Hello from the Northern island of Japan, where bears roam...

[TRITON]

My nephews are not long back from Japan. They're both 3rd Dan in Karate and there for some sort of conference with the guys who normally represent Japan in international competition.(I forget the names)

Japan is one of my bucket list destinations, though its so far and so expensive I'm not sure I'll ever make it there, but here's hoping.
Not just for the design aspect of Japanese cabinetry, but also as in my previous employment I was a butcher, and the 'Wagyu' available in the UK is a very poor representation of the beef available there.

So much so I gave them both a £100 specifically to visit a good quality restaurant and sample such The money was not for the entire meal, just the steak, which I understand for delicacies such as that 18,000 Yen will get you a top grade steak.

 

[Bumble]

Keep it on the bucket list; it's not so far and expensive as some think. The flight *is* long; between ten and a half and twelve hours but once you step off the plane, it's very quick through immigration, baggage and customs. If you land at Haneda airport, it's a short bus trip direct to most hotels and this makes the journey a lot easier. If you or someone you know is good at travel plans, it's quite easy to find hotels for about fifty pounds which have larger and more modern rooms than most in Europe!

 

[Katomi woodsmith]

Hi welcome

 

[Bumble]

This is the garden post restoration, taken about four years ago.

It took maybe close to three hundred hours to get it to this stage; the azaleas were up to the house and the river was completely buried under two inches of soil. Each stone there (in the river) was scrubbed by hand one by one and all the rocks were rusted. The only thing planted is one small Ophiopogon found at the garden centre sale bin for equiv GBP 1. Four year later that is a patch of black, perhaps about thirty plants!

I said in another post somewhere that I had limited access to the garden between late November to late April. This is what it looks like now.

It is about four feet deep but we live in a town that is sheltered by mountains. Some towns on the island are under about twelve feet and about this time of year budgets to clear snow starts running low...

 

[mark w]

Hi Bumble, welcome to the forum, I look forward to following your posts, the turn latch is a nice detail on your box which looks well made and your chair is impressive too. However, the diagonal braces on those doors are wrong, even though they serve no function on a plywood door they should still be the correct way round, always up from the hinge edge across to the opening edge and of course they would be inside not out, nice design feature though.
Good luck with your new venture I hope you are successful, going to Japan to teach people woodwork with little experience yourself is going to be challenging I'm sure.

 

[AJBaker]

When I saw the first post, I was going to ask about the amount of snow. That's a lot, hope it melts soon! In the Alps this year, we only had about a foot at a time, but we've had much more in the past.

Keep us updated on what you learn and what you make! It looks like a great opportunity to learn a new woodworking tradition, a new language, and to buy some nice tools!