The story of a teacup that resembled a shot glass and a cheery drunken fisherman that hit on me.

2 Mondays ago (I almost forgot to tell this story!), I hopped a bus to my seaside pottery class (it really is across from the main port of Akita). I had a wonderfully relaxing and tiring time (kneading clay and using the potter's wheel takes a lot of energy) making some flower-type pots/vases and salad bowls (gifts). As I readied to leave my sensei (teacher) loaded me down with 2 grocery bags of some of my finished pieces (mugs for many of you who are reading this, and a couple of tiny handleless cups that were really supposed to be Japanese style teacups for my mom but in reality largely resembled shot glasses) and I went merrily on my way to find something yummy to eat while I was waiting for the bus back. I bought my onigiri (fish, rice, seaweed sandwiches), meandered over to a park alongside the port, and sat down to my lunch and solitude with a contended sigh. A peaceful view overlooking the sea... some time to reflect... a break from the grasping claws of time and schedule... and if I concentrated really hard I could pretend that there wasn't oodles of traffic whizzing past behind my back. My mind wandered, my eyes glazed, and for a while I was not in a busy city nor under the constraint of time and expectations or responsibilities. And then my daydreaming was abruptly interupted by a careening speed boat of grinning fishermen. I hoped in vain that they wouldn't pull their boat in near me and that I could go back to being oblivious to the world, but no such luck. They pulled up right beside me and I couldn't help but look at them and what they were doing. And then the undesireable happened. I was noticed. arg. Please leave me alone. Nope. All but one fisherman were quite happy in leaving me be, munching on my onigiri, but this one was bound and determined to get more out of my attention than a curious side-glance. He waved. I waved back. He motioned for me to come over. With determined body language I declined. He held up a large string of fish. I gave him 2 thumbs up. He must have misinterpreted that to mean an OK to approach and invade my comfortably happy solitude because he jumped out of his boat and grinning, made his way over. What I got from his Japanese was that he wanted to know if I wanted a ride. hmmm This could either be very fun or a very bad idea, but I didn't have much time to think about it because he picked up my bags of pottery and started heading back to his boat. Thankfully, the group of men unloading called his attention away from me, each one handing him some money. I can only assume he was their shouffer for a morning fishing excursion. Most of the fishermen went on their way, not too interested in what else was going on. A couple guys stayed and I was thankful, because as soon as they started talking to him and as soon as I got close enough to inhale him, it was quite obvious he was pretty dang drunk. You might be wondering why I hadn't noticed it before. Well, at this point he was standing between me and the water which meant that the wind was blowing his odour into me instead of away from me. And before he just seemed cheery. Now I understood the reason for his apparent cheeriness. He was still quite determined to give me a ride, and I was mostly definitely determined not to be given one. I imagined myself stranded in the middle of the Japan Sea with a drunk captain and having to swim my way back to Akita because of unwanted advances or whatever and then getting caught in seaweed or the tide or a random abandoned fishing net or a quickly approaching storm and sinking to the bottom of the sea (Hey! What are imaginations for, right?!). So I fibbed. Kind of. I said my bus was coming soon and I didn't have time for a ride. True. It was coming. In 40 minutes. I didn't mention there were other buses I could have caught later. But I stayed and chatted with the 3 of them for a little while. They were pretty nice. Except the drunk sea captain couldn't understand anything I was saying and kept laughing. Which made me laugh because he was being utterly ridiculous. Then they got curious about why I was at the port and what was in my bags. And I explained that my pottery class was there in Tsuchizaki (the port neighborhood) and that my pottery was in the bags. After a slight pause and confused silence one of them exclaimed "YOUR pottery???" And then they wanted to see it. So I carefully unwrapped a few mugs and showed them. They examined them and muttered things that expressed their disbelief (shinjirarenai!, segoui!, iina!) and then wanted to know what the little ones were. I unwrapped the first teeny shotglass-looking teacup and the drunk sea captain exclaimed in a loud cheery voice "asldkfahg;as SAKE akdflks!!!! SAKE DAISKI!!" Which means: 'alksdjfhlaksdfh a JAPANESE WHISKEY ;aalsdjf!!!! JAPANESE WHISKEY IS MY FAVORITE!!' I assumed the first part had something to do with the teacup looking like a shot glass, and my suspicion was confirmed when he all but grabbed it from my hand in exchange for 1000 yen ($10). I laughed. And so did the other 2. I'd never sold any of my pottery before. I'd always given them away as gifts and had whatever was left snatched away by my mom (grins). Kat, I'm saving this story for my kids! And incase anyone ever wonders when and how and to whom I sold my very first piece of pottery. After a while I excused myself and, with a smile on my face, wandered over to my bus stop and caught my bus back. And thus ends my story of a teacup that resembled a shot glass and the cheery drunken fisherman that hit on me.

:)