Lacquerware

Today, we ventured out to pick up some pieces of Lacquerware. We ended up in Naha, which is the capital city of Okinawa. The store is located on Kokasai Street which is a street lined with store after store.

These are some pictures from the street:

All Okinawan restaurants put a menu outside their entrance.

The next are from inside the Lacquerware store. They were very nice, once we (I) picked out what we were going to buy, they brought us tea for our wait while they wrapped everything. Lacquerware is very expensive. J calls them "plastic dishes", but they are really wood covered by lacquer with hand painted designs. It is all handmade, and you go to this website (click on website) to see more. If you look closely, you can see some of the prices, if you drop two zeros, then what you have left is close to the dollar price. Although the dollar is down against the yen, it's just easier to estimate using a 1-1 conversion rate.

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The next are what we bought. I took a picture of the bag. It started pouring down rain when we were in the store, so they wrapped our bag in a plastic one as well to keep things from getting wet. They also wrapped each box in wrapping paper.

The fancy boxes after unwrapping them, and a description, in English, of what Lacquerware is.

These are the things I bought 5 bowls:

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The bottom stamp (picture is bad, so it can't really be read):
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I bought 5 plates (these are about the size of a dessert plate)


And finally, a bigger server, I guess they call it a cake box, but a cake wouldn't fit in it. It probably would fit about 4 cups of something.



We also looked to see if I could find a Lazy Susan while there, but still no luck. J told me after buying these pieces that I was done. I told him I wasn't done until we got on the plane. Maybe I'll find what I'm looking for next weekend.