Naborigama

It's...It's...It's Tracey's Japanese apato (apt)! So I've gotten much shorter since I arrived...actually for those of you who know I've been FREEZING in my apato lately - I can actually see my breath INside! - you know this couldn't possbly be my new home. (just a quick note about my place - thanks to a very kind colleague, I can now use my kerosene fan heater to heat the kitchen and living room - yea! - I just use the rest of the place to store all my meat and ice cream, and rent out the extra space to the yakusa to store their "extra" bodies).
Now back to the educational part of our program - a "naborigama" is a special kind of kiln - it's one long oven for pottery. In this photo it's hard to see the angle at which it goes up the side of the hill, but it was really amazing! Next to it was an ancient "pottery graveyard" (I forget the Japanese for that) - a place where the potters would smash their "messed up" pots. According to the sign, this kind of place held special value to archeologists who studied the layers of pottery to learn about the cultures who had been there.