Latest / bit of a Rambler / 120 Ramble On

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120 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And this week we got more burgers. Yeah. I went
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: back to that burger place a couple more times. Yeah,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: A couple of cool things happened since we last talked.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: So I was I told you the first last last week.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I was extremely excited about that white burger. All of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the elements played together perfectly, sauteed mushrooms, the four cheese
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. And so I got
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: their other flagship burger of Umiero, the Akai, the Red Burger.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And every time I've gone to this place, when I'm
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: walking there down the street, I'm like, which one do
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I get? Which bird? Did this one or this one?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: This one? And I landed on the two flagship ones,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: because you know, they looked great and amazing and all
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, And I got it and everything
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: was beautiful and perfect again, wooden tray and the black tile,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: beautiful plate and the red burger and it was good.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: It's a tomato sauce with basil in it and cheese
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: on the perfect patty again and they have a little
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: metal skewer in the middle which I like take out
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and placed down very neatly ceramic tile, and I was
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: just as happy the second time as I was the first.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I think I liked the white burger better just because
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the saute mushrooms were so friggin good and the cheese
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: was so unique. But this red burger was no slouch
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: at all. And I what was the red burger? There's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a bed of like salad of fresh chopped basil, and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: let us under the burger patty two and the red
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: tomato sauce is so good on a burger. The patty
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: was perfect again, The bread was perfect again, the fries
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: were perfect again. It was all great, and the fries
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: tasted good. They give you a ton of sauce on
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: these flagship burgers, and so you can dip the French
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: fries in the excess sauce from the burger. Great, great time.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: And I got in a sahi this time because I
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: thought with the tomato, the dryness of the asahi would
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: be better than the fruity Seyson. But I think the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Seyson probably still would have been Oh no, no, wait, I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: did get the sayson because I thought that exact thing.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I was like, no, no, if you're gonna have the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: fruity tomato flavor, then the fruity Seyson will go well
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: with that because it's a different fruityness and there's still
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the bitterness of the beer obviously. So I did get
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the season again and it was great, and I just
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: gazed dreamily out of the window at the ocean after
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: my meal, and I was so happy. Yeah, I walked around,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: looked at some cherry blossoms some more, and I actually
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: walked around for a couple hours, and then walked back
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to the Burger store and got the chicken nuggets, which
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I was suppressed to see on the menu, and French
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: fries and in asahi. That's when I got the asahi.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And I was thinking, like, well, you walked around for
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a couple hours, It's okay, this will be a good snack.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: But by the end of it, I was so full,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and the chicken nuggets were just chicken nuggets. They did
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: taste like real chicken. They didn't taste like paste, crappy,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: gross chicken nuggets, but it was I didn't need that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: extra snack, although they tasted great, and the beer and
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: looking at the ocean war was really fun. So I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: have been there four times now because so after white
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Burger and then the Red Burger, which is also delicious,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and then I went back for snack time after strolling
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: through the cherry blossoms, I wanted to try. There's one
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: more burger I really wanted to try, called the Demi Tama.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Which is it? Google translates it as a demi glaze
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: sauce burger. I'm not sure if that's what it was,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: but it tasted amazing. So there is a burger patty,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: some kind of white sauce, lettuce, tomato, two onion rings
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: on top in maybe that's the demi glaze. I think
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: there was another sauce on top right under the onion rings,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: but I ate it so quickly I can't even remember.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Oh unto fried egg and a fried egg of course,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and so I got a season with it, of course,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and potato fries. And when they brought it out, though,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: my mind had to do a reset. It was like,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: oh no, what's this? Because I didn't get the big black,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: fancy plate clay tablet plate that I like so much,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: signed as like umi Iro with the little logo in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the corner. This was just a regular white and red
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: ceramic plate. And I was like, And then two other
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: people came in and got burgers and they got the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: black ceramic tile plates, and I was like, hey, what's
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: going on here? I want that plate And I didn't
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: figure it out, but I will tell you why later
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: because I didn't figure out, but somebody told me later on.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: After the restaurant, the Demitama burger itself was still great
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and looked it looked even better than the picture because
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the picture only has one onion ring and this one
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: had two. It was towering and luckily I'm still bringing
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: my tebukuro my gloves with me everywhere. So I smashed
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: down the burger and then devoured it. It was very good.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: That was a tasty burger. I like that. They're all
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: so different too, the white, the red, and the demi
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: tama tastes nothing like each other, but they're all great
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: in their own way. There's an avocado chicken burger. I
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: don't like chicken burgers very much, but I bet there's
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: this real good. But I don't have a lot of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: time left, So the next time I go, I think
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try the weekday special they have, because it
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: looked different than the other burgers, but I don't know,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and it comes with a salad. I don't know. We'll
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: have to see. I'm so excited. So despite my crappy plate,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: my boring plate, I'll say it was a nice plate,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: but it was just not as nice as these beautiful
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: black clay tablet plates that I had twice and then
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the other guys had. That was the only black mark
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: on the meal. The meal itself was excellent, and I
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: finished my sayson lazily and happily and dreamily gazed out
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: at the ocean again, and it was just a great time.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: It was really. I love going to this burger restaurant.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I like how clean everything is. I like how comfortable
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it is. I like that they give you the hand
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: towels before you eat, and I like that. Yeah, each
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: burger's unique, but still tastes absolutely amazing. It tastes so good. Okay.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So then it was raining all day that day, and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I like the rain. I like walking around in the rain.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So I gathered up my umbrella and made my way
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: out after paying. Oh, in case you're in Japan and
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you don't know this, which I totally forgot, even though
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I've been here so many times. They give you the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: receipt for what you bought with the meal or like
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: in the middle of your meal, and then when you're finished,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you take the receipt to the front counter and either
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: there's a scanner so you can scan the receipt yourself,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: or you hand it to the person behind, and then
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: they scan the receipt so they don't have you like digitally,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: they know where you are and they can access your
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: information if you don't if you lose the receipt somehow
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: between your seat and the front desk. But generally you
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: bring your receipt up and scan yourself or they scan
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it for you, and then that's the amount that you pay.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I got a BLT to go because I thought BLT
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: meant bacon, lettuce, tomato, but it actually meant burger lettuce
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: tomato on white bread, like not good white bread. It
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: was better. It was fine if I liked white bread
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: at all, but especially around a burger patty. It was
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: bizarre and it didn't taste good and I didn't even
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: finish eating it after a couple bites. As soon as
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I got the belt to go, because I thought it
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: was a little bacon sandwich and would be easy to eat,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: but it was this big, chunky burger sandwich and I
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: took a bite and I was like, eh, I'm not
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: gonna be into this too much, and I threw it
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in my bag and I strolled on down the street
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in the rain, just looking at the ocean and having
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a great time. And I was walking and I saw
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: this sign that of course I didn't understand because it's
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: all in Japanese. But then right when I was passing
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: by at the end of the driveway, there was a
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: small little plaque that said kawaa gallery. You feel free
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to just look around in English. And I was like,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: feel free to just look around. And I looked in
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: and you could see there were big windows on the building,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and I could see and sign there were stuff there.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Looked like there were ceramic stuff in there, and it
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: says gallery in English. So I walked over and I
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: saw a woman glance out the window at me, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I shook off my umbrella and went in, and she
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: got up to say hello, and she was at seat
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: at this big table where she made everything. And this
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: turned into a pretty amazing experience. She wanted to practice English,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and hers wasn't great. But after we tried speaking in Japanese,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it was clear that my Japanese was way worse. So
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: we just talked mostly in English after that, and she
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: loved practicing English, and so she was really interested in
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: showing me around the gallery all of her things, and
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: there was way more to see than I saw, because
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: it's a tile museum, is how it's listed on like
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Google and stuff. But it's not just tiles, it's statues
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and figurines and all of these different stuff stuff that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: she makes sake cups. So she started just pointing out things,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and we translated on Google Translate when she didn't know
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the English and I didn't know the Japanese. But mostly
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: we talked and we just traded a few life stories,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and then she showed me things, and I forgot the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: names of so many things, but I remembered a few
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of them. There was haniwa, which is something you put
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on top of a grave, and dogu, which is similar
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and older version of the honeywah, and then o Jizo Ojiezo,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and he's like this old grandpa guardian spirit and she
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: makes little one to two centimeter figurines of these different
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: little burial accompaniments or spirit guardians out of clay and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: firing them at different temperatures and lengths of time makes
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: them red or black. It's the same type of clay,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: but it was very impressive and it's all handmade. She
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: made everything in there, and she gave me the packet
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: to read, and it's like a twelve hundred year old
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: tile tradition. This same lady comes from a line of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: like twelve hundred years of making tiles, apparently according to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the pamphlet she gave me, or honestly, it might have
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: been seven hundred years. I have the pamphlet in another room,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: but it was a very long time. It was hundreds
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: of years. And she's still sitting at this big table
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: with clay, sculpting and rolling and making a bunch of things.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And then each one looks different because she's handmaking all
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of them. So if it's an oni gawa, a demon
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: guardian face to keep bad spirits away, the face looks similar,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: but the teeth are The lines are thicker or thinner
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: on certain ones, or longer or shorter. Sometimes the facial
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: expression has changed. Sometimes the eyes are pointing in different directions.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: One has a mustache, one's lips might be larger or
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: its mouth is bigger because everything is handmade, and it's
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: not It's not like there's one way that the haneywah
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: or the tanuki or oh she didn't have tanuki, actually
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the honeywow or the ojizo or anything has to look.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: She's just representing these things, and they were so cool.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: They were all so cool. I will there's definitely gonna
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: be some pictures in the Lemmi community. I don't think
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I've put any up yet of these clay figures yet,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: but I really should because they look very cool. And
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I love that it's all handmade and it's a family tradition.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And she was so excited about showing all these things.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: We had a really fun time talking with each other
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and looking at all the different creations, and we were
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: both learning because she was learning a bunch of English
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: words and I was learning a bunch of Japanese words
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and folklore and tradition. It was a it turned into
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a full guided tour of the gallery. I was just
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: gonna walk in, pop my head and see what looked,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you know, looked like whatever, it was, just see what
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: was going on. But as so often happens as a traveler,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I just had a feeling. When I saw that little
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: sign saying feel free to look around, I was like,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I bet I'm going to get I bet this is
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: going to be one of those cool mini adventures that
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: you can get from just walking around. And that's exactly
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: what this turned into. So after the honeywa wash, she
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: showed me those the cats I always forget the name of.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And I didn't know this, but if the right arm
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: is up, you know the cats with the golden coin
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that chops place in there on their counter and it
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: means like give me money, good luck money cat. There's
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: actually two versions of that cat. If the right hand
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: on that cat is up, it means give me money,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and if the left hand of the cat is up,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: it means give me happiness. So it's just like be
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: happy rather than money. I didn't know there were two
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: versions of it. But yeah, after she said that, I
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: saw some of the cats were right hand, some of
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the cats were left handed, and whether you're looking for
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: money or looking for happiness, which is really interesting, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: she explained so much to me. There was so much
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to look at, and I saw a few that didn't
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: look great and I was like, oh, what are those ones?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: She said oh, those are kids, Like kids make these,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: so I guess she has like workshops with the kids
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: who come in to make clay. And there was like
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: a jet fighter and honeywa a bunch of stuff. And
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: then I noticed three of them that looked pretty good.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that one's pretty nice. She's like, no, no,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: those are my All the crappy ones are the children's.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And I kept looking around, and now I wanted to
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: see everything in the shop because the I liked Dogu
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a lot. Dogu is like one of the oldest depictions.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: She said, It's very ancient guardian forest spirit kind of thing.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And yeah, and they were so tiny. They were all
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: like so many of them were two three centimeters maybe,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: so there were so many pieces to look at, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I just kept following along the wall, and I thought
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: she would keep working and I would look around by myself.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: But she, I think because she wanted to practice her
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: English so much. She was really interested in explaining everything
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to me. Also, just when you're a traveler, people love
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: explaining their cultures to you, so and it was nice
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: talking to her. And I told her about the waterfall
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I've been to nearby here that had such clear moldable clay,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: fine grained clay, and she was really interested because she
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: lives near a town, Kikuma, and the waterfall is like
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: behind that town, but she's never been to that waterfall,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: so she didn't know about all this clay. So I
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: kind of want to go back there before I leave
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and try and get some of the clay and bring
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: it to her, because she was really interested. She orders
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: her clay from a special island where the best clay is.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: But this clay that I found at this waterfall one
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: day several weeks ago is really dense, extremely fine grained,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: very easy to manipulate and move around, and I wonder
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: if she'd be interested in it. Next was a shelf
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and I was looking at it and I was like,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: these look familiar. And then I saw Toto and I
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: was like, Totro. I know Totoro. He's the best. And
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: she was like, ah, yes, I love Totoro and she yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It was just like a little three centime eat high
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Potro holding a flower. And uh, there's a name for
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the flower that you put into these things because they
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: go together so well. So Toto is holding like an
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Origami flower and there's some special name in that I
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: can't remember Hanashima something I don't know. But then I
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: looked over to the right and there's these two bird
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: creature bipedal bird creature things, and I was like, wait,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: why is that familiar? And she's like, do you know
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Kumetsu no Yaiba? Kimetsu no Yaiba is this anime demon
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: slayer in English? And I do because my friend's daughter
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: was really interested in it and dressed up as one
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of the characters for Halloween. So I and I so
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I later saw in a movie theater, like some cinema
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: debut of Infinity Train for Kimetsu no Yaiba, And as
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: soon as she said that Kimetsa no Yaiba, I was like, oh,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: those are the two main characters. That's the sister and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the brother. What are their names? Ned Zuko is the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: sister and the brother is Tajitanjiro Tanjiro, I think. But
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: instead of the characters exactly, they were represented as these
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: interesting things called ada hang on. I wrote it down.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a bia, So there were amabie? Really Amabie? Yeah,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I just looked it up. I'm a bie is this
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: birdlike penguines sort of health guardian. He promotes good health,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, thank you, thank you, good health.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I'm a ba and I bowed to them, and they
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: were really cool because they looked like this big they
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: look they looked like stocky bird guardians, forest spirits, but
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: they Tanjiro's one had his wild hair that he has,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and then ned Zuko's had that thing she bites because
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: she's a demon in the show, so she has she's
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: like a bit in her mouth a lot of the time.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And so she had made the ama Bia these health deities,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but in the esthetic style of the two main characters
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of this anime. She likes Kimetsunoyaiba, which I thought was awesome,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: And they're so detailed because she's doing all the work
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: with a little wooden thing. Maybe that's what I want
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to do. Maybe I want to make little clay stuffs.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: That would be fun. Dang I should have thought of that.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I've had this freakin' house I could have fired Oh
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: my gosh. Maybe nah, I probably don't have time to.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I only have a couple of days left here. But anyway,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the fact she did, now now it's in my mind.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So if I find another clay, which I found one
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: every thirty years, if I find another clay riverbank and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I have a house that's as well a portioned, well
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: appointed as this one, I'll try my hand at firing
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: some stuff. Oh no, you need a kill. You need
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: super high high heat, right, I don't know my oven
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: would get that hot anyway. So she's explaining the Kimittsunoyaiba
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and that was really cool, and I said a little prayer,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: said thanks. That was the prayer thanks, and bowing to
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the demon slayer. I'm a bie, so cool. Like I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: just kept getting more and more interested in everything. And
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: there were a few other anime characters. Oh, she really
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: likes Hyamiyazaki, and so I was like, I love Monno Kihime,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: and she loves now Shika of the Valley of the Wind.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And there's this big there's this realbot that looks familiar,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't place him exactly, and she recreated his
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: head with the hole in it. It was really and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: they were so cool. It's so cool and interesting how
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: she's able to make all these pieces and how much
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: she clearly cares about making these accurate representations with her
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: little styles and details mixed in. So there was a
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: bunch of anime characters on this shelf, and that's where
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: they were all organized. And then we moved on and
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: she asked where I was an earlier, like how I
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: found the gallery, and I told her I was just
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: walking around. I just went to this really good burger
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: restaurant that I like, Umiro, and she was like, oh, Umiro,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it's very good. I make their plates. And I looked
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: over where she was pointing, and there was the super
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: classy black tile plate, not glaze, just fired that I
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: had eaten my white burger and the red burger off of.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And I liked that plate so much. I thought it
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: was so classy. And I was meeting the person who
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: made those plates. I met her and she told me
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: about it. And this is the part that I said
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I would get to, she explained. She asked me what
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I had eaten there, and I said, well, the white burger,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the red burger, and the Demi Tama. But today with
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the Demi Tama, I didn't have your plate, and I
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: really like your tile plate. And she said, ah, the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: tile plate is only for the best dishes in the restaurant,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: so only the white burger and the red burger are
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: allowed to be served on the black tile plate. All
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: other burgers at that place, and there's like eight other
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: burgers have to go on just a regular ceramic plate.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And in my head, I was like, well, that sucks,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: give me the good one. But I understand because that
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: is a thing. When she said that, I remembered in
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: other Japanese restaurants, they do a similar thing. Depending on
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: what you are ordering, it's presented in a different style,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and usually the best items on the menu, or the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: most expensive items, the premium items, I should say, are
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: presented a little bit differently, and so is the case
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: with Umihiro. So that's why my third plate was crappy
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to me compared to these plates anyway, because it wasn't
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the fanciest burger. The Demi Tama's just one of the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: regular ones. I was really interested to find that out,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and it was wild just to be I said, thank
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you for making them. They're amazing. They look they're perfect.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I love their wave because it's not a flat tile,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it's a wave. There's a wave in it, so one
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: side of the tile goes up and the other side
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: kind of slopes down. But it's not symmetrical either. It's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a beautiful wave proportionally and it's not too high, so
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the burgers on it perfectly. It works very well as
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a plate. It's just such a great tile plate. There
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: are pictures of it on the Lemmy community if you're curious.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: In the travel community. I yeah, I really really liked
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that plate. That was probably my favorite part of the presentation,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: even though everything was very nice in that restaurant, and
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: she was excited to tell me all about this and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: how she made the plates and why, what their purpose was,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and it was meeting the creator. It was very cool.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: So after the plate, I looked at her other cool
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: tile plates. She had a few other styles, but definitely
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the one for that that's the one that caught my
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: eye the most. It's beautiful and if I was living there,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I would certainly buy those plates for my house and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: probably break them. They're super heavy too. It's funny, Okay.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: After that, after the tiles, we moved over to the
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: next shelves and there were a few different things. The
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: ones that caught my eye were these Oni Gawa, the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: demon guardian I talked about earlier. Their faces, but they're
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: looking up and then she moved it and it's actually
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: a sake cup. So it's just it's really interesting because
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the faces on the bottom of the cup, and it
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: looks like it has all these ridges and is it
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: is three dimensional, like its nose comes out and everything.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: But then the three the three legs of the cup
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: itself are a fraction of a centimeter longer than the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: length of the ony Gower the demon's nose goes out.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So even though the demon's face is on the bottom
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of the cup, when you turn it around, it's completely
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: balanced because it has three equal legs that are literally
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: a fraction of a centimeter, like maybe a tenth of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a centimeter longer than the nose, So it's not rolling
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: around on the Onygauerus face. It's right off. It's very
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: very cool to see, and I would definitely get some
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of those if I come back here to live again.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: At any point, I'll have to look around for a
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: local maker and get one of their sake cups and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: drink some sake in it because they look they looked
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: so cool and culturally correct. It just fits in with
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: all all other Japanese things that are so cool. Oh
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you know what, let me go back to the those
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: honeywa that I was talking about in the beginning, I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: noticed three and I was like, wait a minute, I
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: know these and I couldn't place them exactly until she said, oh,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: you know Sisa, and I was like, ah, yes, Sisa
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: them they were in and I was gonna say something else,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and she said, oh, they're in Okinawa and I was like, yes, yes, okay,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Now do you know the anime Oishinbo, which is this
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: FOODI anime from Japan back in the late eighties, And
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: she was like, yes, it's a good show. And they
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: have an episode in Oishinbo and there's a part of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the episode that's all about Sisa specifically from Okinawa. And
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: their eyes are way crazier because the whole point of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the oki now and Chisa, which are like these lion
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: deities sort of Japanese lion deities guardians, is to look alive.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So their their body these are moving in shapes that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: normal Japanese sculptures. All these sculptures I've been talking about,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: they have like thick, stout bodies. They're very heavy, but
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: like the Shisa ones will be bendy, like their spine
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: will be bent as they're moving, and their eyes will
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: be bigger. The pupils of their eyes will be bigger
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and looking around like Kouki a little bit. So that
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: was really cool to see the sisa and then and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: then to understand that she knew the anime I had
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: watched while I was in Japan, while I've been here
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and learned about the shisa from It's just it's so
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: cool when this kind of stuff happens. And it's all
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: because I saw this random sign. Feel free to look around.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: It's good she put it out there, because now I
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: had this amazing little adventure. But that was in the beginning.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: So we go around after the sake cups. There was
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: a there was like some other stuff on the shelves.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I can't remember around the sake cups because the sake
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: cups were the coolest. Oh, there was a there was
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: a pencil holder she made out of like a hundred
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: tiny tiles. And after I saw that, we went to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: like the last area where there was a bunch of
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: stuff I hadn't seen yet, and there was a hygrometer
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: like a humidity meter, and as the water goes up
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and down depending on how humid the air is, which
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I thought was very interesting. It has like a substance
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: thing there's something in the bottom that gets fluffier, so
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the water goes up when it's more humid. And that
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was interesting because she must have that because she's a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: tile worker, because if it's too humid or less humid,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: she has to different conditions. She has to work with
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the clay differently to make her figurines and tiles and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: plates and everything sack cups. Oh, but on this last
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: So the last one was the Dogu and the Dogu
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that I've mentioned a couple of times. The older Haneywa,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: so another old burial guardian and just general sort of
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: half deity guardian kind of old guy. He has big
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: eyes with their closed and flat pupils closed. And I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: connected with him the most. I liked his He was
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: very detailed, and I liked the expression on his face,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: which was serene but not goofy, but not too serious.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: He had He just seemed like a little playful but
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: serene at the same time. And I got really interested
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and I was looking at all of his and she said,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you can have a present, and I was like, does
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: she just say I can have a present like of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: one of these things? And then we talked a little
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: bit more, and then she picked up on She was like, here,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you can have this as a keepsake, a souvenir. She
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: looked up the word on Google Translate, and I was like, whoa,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: thank you. But it was a tiny figurine, and anything
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: that big, I'm like, it'll probably get crushed in my bag.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Why don't I take this little one. It's a flat face.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: It's just his face, which is the part I like
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the most anyway. And it was smaller and it was flat,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and it was a brooch. She said, so you could
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: put it on whatever, and I said, that's perfect. I'll
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: sew it onto my rucksack and he'll watch over my
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: rucksack for me. Dogu. And so that's what I have.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And I still have it in my pocket right now.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And I will say it is fired clay. It is brittle,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: so I don't expect it to last a very long time,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: but it looks very cool. I will certainly be putting
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: that on the Lemy community, the travel community on Lemy,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I love it. It's a perfect little face
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and it's a perfect little cap to this adventure. And
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: they were all sold for like ten one thousand yen
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: or twelve hundred yen, so eight to ten dollars, No,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: eight dollars, ish six to eight dollars. Yeah, but I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: don't want to buy one because they looked so fragile.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I was worried i'd break one. But I certainly will
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: accept one as a gift, especially if I can choose
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: one of the smaller, sturdier pieces. I feel like the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: figurines actually knocked over one of the red clay ones
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, but I didn't break it
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: or anything. It was very tiny, so it just fell
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: like half a centimeter and I put it back on
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: its feet, and then she gave me that, and then
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I chose this face one, and it's perfect. It's a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: great face. And I'm very happy to have him a
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: company for a little while. I will keep him around,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and when he breaks, I will assume that he protected
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: me from something, as is the Chinese tradition that I learned.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And I noticed the super tiny tiger head, super tiny,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: one centimeter squared but round, and it was a little
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: tiger face, and it was next to the hygrometer, but
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: not any It didn't have its own place, and most
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of these things she arranged had their own place or
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: we're with groups of other ones, but there's just this one, tiny,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: lone tiger head and I told her about it. She
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: was like, it just goes there whatever, and I don't
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: know why there were no other tigers, but I was like, no, no,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: it has to go here. And I put it on
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: its own drink coaster. Thatich was also made from clay,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: so it looks like it has this grand stage all
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: to its tiny tiger head self. And then her friend
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: came over and gave her a little gift and we
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: started tying to her friend because her friend had just
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: come back from Korea like two days ago, and I
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm going to Korea in a couple days,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: so very nice to meet you. And she only spoke Japanese,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: but it was fine. We had the shop owner to
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: translate a little and we were using Google Translate anyway,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: when the shop owner didn't understand, and her friend recommended
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I eat crab when I get to South Korea because
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: their seafood is excellent, and I might take her up
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: on that recommendation. I hear South Korea has a lot
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: more restaurants that accept credit cards, so because I don't
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: want to change and lose money. The thing is, if
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I can find a local currency exchange place, maybe I'll
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: do that. But yeah, apparently a bunch of the places
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: except credit cards in Korea. So her friend was like,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: make sure to eat the crab. And then I was
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: asking her the shop owner about the snacks that her
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: friend brought in, and that's a word I know. So
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I was like, okashi, right, okashi. She was like, well, no,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: not okashi, And turns out I don't know that word.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It means snacks in all the dictionaries, but in Japanese usage. Apparently,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the shop owner told me it's mostly for like confectioneries,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: for sweeter things, for candies and confectioneries. O kashi. If
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: you have a savory thing like beef jerky or that
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, she at first said, just call it
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: beef jerky, but then she said, at it's like beauty
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: at snacks that go well with drinking. I was like, well,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that's perfect because I am going to go cap this
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: very fun day with Dogu. He'll come with me and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: have some atsui osake and gyozza. And she said, oh no, no,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: not atsuisake. It's otsukan hot sake is atsukan. So if
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: you just order atsui osake, it'll sound weird. But if
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: you order atsukan, that's hot sake, which I didn't know,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: so I was very happy to learn. I learned a
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: lot of terms and a lot of Japanese in that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: short time. It was cool. If I was in Japan longer,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I am certain I would have a pretty comfortable grasp
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: on the language. I'm certainly comfortable with the progress I've
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: made the five or six weeks i've been here. When
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: she gave me the little dogu face, I bent the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: waist very low and said, oh, you got to do
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the most. And I was very sincere because it is
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a very nice gesture of her to get to the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: crazy traveler. And I said thank you to her friend.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I'll remember about the crab. I will eat crab and bussan.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: And then I took off the house slippers that she
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: gave me when I walked in and put on my sneakers,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: very very damp sneakers. It's good she gave me the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: house slippers because my feet were totally wet, and I
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: was like, oh no, these house slippers are going to
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: be soaking when it's finished, because my socks are wet.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: But you know what, sometimes you just got to push
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: through it. Sometimes you know things aren't going to be
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: perfect every time. And I wanted to go look at
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: this gallery and I had a great mini adventure with
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the ceramics maker and it was fascinating and I even
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: got a little dogu face, and me and the shop
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: owner and the friend all said thank you to each
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: other one hundred times and hajimema shtey, it's nice to
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: meet you. And then I walked away through the rain
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and eventually got to a little ramenhouse where I got
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: some guiozza and some atsu kan and that that's how
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I finished off my afternoon with a little caraffe of sake,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: hot sake and tasty guiozza. Man, it was great. That
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: was a good day, fascinating to learn so much. And
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: she tried to give me a pamphlet before I left,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, it's okay, and she was
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: like no, no, take it, take it, and I just said, oh,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: thank you so much, and I took it and she
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: because she was like take it, take it. It has
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: English on the back. And I realized it was like
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: those are for tourists who visit her shop. She must
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: get so few people who speak English who go into
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: her shop that when one does, come by like, this
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: is what this is for? Take it and it has
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: That's where I learned how old the shop was, hundreds
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of years old, from that little pamphlet I read. That's
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: what's been going on with me? What's been going on
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: with you? Tell me at Bit of a Rambler at
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: gmail dot com or blue Sky or lemme bit of
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a Rambler signing off, have a great rest of your day,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Goodbye,