My Imari series #4.

This year, the annual Imari spring sale by the kilns (Haru no Yomoto Ichi: 春の窯元市) will be held from March 31 to April 3, 2013 at Okawachiyama (大川内山), Saga.
I wish I could go, but I never can take time off at that time of the year.

I just hope that the sale will not be affected by the yellow sand dust (黄砂) blown from the Yellow River region in China. The yellow sand dust seems to be getting worse – probably due to the progressing desertification in China. We had it when I was a kid in Fukuoka but nobody paid attention to it.  To make the matter worse, the sand dust now contains the fine particulate matter (PM2.5), caused by the air pollution due to the rapid (too rapid) development in China. Thanks, China    The good thing is this is only seasonal.

If you are lucky enough to go to the spring Imari sale, be sure to stop over at Arita city (有田市) and visit the Arita Porcelain Museum (佐賀県立九州陶磁文化館)!

10 minutes’ walk from the JR Arita train station. If you don’t want to walk, take a taxi. There are always taxis waiting in line right outside the train station.

Stairs to the Heaven – for Imari lovers

On the second floor of the museum, there is a cafeteria which serves tea, coffee, sweets, and light meals in the very old Imari ware.

I almost missed the sign on the left that says “you can have coffee in Ko-Imari (古伊万里: old Imari ware made from the 17th century to early 19th century)”. They need a bigger sign.

Not many people know this place yet. It’s a hidden gem

One of the menus they gave me -

Cake sets served in the old Imari ware

Choices: Green Tea Chiffon Cake, Fruit Role Cake, Gateau Au Chocolat, Layer Cheese Cake    750 yen with coffee

Japanese women are very fond of cake sets like these. I am one of them.

They also gave me the sheet that explains about the old Imari they use.

The plates above were made sometime between 1680 – 1700s.

The ones below were made sometime between 1770 – 1800s.

Depending on what you order, you will be served with Imari with different designs.

They were donated by Ms. Yuko Shibata.

How generous of her to do that!

It says “be sure to hold them with both of your hands”.  What if you drop one on the floor by mistake and break it?

I am totally amazed they serve general public with such old and valuable stuff.

They have a lot of trust in the general public – but I think I can safely say that people who come to this museum must be Imari fans who are respectful of any Ko-imari ware, so they are not really serving them to the ‘general public’.

But still…  I can’t imagine anybody could do this in the U.S.

I had a slice of fruit roll cake with a cup of coffee.    mmmmm

It was like my dream came true.  For an Imari fan like me, what could be better than this (^o^)

I look outside the windows.

I see the lush green of southern Japan. I love it. I always took it for granted until I moved somewhere much colder. It actually resembles the climate of states like Tennessee, Georgia, I think (I have been to both Tennessee and Georgia) – am I right?

Don’t forget to visit the exhibition rooms.

If I remember correctly, this is the only sign in English, Korean, and Chinese.

I spent almost 4 hours in there.  Even if you are not a big Imari fan like me, you want to spend at least half an hour in there.

They have both the Japanese-style Imari and the European export Imari.

They have wares specially made for the Dutch East India Company. Some of them have the names of the then-oweners imprinted on them.

And there is a Kakiemon (柿右衛門) Imari, too, of course.

The decendent of Kakiemon (Kakieyom XIV) lives near this museum. He is a living national treasure (ningen kokuho: 人間国宝) in Japan.

Did you know Japan made huge Imari like this in the late 19th century?  They made them only for the export. (Japanese houses would be too small for them)

Japan entered big Imari ware like this in the International Expositions (万国博覧会) held in Europe in the 19th century and received praise from the crowd. I did not even know that they had International Expositions in the 19th century.

There is a big clock in the lobby made of Imari porcelain. It plays (kind of sleepy) music every half an hour.

This is an excellent museum, but here, too, they are half baked in providing English signs and explanations.

Some of them have full English translation, but many have only the title translated into English.

My guess is they just don’t have enough resources. It costs money to hire good translators.

The website of the Kyushu Ceramic Museum (九州陶磁文化館): http://www.pref.saga.lg.jp/web/at-contents/kanko_bunka/k_shisetsu/kyuto.html

The website is only in Japanese, but if you scroll it down a bit, there is a link to the PDF of the brochure in English. 

Map Imari en (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Take JR Sasebo Line (佐世保線). Get off at Arita (有田). 10 minutes’ walk from the JR Arita station.  Imari City is close from Arita City  - 30 minutes’ ride of Matsuura Railway (松浦鉄道).

Related articles

• Imari Porcelain Festivals @Okawachiyama
• 2013 Spring Imari Sale by the Kilns at Okawachiyama (2013年 大川内山 春の窯元市)
• Alert for PM2.5 from China (an article by Fukuoka-now.com)

On the frigid Friday evening last week, I was on my way home, very tired from working all day (I live in the US and come back to my home country, Japan, regularly).  Driving 40 minutes each way, sometimes in snow, makes me very tired. I stopped by at a nearby supermarket on my way home to buy wine.  I have to drink a little on Friday night. I noticed the Wonderful Pistachios, Psy was selling on Super Bowl, for sale.

I bought one bag. I would have liked unsalted better, but I still enjoyed munching them.

Last Sunday night was the Super Bowl night – America’s big winter festival. I wrote about Psy’s performance in Times Square on New Year’s Eve 2012 Watching Psy. I thought I would not see Gangnam Style dance on TV again, but it appeared once more in the Super Bowl commercial.

I had heard he would be in Nabisco’s commercial, but no, it was Wonderful Pistachios by Paramount Farms in California which sells mainly nuts. They have the website named getcraking.com.

Get cracking!

I Google searched blogs in Japan for curiosity.  He is not popular. He was never. And he will not be.

There is one blog which seems dominant on the topic of Psy’s Super Bowl commercial. It cites nothing but the negative responses he seems to have collected from the U.S media.  It should show both positive and negative responses.

The blogger obviously does not like Psy, so he shows only the negative ones to give you an impression that the majority of the American audience hated the commercial.

This is why you can’t trust some (or many?) of the blogs out there.

Don’t waste time on reading idiotic blogs by bozos  (oh, I am being careful of what I write! )

Yes, maybe Gangnam Style was a little too overexposed in the media. But hey, I would do the same thing if I were him. Make hay while the sun shines.

The company must have done market research and must have known using Psy would be effective enough to sell their nuts. Usually businesses know what they are doing.

I liked the commercial, and bought a bag of the pistachios.  The commercial worked for me.

Japan is the only country Gangnam Style was never popular.

I can’t understand why. I have been away from my home country too long?

I guess it makes it more interesting to have a country that is different from everybody else. If all the countries were the same, the world would be boring.

One of my Facebook friends in Japan said she could watch the Super Bowl game and the half time show on the BS channel (one of the TV channels in Japan which broadcasts the pro sports in the U.S. like Major League Baseball), but not the commercials. So, I shared the link to Psy’s pistachios commercial in YouTube. She liked it, too.

Related articles

• ‘Gangnam Style’ Wonderful Pistachios Super Bowl Commercial Stars Viral Sensation Psy (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

A lot of Imari porcelain ware were exported to Europe from Japan in the 17th century.

There is the port of Imari (伊万里港) outside the city of Imari, Saga Prefecture. I used to think that’s the port from where the Imari porcelain were shipped out to Europe.

But no, the port used to be here (below) – where there is the bridge with the cute Dutch figurine on across the Imari River (伊万里川), right outside the downtown of Imari city.

The name of the bridge is Ai-Oi-Bashi (相生橋).

Walk through the downtown, which takes only about 5 minutes, then you will be at this bridge. It’s a small (and a sleepy) town.

This is where the port used to be?!   The port was so important in the Imari porcelain trade between Europe and Japan.  Considering how important it was, it’s so low key I can’t believe it!

Along the river, I notice the photos, the maps, and the panels that explain the history of this area.

Aha! Here is an good explanation of the Imari Port.

It says:

In the Edo period (1603-1868), this area, near the mouth of Imari River, was called Imari-tsu (伊万里津). Tsu (津) means a port town.There was a dock on the south side of the Ai-Oi-Bashi bridge.

The porcelain made in Saga and Nagasaki were shipped overseas from Imari-tsu port. Because shipped from Imari, they were called Imari-yaki (伊万里焼: Imari porcelain).

(source: textbook by the Imari city education committee)

The Imari porcelain were shipped to Europe via Dejima (出島) in Nagasaki. They were loved by the royalty and nobility in Europe.  Imari-tsu port was the starting point of the Ceramic Road (the route of Imari exports) that connected Europe and Japan.

Imari porcelain were widely distributed inside Japan as well and enriched the Japanese daily life.

Imari was the most important port for Saga area throughout the Edo period.

This is one of the pictures I found in the Maritime Silk Road Museum (海のシルクロード館) in Imari City that depicts what the Imari port looked like in those days.

It must have been very lively here. It’s so quiet and dead now…

This is a real photo taken in the 1910s.

You can tell it was nowhere near prosperous like in the 17th century.

This sign explains there were a lot of porcelain merchants in this area who made tons of money exporting Imari overseas. Export business is  lucrative, always – I guess.

Imari ceramic plates are embedded in the fences on the bridge.  Very nice.

On the other side of the river, I notice a house with a cool-looking wall.

I cross the bridge and come closer to the house.

Wow, they have Imari ceramic plates embedded in their wall.  How cool.

I want to live in a house like this!

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Directions to where the Imari port used to be:

Take JR train to Imari. When you step outside the train station on the north side, you can see the small downtown of Imari city already.  There are two female Imari figurines standing on both the sidewalks at the entrance of the downtown. 

Walk through the downtown towards north about 5 minutes, then you will be at where a lot of Imari were once shipped out from to Europe far far away.

Related articles

• Imari Kiln Village, Kyushu, Japan – Where Imari porcelain came from (kyushujapan.wordpress.com)
• European Aristocrats’ Craze for Imari @Huis Ten Bosh, Nagasaki (kyushujapan.wordpress.com)
• Introductory Chapter of Pottery History (やきものの歴史入門編), Imari Pottery Study for Children（伊万里焼キッズサイト）by Imari city Education Committee (伊万里市教育委員会)

Around the New Year’s, I was reflecting on where I went and what I did in year 2012.  My highlights of the year included my trip back to Kyushu and my visit to the Porcelain Museum in Huis Ten Bosch.

I must really like Imari porcelain (*o*)

Did you know -

You can see, in Nagasaki, Japan, how the European royalty and nobility used to decorate their palaces and mansions with Imari porcelain?

In Europe in the 17-18 centuries, there was a craze for the Asian art crafts among the aristocrats.

Obviously they wanted to show off their wealth and social status with Imari collection – like this room (gasp)!

This is a replica of the Porcelain Cabinet (room) of the Charlottenburg Palace which is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany.

The replica is in the Huis Ten Bosch (ハウステンポス), a very popular European theme park in Sasebo city, Nagasaki (長崎県佐世保市).

Mirrors are used effectively – common in the palaces and opera houses built in Europe in those days.

These are all Imari exported to Europe from Imari, Japan.

How many Imari did they own?!   Thousands!

How much money did they spend?!

Sorry, the photos are a little bit blurry.

This is a little blurry, too.

The lavishness is off the chart (*.*;)

There is an explanation on the wall (in Japanese only) about the Porcelain Cabinet in the Charlottenburg Palace, and Sophie Charlotte, the wife of King Friedrich I in Prussia.

Sophie loved Far East Asian porcelains.  The king built the Charlottenburg Palace for Sophie.

It says:  the first Prussian king, Friedrich I, built the Charlottenburg Palace (シャルロッテンブルグ宮殿) for his wife, Sofie, who loved the Far East Asian porcelain ware. This Charlottenburg Palace was just for summer.  It’s in Berlin, Germany. The porcelain cabinet (磁器の間) in the Charlottenburg Palace is the most luxurious of all the porcelain cabinets currently existing in the world. It represents the Baroque style in the early 18th century and the chinoiserie (シノアズリー：中国趣味) which was in fashion at that time (style of art reflecting Chinese artistic qualities adopted in European arts and crafts).

How opulent!

If you are an Imari fan and if you live closer to Japan than Germany, this place is a must-go for you.

I would like to go visit the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin sometime if I can, but for now I am happy with this replica room.

You may love it, or hate it – you can see the extreme concentration of wealth on a small number of people (which reminds me of the certain countries now).

This is the map in the document I found in the website of the city of Imari.

Who coined the name Ceramic Road (セラミックロード)?   (it’s an ocean route..)

I guess it’s meant to be the ocean version of the Silk Road.

It’s fun to think about the long journey the Imari porcelain had by sea from Imari to Europe by way of Indonesia, Singapore, India, and Cape Town, South Africa.

The replica is inside the Porcelain Museum which is at the far end of Huis Ten Bosch park. Since Imari kilns are very close to the Huis Ten Bosch, it makes sense that they added the Porcelain Museum to the Huis Ten Bosch.

So, how did I find about this place?

I was reading the textbook about the history of Imari I found in the Imari city’s website. The textbook was made by the board of eduction of Imari city for the elementary school teachers’ use (It’s a very good textbook but it’s in Japanese only. I hope it will be translated into other languages someday).

One of the pages had a photo of the replica of a European palace room lavishly decorated with Imari. And I was really surprised that the replica is in Huis Ten Bosch, Nagasaki.  So, I had to go visit Huis Ten Bosch when I came back to Japan last year.

Imari are for sale near the entrance of the Porcelain Museum.

They must come straight from the kilns in Imari.

Wind chimes, too.

Admission to the Porcelain Museum:  400 yen  (You have to pay it in addition to the initial admission fee 3,200 yen (or more) to enter the theme park. It is not exactly cheap.)

Related articles

• Imari Kiln Village, Kyushu, Japan – Where Imari porcelain came from (kyushujapan.com)
• Introductory Chapter of Pottery History (やきものの歴史入門編), Imari Pottery Study for Children（伊万里焼キッズサイト）by Imari city Education Committee (伊万里市教育委員会)
• Dru’s Misadventures – Huis Ten Bosch (Nagasaki)

Once in a while, I want to write about something completely unrelated to the theme of my blog – Kyushu, Japan…

So this year again, I could not go back to Japan for New Year’s, which every year I wish I could do.  I was stuck in Michigan, U.S., freezing cold.

But I don’t get bummed out as much as I used to, because nowadays the TV Japan we subscribe to shows the annual music show, Kohaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦: Red and White Song Battle – singing battle between the teams of male singers and female singers), twice on New Year’s Eve. The first one is real-time broadcast from Japan, but it’s early in the morning here in the Eastern Time zone, too early for me. So I and my husband watch the second one, which is rerun, from 9 pm. In the den, I sit in the kotatsu (which my mother-in-law thinks is the weirdest thing in the world) and my husband sits in the chair, sipping sake or wine.

While we watch the song battle, we constantly switch to the American TV channel to see what’s going on in Times Square, New York.  Then we watch the ball drop countdown, and switch back to the Japanese song battle.

This year it was very special because I got to see the Korean rapper, Psy, in Times Square, NY!

Sometimes, a misfortune turns into a fortune.

It was a misfortune that I was stuck in Michigan, but thanks to that, I  got to see on TV Psy’s possibly last performance of Gangnam Style in public.

I had heard about Gangnam Style phenomenon from one of my sons.  It’s pretty incredible. He sings in Korean. The only English Psy says in his song are “Sexy Lady” and “Gangnam Style”, but the American audience did not seem to mind it.

I had never seen before anybody who sang in a Asian language in public in the U.S.  Time has changed.

Gangnam Style was a big hit in 2012 worldwide, except in Japan.

Why not in Japan?

Is Japan, after all, as many people have said, different and unique from the rest of the world?

I google-searched articles and blogs in Japan about Psy.  I found many blogs in Japanese which discuss why he is not popular in Japan.  Here I summarized what the Japanese blogs say:

• Psy is not good looking. And he is a middle-aged old fat man (ossan: オッサン). Any entertainer from Korea is supposed to be young and super handsome (K-pop has been popular in Japan but all the K-pop stars are handsome – at least to the Japanese’ eyes).

Me) What?  I like Psy because he is funny.  He is funny because he is not a handsome young guy who looks like a toothpick.  If he were slim and super handsome, his horse dance would not have been funny. His funniness was a big factor of his popularity, I think.  Why can’t Japanese see that?

• Japanese are tired of Korean entertainment.

Me) There has been an influx of Korean pop culture into Japan in the past decade, but I am not buying this.

• There is nothing new in the choreography of Psy’s dance or nothing new musically in Phy’s song.

Me) What?  Nothing new in his horse dance?  That horse dance is very unique, I think!  It makes almost anybody feel like dancing.  It reminds me of the Macarena dance which was a big hit in the 1990s.  When did the Japanese become so sophisticated about dance choreography and music?

• Psy must have cheated and manipulated the hits in YouTube to make it look more popular than actually was.

Me) How can anybody cheat and manupulate hits in YouTube?  How can anybody outplay Google (who owns YouTube)?

• Why does he have to be popular in Japan just because he’s popular in the other countries.

• Who in the world is this guy? I have never heard about him before. He came out of nowhere all of sudden.  Do I have to accept him as a star even though I never heard about him until now?”

Me) If he is funny and good and you like his performance, isn’t that enough? It does not matter if you have never heard about him before – right?

• One blog analyzed that the Japanese are jeolous that a Korean made a global star before any Japanese has done it.

Me) Psy became popular because he’s Psy, not because he’s a Korean. It’s silly people always have to bring nationalities, rivalry between countries to issues – it’s only entertainment.

• Some other comments I found were very nasty – anonymous, of course. Some are so terrible that I can’t recite here. It’s unavoidable.  It’s not only in Japan – you see nasty and venomous comments anywhere on the Internet. Some people get out of control when anonymous. It’s cowardly, I think.

I should not be wasting my precious time on garbage comments by irresponsible and cowardly people.

I asked my Facebook friends who live in Japan why Psy has not been popular in Japan. Somebody answered that it seemed unlikely in Japan that he would make a star because he never had gone through any of the established entertainment authorities.

I hear the music producers and promotors in Japan have enormous power. For exmaple, they have so much control over the radio hosts that the hosts can’t freely pick the songs they like to play.

But now we have YouTube. Maybe people in Japan are not familiar with YouTube yet?  Maybe they don’t know yet that now it’s possible to become a star by uploading the video of yourself in YouTube? Justin Bieber did that, too, right?

Now that Psy performed in Times Square in New York on New Year’s Eve, I wonder if he will be accepted in Japan as an “established” star?

If America approves something, Japan will follow it – oftentimes.  That’s been the history.

Just as I expected, I heard that as soon as Psy performed in Times Square in New Year’s Eve, Phy hit No. 1 on YouTube Japan.

I wonder if Psy will be invited to the 2013 Red and White Song Battle. Only the most successful artists of the year are invited to the Battle.  He may be completely forgotten by then.  Psy will need another big hit sometime around September!

Anyhow, I took these photos with my iPad Mini.  Considering they were from the TV screen, they are not bad, are they?  :)

Related articles

• Psy ending Gangnam Style? Singer says song is ‘too popular’ (myfox8.com)
• Gangnam Style hits No. 1 on YouTube Japan (tokyotimes.com)
• Gangnam Style’s Psy Just Filmed A Super Bowl Ad (businessinsider.com)
• Psy Bringing ‘Gangnam Style’ to Wonderful Pistachios Super Bowl Ad (mashable.com)

Related articles

• Gangnam Style’s Psy Just Filmed A Super Bowl Ad (businessinsider.com)
• Psy Bringing ‘Gangnam Style’ to Wonderful Pistachios Super Bowl Ad (mashable.com)

When I went to Ureshino onsen by bus, I could see from the windows of the bus the tea farm fields (not very big) here and there on the slopes of the hills.

Did you know they produce black tea (紅茶) as well?

When I went into one of the tea shops on the main street, Kusano Seicha-en (草野製茶園), the bags labeled Ureshino Kocha (black tea) (うれしの紅茶) caught my eyes.

The clerk explained to me that they started making black tea 15 years ago.  I never knew it.

In Ureshino, they make both black tea and green tea from the plants of the same varieties.

I don’t really know either how green tea is produced or how black tea is produced, so I don’t know exactly what process turns the same tea leaves into black tea instead of green tea. They say, because the plants of the same varieties are used, Ureshino black tea does not have the bitterness you find in black tea in general, and it tastes even slightly sweet without any sugar in it.

I bought one pack and tasted it at home.

Yes, they were right.

I did not put any sugar in it, and it was sweet enough to my delight.

I liked it a lot, but my American husband was not so impressed, “It does not seem fully developed”.

Japanese black tea is said to have mild taste compared to tea from other places like India. They say it resembles Chinese black tea (Is that right? I’ve never had Chinese black tea). It may appeal more to Asians who grew up with green tea.

There is not much production of black tea in Japan – not yet.

In the Japanese Wikipedia, Ureshio is one of the ten major black tea production places in Japan.  Only three in Kyushu – Saga (Ureshino), Kagoshima, and Okinawa.

One time, in the U.S., I went to an Asian ethnic restaurant with a few of my American coworkers for lunch.

They had to pour sugar in the green tea served.

I was shocked, but then I realized that, to them, that’s tea – it’s something they drink with sugar.

They would never be able to drink Ureshino black tea without sugar. But if you put sugar in it, you won’t be able to tell the mild flavor and the subtle sweetness – because it’s so subtle.

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Some of the Ureshino tea makers sell ginger black tea.  That sounds very good. Ginger is good for your health.

I wanted to try ginger black tea.  I checked the Ureshino tea farmers’ websites (many of them grow and manufacture tea and sell it online, too). But most of them will ship only inside Japan (as usual)

I inquired one of them if they are willing to ship to me in the U.S. They replied that they have no idea how to do it because they have never done it – and they didn’t seem to want to bother to try it, either…

Next, I checked the Rakuten (楽天) online shopping mall (above).  There are a lot of Ureshino black tea on sale in there, but again they ship only inside Japan…

Next, I checked Rakuten global online shopping mall.  Thank goodness they now have international pages.  It used to be none of the sellers in the Rakuten mall would ship anywhere outside Japan.  But now some accept orders from abroad!

I found Ureshino black tea (above)!

But oh no, it’s sold out…

But I see other exotic-looking tea, like Minami Satsuma (南薩摩), southern Kyushu.  I may try that instead

The official website of Ureshino Onsen lists the tea farmers/makers who sell black tea, but the page is only in Japanese:   http://www.spa-u.net/shopping.html?cate=4

Finally, I google-searched in English Ureshino black tea, found one tea farmhouse’s name, and then arrived at this online store below:

This is not the tea farmhouse’s webiste; it’s somebody’s online business, operating from Singapore.

Good idea – but will I have to order a minimum of 1,200g for $68 ?!!

That’s a lot.

It makes sense to offset the high international shipping cost, but I would have to drink nothing but the Ureshino tea every day!

To me, Ureshino black tea is a Kyushu local gem.

It sure is not easy to buy local gems in Japan if you live outside Japan.

Related articles

• Farmers switching from green tea to black (japantimes.co.jp)
• Arita Porcelain Tea Cup Baths @Ureshino Hot Spring, Saga (有田焼のお風呂 @嬉野温泉）
• Ureshino Hot Spring –  A Little More    （嬉野温泉 – 続き）

Last spring, I wrote about the Arita porcelain tea cup baths in Ureshino Onsen, Saga prefecture.

I want to add a little about Ureshino Onsen.

Ureshino is in a remote area and kind of low key, but it’s actually a highly rated hot spring.

It’s regarded as one of the best three hot springs in Japan that make your skin the most beautiful. The reason is it is a sodium bicarbonate spring (what is bicarbonate…??).

Then, both women and men who grew up in Ureshino must have beautiful and gorgeous skin.

But I don’t know anybody who is from Ureshino, so I don’t know how true it is.  Every hot spring town boasts that their water makes your skin beautiful.

Ureshino has a free footbath called Siebold’s foobath (シーボルトの足湯: Siebold no Ashi-yu).  That’s very nice.

Footbaths help improve your blood circulation.

And this may be a good place to stop by if you are looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Chances are not very high, but why not…  There actually is a couple who met here and married.

There is also the public bathhouse called Siebold-no-Yu (シーボルトの湯).

Why Siebold in this remote onsen town??  I couldn’t understand it for a long time, but I finally found it out.

Siebold was a German physician in the 19th century (I knew that – many Japanese know it). He was the first European who taught the western medicine in Japan. His daughter, a half-Japanese, was the first female doctor of western medicine in Japan.

Why is the bathhouse named after him?

When they built the bathhouse, the city asked the residents to come up with a name for it. Somebody suggested Siebold. The city liked the idea of naming it in honor of Dr. Siebold, because he was a renowned physician and he came to visit Ureshino while he lived in Japan.

The main street.  Looks kind of run down.

There are so many small hot spring towns like this in Japan.

Ureshino is not conveniently located. You have to ride JR trains to Takeo-Onsen  (武雄温泉) first and then take a bus (JR bus) for half an hour. I don’t think too many people want to go to Ureshino bad enough to do that.

Ureshino was probably a lot more popular a few hundred years ago.  It used to be a popular stop for the travelers on their way to/from Nagasaki.

There is the unique inn with Arita porcelain tea cup baths I wrote about before.

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Ureshino Onsen appears in the records called Hizen Fudoki (肥前風土記) which was written in AD 712.

Wow, that’s just as old as Futsukaichi Onsen (二日市温泉) near Dazaifu (太宰府)!

The name, Ureshino (嬉野),  is believed to have come from the remark made by Empress Jingu (神功皇后) back in the 3rd century .

On her way back from the invasion of Korea, she and her army stopped at Ureshino. The tired and injured soldiers enjoyed soaking in the hot spring, and to everyone’s surprise, the soldiers recovered dramatically. The empress was delighted and said, “Ah, ureshi no (嬉しいのお) (Oh how I am happy)! ”  Ureshi means I am happy.  No is the old style of expressing one’s emotion.  If she were alive now, she would say, “Ureshi na（嬉しいなあ) ! “

BTW, this story sounds pretty dubious.

Nobody is sure if they really invaded Korea in the 3rd century and Empress Jingu even existed.

There are a lot of places in northern Kyushu which are associated with Empress Jingu. One is Umi Hachiman-gu (宇美八幡宮) shrine in Umi-machi (宇美町), Fukuoka prefecture (she gave birth to her son there on her way back from the invasion of Korea).

I like Ureshino. I think I like the water there.  I can’t explain, but I feel somehow I like it.  I want to go there again.

Their official website has English pages: http://kankou.spa-u.net/lang/en/

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Ureshino bus terminal – there are instructions in English, Korean, and Chinese on the walls of the terminal.

There are express buses named Kyushu-go (九州号)  that run JR Hakata train station – Tenjin, Fukuoka – Ureshino – Nagasaki (the website is mostly in Japanese).

They have the timetable of Kyushu-go at the bus terminal – in Japanese.   If you don’t know Japanese, will you be able to guess what it says?

I wonder if somebody will develop an app in English for traveling local areas in Japan like Ureshino.

Related articles

• Arita Porcelain Tea Cup Baths @Ureshino Hot Spring, Saga （有田焼のお風呂 @嬉野温泉） (kyushujapan.com)
• Ancient Poets’ Hot Spring, Futsukaichi 万葉歌人の湯 二日市温泉 (kyushujapan.com)

The ridiculously expensive Korean Airlines are, for some reasons, not expensive for November.  Does anybody know why?

KAL used to be the cheapest airlines a long time ago, but they are now the most expensive, just like JAL.

Usually I fly via Narita as that’s the cheapest route.  And most Japanese who go back to Japan fly to Narita.

(source: Google Map)

I really need to get drawing software and improve my drawing skill…

But I bought the tickets for Detroit-Chicago-Incheon (Seoul)-Fukuoka this time. That was the best price for the first time ever.

Here I am – at Incheon Airport, Seoul, Korea, after almost 13 hours of flight from Chicago.

I am now only a little over one hour flight to Fukuoka.

I overhear Japanese tourists – many of them are middle-aged women like me – waiting for their flights back to Kyushu, speaking Kyushu dialects, which makes me feel very at home.

The airport is very shiny, clean, new, and beautiful.

(I have to reassure my friends of this who are still afraid to fly to Korea…)

Most of the restaurants serve Korean food (of course).  I am in heaven, as I love Korean food.  Food in an airport may not be the greatest, but still I enjoy my dining experince at Incheon.  I buy two boxes of ginseng tea – one for me, one for my father. My father was delighted with this present

Then I notice a Korean royal procession.

The queen and the king

The guardsmen

The court ladies and another royal couple

Hey!  They are just like the royals and courtiers in the Korean historical drama, the Jewel in the Palace (大長今 (대장금): Dae Jang Geum)!

This is very entertaining for transit travelers.

Narita airport does not have anything like this.

Some people may think it’s corny.

But I liked it.

These are my DVD of Dae Jang Geum.

If you did not know about this drama, this was a mega hit in Korea, Japan, and other Asian countries several years ago.

There has been a big influx of South Korean pop culture to Japan for the past ten years or so. If you don’t understand the significance of it, in the preceding decades there was virtually no traffic between the two countries on the general public level due to the bad history in the first half the 20th century (I think I can say that).

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I like this route – fling to Fukuoka via Seoul.

Only one (minor) annoyance was that I was yelled at by the airport staff to get out of the way of the royal procession.  They seem to think if you have an Asian face, you are automatically a Korean.  I did not react as I could not understand what they were saying, so they gave me a dirty look – oh, lighten up, no big deal.

By the way, that’s their jobs to parade in court costumes all over in the airport.  Imagine doing that every day…

Incheon airport also has a store where you can try on Korean traditional clothes and wigs, and try Korean cultural stuff.   If you can afford it, that will be a good way of killing time for transit travelers.

Seoul is closer to Fukuoka than Tokyo. It is only a little more than one-hour flight to Fukuoka.  You may think, “so what?”   But it is kind of eye-opening for me that the neighboring country is closer to my hometown than the capital of my home country.

When I was growing up in Fukuoka, nobody went to Korea for sightseeing and shopping, and vice versa.

Now I see Fukuoka is flooded with Korean tourists.  And Korea is flooded with Japanese tourists.

It’s very significant considering the recent history.

Personally I like the change.

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It was fun to fly KAL, too.

The food was good – my favorite Korean food, Bi Bim Bop!

They gave me a pair of slippers (!) and a toothbrush set – wow.

And free wine.  Free refill.  They served Beaujolais Nouveau free of charge even to the economy class passengers.  I was in heaven!

Not crowded at all – are they making profits?   It was a nice break for me, though, who is tired of being packed like sardines in the domestic flights in the U.S.  It reminded me of what JAL used to be – they used to have lots of empty seats (and then they went bankrupt).

And very young and pretty female flight attendants.  I heard they have to retire when they reach certain ages, probably in their late 30s or early 40s – this is very Asian.   They don’t seem to have laws against age discrimination.  Flight attendants are such prestigious jobs for young women that they can marry any desirable men. That’s what I heard from my Korean acquaintance.  Is it still true now?     (I don’t know if I like this aspect.)

But, anyway, it was a fun travel for me

I am waiting for another opportunity to fly back to Fukuoka via Seoul.

There are many renowned hot springs in Kyushu.  Ureshino hot spring (嬉野温泉 Ureshino Onsen), in Saga prefecture, is one of them.

It’s said to be one of the top three hot springs in Japan that make your skin beautiful.

Now, Ureshino is getting a little more famous for one of the inn’s radical and artistic porcelain bathtubs.

The name of the inn is Seiunso (静雲荘(sei-un-so): meaning Quiet Clouds Inn).

They have a bathhouse with five rooms.  Each room has either two porcelain bathtubs or the combination of a porcelain bathtub and a wooden bathtub. I rented a room with two porcelain bathtubs (photo above) for one hour for 2,600 yen.

This bathhouse is named by the inn owners “Shiawase no Yu (幸せの湯: Bathhouse of Happiness)

The porcelain bathtubs are Arita-yaki (有田焼:  Arita porcelain).   The inn owners had them made by a kiln in Arita city, which is not far from Ureshino.  Porcelain made by kilns in Arita city is called Arita-yaki.

Arita porcelain (有田焼) and Imari porcelain (伊万里焼) are basically the same things.  So, you can think that these bathtubs are actually Imari porcelain.  It ‘s very confusing – even many Japanese don’t know what Arita is and what Imari is (I did not know myself until just recently.  I wrote about Imari porcelain in Imari Kiln Village, Where Imari Porcelain Came From, but I will write more about Imari sometime soon later).

The entrance of the Bathhouse of Happiness.  The porcelain bathtub statue is an eye-catcher. The wooden panels below the tub says “First in Kyushu” and “Arita porcelain, open-air baths for families, Happy Baths”.  Sei-un-so has two buildings: one is the regular inn and the other is this bathhouse.

Photos of the five rooms: the name of the two rooms with two porcelain bathtubs in each are Peony and Wisteria;  the names of the three rooms with a porcelain bathtub and a conventional-style rectangle wooden bathtub are Tea Flowers, Camellia, and Cherry Blossom.

The explanation on the board goes:

Our popular porcelain bathtubs have been featured in many TV shows.  2,600 yen for 2 adults, 3,200 yen for 3 adults, 300 yen for child (age 3 – 12).  Rent for one hour. For 30 minutes increment, 800 yen (2 adults), 1,100 yen (3 adults), 150 yen (child).  Towels and bath towels included.

If you want to rent one of the rooms just for yourself, you will have to pay for two people (2,600 yen).  That’s what I did – I was traveling alone.  A little pricy, but I really wanted to try it, so I paid 2,600 yen.  And I do not regret I did it !

I chose the Peony room.

Actually only one of the two bathtubs was peony-designed.  The other tub was bamboo tree-designed.  They were both beautiful.

They drain water completely every time after use by customers (I hope they scrub the inside of the tubs).  My bathtubs were very clean.  As soon as the owner took me to the room, she started filling the two bathtubss with water from the faucets.  The water coming from the faucets is, of course, hot spring water.

You can try a tea bath, a Japanese sake bath, and/or a soy milk bath.

If you want to try any of them, you tell the owner when you arrive at the front desk.  They sell tea bags, sake, and soy milk for use at the front desk.

I purchased a tea bag.  I wanted to try a tea bath, because Ureshino is famous for good tea as well.  I am assuming the tea bags sold there contain 100% Ureshino tea leaves (I forgot to verify that with the owner).

You can enjoy tea baths and sake baths in other hot springs, but the owner told me that this inn is the only place in Japan that offers soy milk baths (Really?  No other places in the whole country?  Is it so difficult to offer soy milk baths? )

I drop the tea bag in one of them.  The color of the water starts changing.

The owner said it would turn very yellow after a while.

Toward the end of the one hour, it became very yellow.  It looks like tea in a tea cup.   I was taking a bath in tea in a gigantic tea cup!

I sat in the big tea cup for a long time.

I did not add tea, sake, or soy milk in the other one.  I alternated the two baths.  I felt really really good in the tea bath…Was that my imagination?  Did some component(s) in the tea leaves make me feel particularly good?   Something must be doing something good, otherwise tea/sake/soy milk baths would not be popular.

Water of Ureshino hot spring is known to feel very pleasant to your skin.  They say once you experience the feel of the Ureshino hot spring water, you will not be able to leave Uresnio (i.e. you will be addicted to the water there).  It’s a little exaggeration, but I think there is some truth in it (I am feeling I will become a repeater).

I took a closer look at the tub.  It’s very well made — it’s painted beautifully. I am not an expert of porcelain or anything, but I think I will be able to tell if it’s poor quality.

Enjoy the mini Japanese garden, sitting in the tea cup bath.

The room has a small private dressing area.

Between the porcelain bathtub and the entrance door, there is a shower.

This is an open-air bathhouse.  It makes me wonder if it’s a bit too cold to take a shower here in winter (just to sit in the bathtubs would be OK).

One hour is up (one hour is enough).  I leave the room.  In the hallway I see this sign saying “Our porcelain bathtubs are specially made to order.  They cost one million yen each”.

One million yen x 7 bathtubs = 7 million yen in total.  They made a pretty big investment.  I am impressed by their boldness.  They are the only hot spring inn in the entire Kyushu that has done it.  You might think it’s such an easy idea that a few other inns would do the same thing?  Maybe other inns had the same idea but never executed it for various reasons.  Often, coming up with an idea is one thing, and executing it is another thing.

This is pretty creative.  Who said Japanese are not creative?   Yes, they may not be good at creating totally new things.  But this is definitely creative – porcelain tea cup baths.

The hallway.  The rooms with the porcelain bathtubs are on the left side.

Of course you can stay here overnight (the building next to this bathhouse is the regular inn).  They offer an overnight package with free one-hour trip to the Bathhouse of Happiness.  They also offer a daytime package called Kyukei Plan (休憩プラン：meaning take-a-rest plan) that gives you a free one-hour trip to the Bathhouse of Happiness and a subsequent two-hour meal in a private room.

The lobby and the front desk of the bathhouse.

After the bath, I was cooling off in the lobby.  Then I noticed on the wall a lot of autographs by TV reporters.

NHK, FBS, KBC, RKB….NHK is the national TV station.  FBS, KBC, and RKB are local Kyushu TV stations.  NHK must have sent its Kyushu regional team (they have regional teams all over Japan).  The owner said they have been very busy with visits of TV reporters.

In fact, both the day before and the day after my visit there, they closed the bathhouse because more TV reporters came.  I was lucky!  I was on a tight itinerary and that day I visited Ureshino was the only day I could do it.

They are pretty crowded on weekends. Even if you want to or can go there during a week, I recommend you call them at least a few days in advance to make sure that they won’t be closed on the day for interviews by mass media people.

By the way, I had one complaint.

I felt the porcelain bathtubs were a little small.  The diameter of the tubs is 88 cm, so they are pretty big.  I am 168 cm (5’6″), big for a Japanese woman, and I am not fat.  I could not stretch my arms and legs in them.  If you a big man, you may feel even tighter.

I mentioned that to the owner.  I felt she did not really want to hear that (of course, if you had invested 7 million yen)   She said, ” Other people told us the same thing.  So, to prove that the bathtubs are big enough for everybody, we have a photo in our website of a sumo wrestler nicely fitting in one of them.  Please check it out”.

http://seiunso.spa-ureshino.com/siawase_yu.htm   (all in Japanese)

Yes, I see it.

That’s not what I am talking about.  I am saying if you like to stretch your arms and legs in a bath, you will feel frustrated.

As I was talking to the owner, I realized that for a big man, a room with a porcelain bathtub and a conventional-style wooden bathtub would be good.  Enjoy a tea, sake, or soy milk bath in the porcelain bathtub, and then switch to the wooden bathtub to stretch your arms and legs in it. Alternate it to your satisfaction. Or if you are with your wife/girlfriend and she is small, let her enjoy the porcelain bath and you will stay in the wooden bathtub.  If both you and she are both big, then I don’t know….

Distant view of Sei-Un-So.  The one-story house in the front is the bathhouse. It’s like an annex to the main building which is a regular inn.  (I think the exterior walls of the main building needs some work…)

Big signs of Bathhouse of Happiness in the inn’s parking lot.

Ureshino Onsen seems to be somewhat struggling.  They seem trying very hard to boost business.  I see a lot of promotion of Ureshino, with trilingual signs and brochures (English, Korean, and Chinese), like many other places in Kyushu. The owners of this inn are also trying hard by bold investment in the porcelain bathtubs. Wish them the best.

I am a fan of Imari porcelain. I squeezed my visit to Ureshino in my tight itinerary, because I had to try sitting in porcelain tea cup bathtubs once in my life.  And I am very glad I did it (some people may think I am silly)

If you are a fan of Imari and Arita porcelain ware, why don’t you try it, too?

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Ureshino is about two hours from Fukuoka by bus or by train and bus.

1) There are express buses, Kyushu-go (高速バス  九州号), from JR Hakata station to Nagasaki.  They stop at Ureshino Onsen Bus Center (嬉野温泉バスセンター).  You won’t have to change buses, which is nice.

Website of Express Bus Kyushu-go:

http://www.nishitetsu.ne.jp/kyushugo/time.html  (in Japanese only)

2) If you’d rather take trains, take JR trains to Takeo Onsen (武雄温泉) first. About 1 hour from Hakata to Takeo Onsen.  Then, take a JR Kyushu Bus (JR九州バス) from the south exit of JR Takeo Onsen station to Ureshino Onsen Bus Center.  It takes 30 minutes.

Website of JR Kyushu Bus:

http://www.kyushu-bus.net/2_hsg/kitou/ureshino1.htm  (in Japanese only)

The official website of Ureshino Onsen has good directions, but in Japanese only…

http://www.spa-u.net/access.html

Ummm…. They are adding English, Korean, and Chinese to more and more signs, brochures, and websites, but they still have a long way to go.

So, when I visited Dazaifu shrine with my father, we visited Komyo-zenji temple as well in the same trip.  The temple is only about 100 meters away from the entrance to Dazaifu shrine. It’s so close to the shrine that it seems as if they were under the same ownership and management.  Are they?  Brochures and books say Kyomyo-zenji temple is associated with Dazaifu shrine.  OK.  I see…What does it mean by “associated”?   How can a Buddhist temple be associated with a Shinto shrine?  Aren’t Shinto and Buddhism two different religions?

What’s pathetic is that I dont’ know even though I was born and raised (by Japanese parents) in Japan.

Dazaifu shrine

This is the main shrine. People throw money (mostly coins) into the box which is behind the red wooden fence, clap their hands, and pray.

Inside the main shrine. Very open to public.  Shrines do not have any statues to pray to.

Torii – the small thing in the center of the photo above – this is another characteristic of a shrine – torii are gates commonly found at the entrance of Shinto shrines in Japan. 

The road in the photo above will take you to the entrance of Dazaifu shrine.  When you go under the torii, you are entering the sacred world.  Torii (literally means bird perch) is supposed to separate the sacred world from the secular world.  Therefore, in the photo above, beyond the torii is sacred. This side of torii is secular.

Temples do not have torii.

Komyo-zenji Temple, which we visited right after the visit to Dazaifu shrine

Another temple near Dazaifu shrine – Kanzeonji

Temples generally have at least one Buddha statue inside.  People go inside, kneel down and pray to the Buddha statue.

So, my father and I prayed to God at Dazaifu shrine and then right after that, we prayed at Komyo-zenji temple.

This is a super famous gigantic one in Nara (ancient capital of Japan).  The statues in most temples are not spectacular like this one.

So, an easy way to distinguish Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples is – Shinto shrines have torii but no statues; Buddhist temples have no torii but have Buddha statues.

It’s not only Dazaifu that a shrine and a temple are built very close to each other. You can see it in many places all over Japan.

It is strange, but most people, including me and my father, are so used to the idea that nobody even thinks about it.  It seems so natural and we take it for granted.  When we go visit a shrine and spot a temple nearby, we think, “Oh yes, there is a temple over there. Let’s visit the temple, too.  If we pray both at the shrine and at the temple, we may be blessed with doubled fortune…”

Shinto is Japan’s indigenous faith.  Buddhism, originated in India, was introduced to Japan in the 6th century via China and Korea. Buddhism did not replace Shinto. Both Shinto and Buddhism were accepted for centuries. It seems strange that two religions are accepted.  But then, is Shinto a religion?  Shinto does not have anything equivalent to Bible (Buddhism does).  I don’t even know if we can call Shinto a religion.  OK, this is getting a too heavy and too scholarly topic.  At least I am glad I read somewhere that Japan was not the only place where Buddhism and the indigenous faith were both accepted – Japan is not as strange as some people criticize (^o^).

I think at least we can say that Shinto is very deep ingrained in the Japanese daily life.  It is said Shinto is similar to Greek mythology. I agree.  Shinto believes there are many gods in sacred nature, just like Greek mythology with all kinds of gods like Appollo.

Buddhism is also deep into Japanese life. There was nothing like Sunday schools churches offer, as far as I know, when we grew up.  Nobody really taught us what Buddhism teaching is. We were not taken to temples except for certain holidays and for funerals. But - its teaching is everywhere, in what my parents taught me and said to me, in what school teachers taught me, in what I read, in what I heard, in what I saw, etc.

For example, when I was a kid, I was always told not to waste food – my mother used to say to me, “Eat up every grain of rice in your bowl, because there is Buddha in every grain of rice.  If you waste any one of them, you will be disrespecting Buddha (and the farmers who grew the rice and the Mother Nature)”.  I know other kids were being told the same thing by their parents.

If you Google search this topic, a lot of Q&As and sometimes heated discussion will come up (mostly in Japanese by Japanese people). Many people are realizing in their daily life and wondering just like me, “why are we like this?  Why are we doing it?”