On Saturday, Tyler and I did some more tourist-ing. First, we went to the Morioka History and Culture Museum. It was not as big as the Iwate Prefectural Museum as it focused just on the history and culture of Morioka (as could be surmised from the name). It was really cool, but unfortunately there wasn't a good English guide available and very little writing was in English. The exhibits were awesome and had a lot of videos and reconstructions... I just wish I had known more about what I was looking at! At the entrance they had floats on display from one of the big festivals that happens in the fall. They had robes you could wear to pose with the floats, so of course I did!
The museum took less time than I had anticipated, so we decided to venture to this magical place I had read about online called Iwachu Casting Works. Morioka is known for its amazingly gorgeous cast iron teapots, which of course I am obsessed with. I really want to learn the art of cast iron teapot making! So for my first step toward this goal, we went to the Iwachu Casting Works "theme-park style factory." On the website there were directions for how to take a bus to Iwachu. We got off at the appointed stop, then used Tyler's Japanese iPhone for directions to the factory. It took us down a tiny alley and up to the back of what looked like an abandoned factory building with a sign on top that read Iwachu Casting Works. Because everything in that area was packed so tightly together, there was no way to get from the back of the building to the front (there were houses and fences right up to the sides of it). Tyler was pretty convinced that the factory was out of business, but I wasn't ready to give up on my dream. We backtracked to the main road and followed a different path, which led us to the front door of:
Needless to say, we were quite happy to have found the place! When we went inside the first room was a museum area, and there was no one there. So Tyler still joked that it was abandoned. But we wandered through the museum area and caught sight of people! Next we came to the factory part, which was very small. There was only one guy in there at the time, working on polishing some tea pots that had just been cast and didn't have their handles attached yet. I was amazed by the volume of production in that tiny factory!
The last part of the building was the show room and store. There were some amazingly gorgeous pieces. The cast iron feels so incredible in your hands, and you can tell how nice it would be filled with warm tea. The Iwachu teapots are not cheap though. I'm going to have to save up and buy one as my big Japan souvenir. Or learn how to make them myself! (A girl can dream).
Me with what is apparently the largest cast iron teapot in the world. Cool!
A website of potential interest:
http://www.japan-iwate.info/app/location_detail.php?lid=80 This is the official Iwate tourism page, and everything on it is awesome. The link will take you straight to the section on the Iwachu Casting Works factory, but feel free to explore from there!
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