golden week, which is a 10 day holiday at the end of April, maybe just created to get people to stop and relax? slow down salarymen!

after uni on Friday, Felix and I head to the airport to fly to Fukuoka! my mum worked in Fukuoka for about 2 years when she was 20 in the 80′s, so was very excited to be retracing her footsteps sort of. 

we arrived in the evening and it was raining, but we had a camping spot in mind on a beach about an hour walk away, so decided to stock up on beer, fried chicken and snacks to march to the spot with and then have our healthy dinner in the tent.

(we decided before we left that we were going to camp rather than spend money on accommodation, Felix has done this many times and I love camping and Japan is safe)

the spot was perfect and we stayed there for three nights, taking the tent down each morning and putting everything in lockers to explore Fukuoka. It’s an amazing place, so bubbly and fun, lots of good backstreets buzzing with tiny shops and bars, good scuzzy ramen joints, and super kind people! Yatai stalls !! amazing !! tiny pop up restaurants all along the main road and canal, we ate tempura and meat on sticks and drank with some Japanese boys who were super excited about English music, sweet sweet indie boys! had beers in a reggae bar and got chatting to the owner/chef who goes by the name ‘booty’ very sweet man, gave us food recommendations for Fukuoka and Kagoshima and in exchange gave him lists of London places for when he hopefully visits one day. also swam on momochi beach, sun wasn’t out and got lots of odd looks and laughs from locals but was worth it!

from here we got a coach to Kagoshima, the southern point of Kyushu. same situation, walked to find a glorious camping spot on a beach opposite the Volcano ! woke up to the rain but got in the sea anyway, thought this was our only night here. the volcano constantly puffs smoke which is amazing to watch! more good ramen, more bees and snacks on crazy beaches. 

booked a 13 hour overnight boat to Yakushima, an island off of Kagoshima, booked the long one to save money + thought it would be a laugh. was a laugh. was also awful. was a cargo ship with a few very packed rooms and just as packed narrow corridors, we got a corridor spot next to the smoking area which was a ceiling to hip curtain, in the corridor. after a few hours of sitting on the floor we got moved to the staff’s ‘canteen’, small room with two tables with chairs and a telly, much better but temporary ! spent maybe 3 hours here chatting and laughing and drinking beer, (we have 4 each that we had to ration) sweet sailor man gave us some of his chicken and we gave him pocky and communicated through facial expressions and pointing, very sweet. got moved into one of the packed rooms to sleep, 20something Japanese people sleeping on a carpeted floor space? managed to find a spot just big enough for the two of us and somehow managed to sleep even though it was maybe 30 degrees and the aircon did not work. woke up every few hours to run out to the deck to be assaulted by the wind and rain, genuinely the best feeling when you’ve just felt like you had a hot second layer of skin. 

arrived at 7am and had breakfast in a tiny cafe, odd breakfasts. was raining loads and not due to stop til the evening which was a shame because we’d planned to hike into the mountains, decided instead to do a 3 hour walk around the island to find the beach we wanted to camp on. got soaked and saw monkeys ! beach wasn’t what we’d thought it was, but saw a campsite on a big hand drawn map and decided to try find that. walked through a small town and some kind strangers showed us to a restaurant, that they got the man to open just for us! so kind! kind strangers came back while we were eating to give us a bag of bread and pastries as a gift since we told them we were camping! little old lady gave us saba fish sashimi and gave Felix a massage, laughing at how much i was smiling. said bye and walked for another 45 minutes and finally found this amazing little campsite, which also had a tiny onsen, all run by one little old man! he told us he wanted to go to bed so we should use the onsen before we put up the tent. onsen was the best thing ever, thoroughly washed and scrubbed and then into hot hot water, naked with a few sweet Japanese ladies and a baby. sat in the water looking out the window that over looked the beach. completely perfect. put tent up and lay on the grass looking up at the sky, rain had stopped and there was NO light pollution, so had amazing stars. ate pocky wrapped in the white bread we were given by the strangers. good snack, good sleep. 

woke up and had another onsen bath and head on our way. sun now really shining, both a bit burnt and dreading the 3 hour walk back to the harbour, but managed to hitch a lift from a lovely man in a tiny open back truck who had already picked up two people on bikes! sat in the back and held on tight because he was not slowing down despite having three people on the back, very funny and very amazing. 

ate sushi on the harbour and then a sensible, 4 hour boat back the way we came. one more night in Kagoshima on the beach, swam under the volcano again and then back to Fukuoka, stayed in a hostel for a night and then to the airport, a truly amazing week ! 

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week yon

a good an uneventful week!

started carving into our boards in wood block print.

did big calligraphy on live Japanese tellly! that’s pretty eventful actually, they had a group writing out the new era’s name with a telly crew recording and wanted the exchange students to get involved because they’re genuinely proud to have us haha, very strange but very sweet, and it didn’t go badly!

learnt how to trim in ceramics and practiced more and more.

and finally we got our bikes !! very happy, I cycled to the post office to send a parcel back to my Brighton home.

and ! found the uni junkyard which is going to be my new fave place, so much good junk !! 

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week san

another lovely lovely week ! It’s getting warmer and warmer and really does feel like we’re on holiday, an amazing productive, creative and longggg holiday! 

Ceramics and ‘sewing’ are my favourites at the moment! I want to put a lot of work into ceramics and learn as much as possible, the Sensei’s are so so amazing and so are the facilities, on Thursday’s it’s my only class and I’m allowed to stay later so I’m going to make that a set part of my schedule. 

For big calligraphy I chose the word ‘swim’ and it was not easy to do, it looks way way easier than it is but I’m excited to keep trying. 

On Friday night we all went to the yakitori restaurant/bar across the road from the flat and drank lots of beer and ate various meats on sticks, very jolly and sweet, so nice to get to know everyone better, feeling like a strange little family. 

On Saturday, me, Felix and Yannick went back into Nagoya to go to our Japanese teachers flower arranging exhibition, and also so me and Felix could get some film developed. We went to a little old man gyoza bar and it was amazing! Me and Felix ventured off into some back streets as it got dark and found some tiny little bars that looked like peoples tiny houses, Japan is really unlike any other place in the world, crazy and amazing, I’m finding my cheeks hurting from smiling so much at the end of each day.

This week we leave for our southern adventure but first have to get through the working week, to get to our holiday on holiday !!