It was a rainy day, I went to Gora for an interesting pottery making hands-on class.

The weather was not so good and the forecast says it will start snow this afternoon.

Considered the bad weather, I chose an in-house experience class. In this kind of weather, making pottery seems like a good choice.

After transfered from JR Tokaido Line to Hakone-Tozan Line, I took a train of Hakone-Tozan-Tetsudo Line followed by a cable car, it took me two hours to reach the destination.

The rain became heavy at noon, I finished my lunch and went for Craft House in Gora Park for a reservation of the pottery making hands-on class.

The house offers many experience-based classes. Last time I visited here, I had entered a glass blowing class.

There are two types of pottery hands-on training, one is to prepare the paste of pottery and another is to put the paste on a dish of rotary and extend and stretch it to the ideal shapes. Although I want to try both one, however I chose the one on the dish of rotary.

Because it looks cooler than the other one.

I had to wait a while after finished the reservation, so I went to a tropical plants garden in the park. The greenhouse was filled with flowers in various colors, all in full blossom.

The place was holding a Christmas Rose Exhibition the day I visited. The Christmas roses didn’t look like ordinary roses, they were more simple and moderate in shape and colors.

I was so happy that it didn’t require an umbrella in the greenhouse.

Whenever you visit here, it is always filled with fresh flowers. I still remember last time I visiting here was to attend an Autumn Grass Exhibition, the place was also packed with flowers that time.

By the time I return to the Craft House, my pottery lesson was waiting for me.

I first put on an apron and rolled up my sleeves, sitting at the rotate dish waking the instructions from the staff. Together with me, there were also other guests taking part in this session including a couple and two young boys.

After the preparation was done, the staff started to give us demonstrations. He first showed us several techniques of form the shape of the pottery on the rotate dish, for example how to stretch and how to minimize, how to make it taller and how to handle it if you accidentally failed the shape.

The paste of the mud became alive in his hands, it changed shapes easily, we all amazed by his talents.

It’s now our turn to make the shape. He stretched a prototype for us to start, we have to carry out and finalize the shape using our imaginations. After the 40 minutes hands-on lessens, I made two small objects.

The first one was already in my mind, so I just form the shape slowly followed the image in my mind. The result was pretty good.

The second one I didn’t have a pre-imaged shape in my mind, I just make the shape as the dish rotates, sometimes try to make the middle of the body larger, while sometimes try to minimize the neck, it turned out a pretty one too.

After I finished my shape, the staff helped me to separate the shape from the dish, offered me several colors to chose from. After that, there were drying, burning, glazing and reburning processes.

I have to wait two months to meet my works.

I love hands-on workshop like this. Future homes lack what decorative jars, maybe go to a pottery classroom will be a good choice.

On my way home, the rain stopped, there were beautiful rosy clouds and a brilliant rainbow on the sky.

My friend told me that there were treasures hidden in the other side of the rainbow, but I already found the treasures in my life so I’ll simply leave it to other people.

I believe everyone who saw rainbow is a sign of obtaining happiness.

It was a wonderful day for me.

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