This morning after breakfast I set out on a walk through Niji No Matsubara, a 360-year old black pine forest along Karatsu Bay planted by the feudal lord Teresawa. It is said to consist of 1 million trees, planted to protect against the winds and tides of Karatsu Bay. Two things were interesting about it. First, virtually all of the trees bend away from the water, giving it a very crooked look. Second, there seemed to be no other species of tree in the forest at all, which struck me as odd (and a bit unnatural). It was obvious that the forest is well taken care of - there was evidence of sticks and pine needles having been cleaned up. But for no other species of tree to have taken root in this sandy soil was just odd. We later learned that the prefecture or city cleans it out to keep it that way. Here is what it looks like.
At 1 o'clock our guide for the day arrived. Her name is Yuki Sakamoto. This wonderful young woman is an English teacher at a private school and volunteers (she says only once or twice a year) to take visitors, principally English speaking ones, on tours around the area. Yuki had gone to university in Hiroshima, and spent a year studying in Northern Ireland. Yuki took us to the pottery towns of Imari (actually to Okawachiyama) and then to the prefectural museum in Arita, where thousands of pieces of pottery are on permanent display. Probably the highlight of the afternoon was a visit to a friend of Yuki's, Katsuro Yokota, who is a potter in Arita. We visited with him and his wife at their home, which is also his workshop where he has two kilns. Katsuro is quite a Renaissance man - he roasts his own coffee, and he and his wife run a little coffee shop on the weekends. Andrea had a fabulous time conversing away in Japanese - her Japanese is every bit as good as Yuki's English.
Tomorrow it is on to Ureshino, a spa town a little farther south.
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