Sunday, October 18, 2009

A free Saturday?

Yesterday morning Tetsu put the finishing touches on his cat enclosure. It now has a three story compartment, one of which lets in a lot of sun. It has a cat shelf so that kitties can walk along the length and sit here and there. And it has a sliding door so that the cat box can be removed for easy cleaning and so that Mi can join us in the yard easily.















After all the care to Mi, Tetsu felt obligated to clean up Choco's area a bit too. Tetsu and I scrubbed and moved all the decking and removed the moldy roof. We've also hopefully ended Choco's recreation of digging holes in the area. She had mud everywhere! We worked until early afternoon when I petered out and said I wanted to do something else with my free Saturday.

So... We went up to Nikko, the tourist part (we live in Nikko but are in the country part). I wanted a look at the Nikko carvings and so we wandered around the town checking out the shops. Tetsu commented that there were more foreigners up in Nikko than Japanese.

Nikko craftsmen carved the very intricate carvings in the Nikko Toshogu shrine and since then the city has become famous for the beautiful carvings in soft wood. We were surprised at the different types of carvings nowadays. Some are exorbitantly expensive (the laquerware) some are very simple cuts in wood, and some of the younger craftsmen are combining Nikko carving with tole painting. All were lovely and I found what I was looking for. (last picture from the Internet)

No comments: