Hannari wooden cup from Kyoto. (by Kentaro Oda)

These cute wooden cups are made by a young craftsman called Kentaro Oda, who is based in Kyoto area of Japan. He glues two different woods forming a bi-colored wooden block. He, then, carves it to the cup shape. Hannari is one of Kyoto regional dialect and it means that gorgeos, but   also modest and…

Hakone Yosegi Marquetry Himitsubako Puzzle box 秘密箱

Hakone, which is located about 2 hours away from Tokyo, is surrounded by beautiful mountains and is also known for vaious wooden crafts. Yosegi or Marquetry is one of them. This beautifully decorated box with marquetry is called Himitsu bako (秘密箱), which literally means Secret box in English. It is often translated as Puzzle box…

Wooden soup bowls for miso soup

We, in Japan, generally use wooden soup bowls to drink miso soup, while we use ceramic bowl for eating rice. That is partially because miso soup is hot and it gets too hot to hold ceramic bowl when you drink it, so the use of wooden bowl certainl y makes sense.   The bowl is…