Let's go shopping...

The Wajima market has the faint smell of fish and hope that by the end of the day your booth will be able to post a SOLD OUT sign.  Unfortunately for its merchants, they were not selling erasers or peach Fanta.  If that were the case, our students would have sold them out quickly.  No dice though.  Fish mixed with trinkets mixed with money being exchanged. 

We were all broken into our groups to peruse around the market so I accompanied Team Urchin on our adventures.  We fluttered from booth to booth like unsure hummingbirds, constantly feeling the burn of the yen in our pockets.  Items were purchased and we looked around for the other groups along the street.  Some of us met up and bought some ice cream in a little shop and then we all waited for the entire group so that we could finally paint some lacquer ware. 

We met a little Japanese dog at the market.

The lacquer ware shop was a quiet little shop off the main street of the market.  We were all seated around tables and then were given a quick run-down on what to do with our brushes and powdered colors.  While watching this man, who has no doubt been doing this for much of his life, flawlessly paint a leaf, a wave of “Oooooo” rolled through the group quickly followed by “there’s no way I’ll be able to do that.”  Well too bad, sit down practice a little bit, and then go right to your own masterpiece.  So that’s what we all did.  There are three steps to painting lacquer ware.  Paint glue onto the area you wish to be colored, drop a bit of powder of whatever color you like around the glue and then carefully brush the powder over the glue.  Simple right?  More or less. 

We ate lunch near the beach and the only eventful part of lunch that I witnessed was Brent eating at least two eyes off of the shrimp on the plates.  Oh and Alek almost projectile vomiting after eating who knows what.  And the thickness of the bread that Jackie ordered.  Texas toast has nothing on Japan toast.

Then we went to Big Sur.  Well not really, but it sure looked like it.  The rocky coast helped with the homesickness if there was any to cure.  Meer and Victoria stood a little too close to a crashing wave and got a bit wet.  No harm done though.  Pictures were taken here by the truckload and vending machines were cleared of their drinks and ice cream.

We got back a little early, so we all were able to go shopping at the mall in downtown Nanao.  Finally we walked to city hall after a long day of play.