Photo Dump 2: Karatsu and Imari

My parents and I got into the small Kyushuan town of Karatsu on Sunday. It's famous mostly for its pottery, made largely by the descendants of Korean potters brought over to Japan during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion from 1592 to 1598. We spent two nights in this lovely 旅館 (ryokan, Japanese inn) and toured around the kilns in town and in neighbouring Imari. Karatsu is better known for its earthenware, Imari more famous for its porcelain. It's great, I'm learning all sorts of pottery-related Japanese words while translating for my parents. I now know how to say, for instance, porcelain, fired ware, and kiln in Japanese, and I know what the first level of a stepped kiln is called, (you can see a couple below) and how to refer to each successive level. It's very, very good practice, though to what end exactly I'm not entirely sure.

Anyway, the rents are already sleeping, and I don't want to wake them up with my typing, so it's another photo dump.

PS: It's really great having my parents here. Did I mention that bit?