Winding Down

This week is the last week that I'll be here at KIT. We've finished up our finals, and all the class time is now devoted to the final project. For the project we're working on a Rube Goldberg machine, which are popular here in Japan because of a popular public television show, Pythagorean Switch. We're working on the project 6 person groups made up of pairs of two, one US student with one KIT student. My partner is really cool, and it has definately been an experience trying to get it built using only Japanese.
This weekend we had a couple field trips as a group. We visited another Shinto temple, a workshop, and a history museum. Out of the three, the workshop was probably the most interesting. The workshop was run by a friend of Solomon-sensei's who had taken over the shop from his fiance's father. The shop specializes in Polonia (sp?) wood and originally made large wooden pots to hold ashes and coals that were used to heat wood in the winter. However, as the demand has decreased they've gone to making vases, housewares, etc. A lot of the equipment in the shop is originial to the shop's construction in 1913, and many of the plates, etc. are still produced by hand. It seems to me that many more things in Japan are still produced by hand, and fairly cheaply at that. Many of the plates and vases at the shop were really reasonably priced considering it was all done by hand. We also got a chance to talk to Solomon-sensei's friend, which was really cool. As I mentioned he took over the job from his fiance's father. The really interesting part was that he'd quit a fairly good suit and tie job in Tokyo, and moved all the way out to Kanazawa to run the shop. His major innovation at the shop has been the "simple tray". It's a simple tray that can be produced very easily, they've sold a lot since they're practicial and inexpensive. The was really interesting to talk to, it was cool to get a firsthand perspective on the work at the shop.
After the shop we headed over to the museum. The museum was built in 1913 inside of a retired armory, and is dedicated to local history. The coolest thing at the museum was the old footage of Kanazawa that they had. The number of landmarks that were still recognizable was amazing. A lot of the temples, and natural landmarks especially have changed very little. Most of the footage was from the 20s, so it was also strange to see how different Japan was as a developing contry compared to today. Most of the markets and public areas seemed much dirtier, while the temples and gardens were still in the same pristine state they are today.
This weekend is the goodbye party for us, so I'm going to have a chance to see my host family again. I'm really looking forward to it, they were really great to stay with over the long weekend, and I'm really glad that I'll have another opportunity to hang out with them. All of the SGE students are going to be there too, so it's going to be a pretty big gathering.