My God, I Never Thought I'd See Them With My Own Eyes (And Some Bowls)

 I needed to deposit a cheque in my bank account, but unlike a sensible person, I don't live anywhere near a branch of my bank, so I needed to go into town.

 While I was there, I decided to do some some shopping.

 First of all, I needed to go into Muji for a couple of bits and bobs, but instead of leaving  with just bits and bobs, I ended up buying four rice bowls I don't actually need.

 Muji's selling these rice bowls made with traditional methods from various parts of Japan, and there are six altogether.

 I originally saw these online and I actually wasn't expecting to see them in store, so when I did I found myself compelled to buy them.

 Well, some of them. Four of them were about the same size and shape, one was the about the same shape but noticably smaller and one had straight sides and was noticably larger.

 I didn't like them as much as the four about the same size, so I didn't get them.

 These are the four I did get:

 These are, from top to bottom, from Hagi, Banko, Mashiko and Iga, which was the first one that caught my eye.

 The Hagi and Iga ones are my favourite because they have that cracked glaze I like so much (well, the Banko one has two cracks in the glaze, but I'm pretty sure I did that when I bashed it into the side of the bus when I was climbing up the stairs).

Hagi

Iga

 They also have interesting bottoms, the others had pretty standard unglazed feet, but these two have something a little more going on.

 I initially thought the notch on the Hagi bowl was a chip, but in closer inspection revealed them to all look like that.

 According to the Muji website, the notch is a traditional aspect of the pottery dating back to when the potters of Hagi had to damage their own wares in order to be able to sell them and not be forced to give them as gifts to the Mori clan. Proving that posh people have always been dicks everywhere.

 Now, for the most interesting part of the shopping trip, for those of you who have not watched The Great Pottery Throwdown and like short grain rice as much as I do.

 I went into a Christian Learning Centre.

 Some of you are thinking, 'why, Harriette, why did you do this thing? Why would you risk life and limb going into that hive of scum and villainy?'

 Well, I have a good reason.

 See, while I'm not let's playing, knitting a scarf, hating myself for not working on Herd like I should, or playing Skyrim, I'm slowly working on a novel about the Christian hell.

 Very slowly.

 Honestly, what I just said makes it sound like I'm working on it way more than I am.

 One of the things I'm slowly trying to do is gather resources for it, I'd like most of the descriptions of hell to be based on Christian literature about hell.

 Normal bookshops don't seem to be swimming in books on the subject, so I thought that maybe the CLC would have some of the resources that I'm looking for since it's a specialised bookshop. (I was hoping for the works of a Father Furniss, but they're quite old, so I wasn't holding out a whole lot of hope.)

 I'm not saying I was expecting a section in the CLC titled HELL, but I was idly hoping that it might.

 It did not, and although my initial plan the first time I meant to go in there a couple of months ago was to ask them, I found something that made me change my mind on that very quickly and very permanently.

 Books on evangelism are one thing, but these are a different kettle of fish.

 I've touched on Chick Tracts before, but I never expected to see them in real life. We have a much lower tolerance for this style of evangelism in the UK, and these things are amongst the worst examples of American evangelism you can find.

 Yeah, I'm not going to talk to people who sell these things, asking for a set of writings by a Catholic priest.

 I misinterpreted 'Christian' as Christian, not 'crazy ass Protestants who openly hate people like me and Catholics along with everyone else who isn't one of them', clearly, I was a fool for taking the name of this bookshop at face value.

 It also had a section entitled 'spiritual warfare', which I had a cursory glance at. It might have some of what I'm looking for, but I'm doubtful and not keen on going back in there after I found those Chick Tracts.

 I think my best option is to seek out second hand book dealers and see if I can find copies of what I'm looking for that way.

 Most of these are going to be out of print, so it's not going to cheap or easy.

 On a more fun note, I found a shop near the Arcadian that sells East Asian cosmetics. Well, Japanese and Korean cosmetics, at least.

 It's nice to have somewhere I can buy sheet masks from nearby instead of having to order them on the internet all the time.

 I would have bought some mascara and eye liner, but they didn't have a card reader, so I just went for a sheet mask instead.

 next time, though, I'm definitely getting those things, I really want new mascara and I do need to practice with liquid eye liner, so it's a good chance to try something new.

 Besides, it's the mascara with a seventies Shoujo heroine on the packaging and I just can't turn down that kind of genius marketing.