A day behind

Hello. I arrived to Japan today and hit the ground hard, working immediately until late at night. I almost collapsed into a heap onto the very comfy futon in the lovely ryokan where I am staying but of course I have to check how to get to my next appt tomorrow first...so here is what happened YESTERDAY, which explains why I am so behind. Up there is the husband of another jiseung artist.

It's very warm in here because he's raising these:

 !!!!!!!!!

The artist had her two other jiseung friends come and one, who makes hanji dolls, had these. Meticulous and perfect on their own, but also perfect

 when nested!

Lots and lots of colored threads ready to go. A very different method from how I learned.

I absolutely love how she gets her patterns. I learned some new things yesterday by looking at all three of these artists' pieces. Oh, and that was after I gave a lecture at Yongin University (in Korean). And this was all being filmed by the DP of a documentary on hanji to be aired on January 1 in Korea.

That's me shooting as we pull away from the house in the countryside (one province south of the one Seoul is in). We got stuck in lots of rush hour traffic. The professor who invited me to lecture had to rush off early so the PD took me home but insisted on buying me dinner first. I was so dazed that I could barely pack by the time I got home and put my shower off until 4:30am today before I got the shuttle bus to the airport, did last minute gift shopping, and got on the plane to Narita (next to two Czech guys).

Today: got off the plane, got my luggage, got my rental phone, took a late train out, called the ryokan because I didn't understand the directions I had so they actually just came all the way out to meet me at the train stop, and then met the first person for my research trip. She was an exchange student in high school years ago in Columbus during the Vietnam War. So fascinating, having this half day with her. She took me to see an 80-yo washi teacher who has so much more energy than me and I saw the most amazing facility and learned so much and got amazing gifts and all that I will expand on later.

It's already overflowing!