No 118

Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.118.At last Mr. Bobby Valentine led the Chiba Lotte Chiba Lotte Marines win the Japan Pro Baseball championship series. Marines won 4 straight titles at incredible scores, 10-1, 10-0, 10-1, 3-2. Our Osaka's team Tigers seems to return to Dame-Tora ( weak tiger!) again. But Marines inspired us - 'Most weak team can be strongest, if a leader motivates all players with ingenuity and they do their best'. Now many Japanese people love and admire Bobby - his cheeriness, skill of motivating players and his affection to Japanese baseball. Already many people are concerned that the Major Leagues teams may call him back with huge money. But now Japan Pro Baseball is suffered from many difficulties and unpopularity, and he is giving great impact to Japanese baseball. Please leave him for a while in Japan! Here in Japan, another great record is enthusing many people. Last Sunday a race horse made won the major race, and made a great record. After the last year's debut, Deepimpact won seven races without any defeats, and he won the third major race on last Sunday. He won the triple crown without defeats, which is the after an absence of 21 years. I have never bought betting tickets, and usually I do not care about horse races. But he is special for people even like me. He is not a big horse, but his cardiorespiratory function is incredibly strong, and his arthro is very soft. At the races he always stays in the middle of the horses until last corners, and around the last corner he puts forth his last spurt. He almost fly and the distance becomes short perceptively, and finally he goes to the front, and when he pass the goal, the next horses are always far away behind him. It is always sweet and icredible victory. Some people say Deepimpact is the highest horse in the world now. We are looking forward to see he run among the foreign horses. But we must also be concerned about his legs - his legs are thin, and his blood line horses have tends to have trouble with legs. His legs looks too thin to support his incredible speed.
We really hope Bobby stay longer in Japan, and Deepimpact will be healthy forever.
Today we ( Ichiro & Yuka ) went to the Nara National Museum to see 'The 57th Annual Exhibition of Shoso-in Treasures'. More than ten thousand treasures are said to be stored from the eigth century, and they are said to the world's finest existing repository of early Asian art. Here is the particular English page about the exhibition.http://www.yado-nara.gr.jp/shosoin/pdf/shosoin_57th.pdf
Visiting this exhibition and writing about the exhibition was the promise with a friend. This exhibition is annually hold, but we have never visited before. First we were astonished to see lots of visitors, and we had to see the treasures beyond the people. We rarely come across such crowds of peopleat art exhibitions.Many people seem to decide to visit annually, to see treasures as much as they can. This year's top treasure seems to be the Go Board. Go is a game like Othello. Exotic animal motifs are fashioned from various woods and inlays in side parts, and tortoise design drawers are made in each side - pulling one drawer activates an internal mechanism that makes the other drawer slide out. Its very fine work is incredible!It is so vivid and we could know the people in that time loved playing games-the exceptionally detailed decorations are not only gorgeous but also very playful touch and full of sense of fun. Several textiles are also found. We could enjoy beautiful red nishiki-weave fragments. About the fabric also, we could not easily believe they are from more than 1200 years ago, and weaver in that era could weave such detailed patterns.We saw some facemasks made of cloth too. Most of masks are men's face with beard. They are considered to be used as some kind of dancing. The part where eyes are have holes and these masks must have been very suitable for acting or dancing-the masks are so light and the bottom part of the facemasks had extra length--the part are considered to be tucked in the collar of their clothing. The necklaces made of glass were so vivid and captvatng too-all things seemed to be made only some time agoand used with a lot of pleasure. People really must have enjoyed to have used and had them around.Some items are shown for the first time- the exhibition is held only 17 days a year and for the rest of days, they are not shown in public.
While I was writing this letter, an old friend called me. He owns a famous potter's ware shop in Toyonaka city, and I often worked with him when I worked for Daimaru department store. He knows many ceramic artist all over Japan. After a long interval chatting with him was very fun and familiar.I said him about our new project 'Tour J(apanese) Artisan', and we feel there must be great possibility of our collaboration.We are planning to begin 'Tour J Artisan' within two months. Thank you for reading to the end. Today we will list some fabulous obi ( and fabrics). Our new manager Hisami begins to attend various auctions and try to get valuable items for you. We think we can offer more antique items from now on.We wish you a lovely Nchioyobi(Sunday)
Ichiro & Yuka WadaKimono Flea Market "ICHIROYA"http://www.ichiroya.com
e-mail: info@ichiroya.comaddress: Asia-shoji Bldg.301 1841-1 Nishi 1 chome Wakamatsu cho Tondabayashi city Osaka 584-0025 JAPANTEL&FAX ****( international number ) - 81-721-23-5446