Sadly, this weekend I went to my last on-base shopping bazaar in Japan. I put the girls in daycare (they always have a special opening for this shopping weekend) and spent five fabulous shopping hours by myself.
I set out to buy two things: a long carved wooden decorative piece to hang and some kind of good quality rug. I bought the former within the first 15 minutes and the latter within the last 15 minutes. And I am so happy with these items and everything in between.
The rug is a 7 x 10 Tabriz Mahi Persian, double-knotted wool rug with silk accents. I love that it has several colors (including my favorites maroon and rust, along with navy blue and green) in a small, intricate, sharp pattern; it is impressive, I would say it is to rugs what HDTV is to cable! (And Brian approved it before that analogy!)
Everything else I bought was a little impulsive, yet necessary of course. I have long admired these pyramid purses from one of my favorite vendors, Reiko's gifts. Everything she makes is original and handmade from Japanese kimono or obis. I hope to be carrying this one to our friends Curtis and Zareen's wedding, which we are desperately trying to make June 6.
And this hana ("flower") tea set spoke to me, quite suddenly, in fact, from another favorite vendor, Yoshida-san. For all the tea we've drank in Japan, I needed a tea set I love--with 5 cups, which is the Japanese way (since the number 4 is bad luck).
And I couldn't leave Japan with only one kimono for my two girls, so I bought this beautiful butterfly kimono. I already had another one from a shrine sale. They can duke it out like sumo wrestlers over who gets to wear which one, but I've done my part.
During this bi-annual bazaar, a five-story parking garage is lined with vendors. So to avoid getting dizzy, my strategy is to walk up, collect paperwork for all my purchases, pay the cashier at the top, then work my way down to collect my items. But it never fails that I see something on the way down that I missed on the way up...
Like these adorable handmade "girls in kimono" pillow covers, which I bought for the girls' beds. And although not Asian, these knitted dresses for dolls were too cute to pass up, especially since they were only $4 each!
It is strange, this sentimental feeling of needing to stock up on anything authentically Japanese I could ever want. The type A personality deep within me doesn't like the feeling that time is running out; it moves me to impulsivity. But I think I am mostly done...
1 comment:
You got great stuff at the bazaar this time!
I am the same way about purchasing on the way up and collecting on the way down.
I was in such a hurry on the way down so I wouldn't buy anything else, that I almost forgot to pick up a couple of already paid for items!!
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