Well I guess I made that one a little too easy as almost everyone who commented was spot on with their answer. I am indeed in Tokyo visiting – among other things the great Tokyo Quilt Show.

My delightful random calculator tells me that the winner is….number 10 of the correct entries, and that is…….(drumroll)

…….Jan, who blogs at www.isisjem.blogspot.co.uk and who I had the pleasure of having dinner with at FQR last year!

Well done Jan – you will be getting an email from me!

So how is Tokyo?

I’m impressed, I really am. More than I thought I would be if truth be told. Tokyo is huge, really huge and is modern as most of it was blown to bits in the Second World War and has been rebuilt since – so there are lots of skyscrapers. There are also shrines and temples and the Imperial Palace, all of which are beautiful reminders of old Tokyo. I have never seem a city that is so clean and runs so efficiently – and coming from Switzerland I think that means something! I’ve travelled around on the train on my own a little, visited department stores etc without seeing another non-Japanese face – there can be few societies left that are as homogenous as this one, or for that matter, few cities as safe. The Japanese don’t on the whole speak any English, but are unfailingly polite, charming and helpful – there is an awful lot of bowing and smiling.

And the quilt show?

Stunning! Smaller than Houston by quite some way even though it is billed as the biggest in the world. Less vendors and those there are sell a lot of US imports or Japanese clothes and bags. The quilts however are magnificent. There is no other word for it! Just what I expected. Fabulous workmanship and leaning slightly more to the traditional. There are no art quilts that cross over the border of what I would really call quilts from what I’ve seen so far.

So if you ever get the chance, Tokyo – quilt show and city – are worth coming to see. I love it and I’m sure I’ll come back!

(I’m doing a tour by the way – run by Country Heritage Tours from the US – it’s the third of theirs I’ve done, and as I have come to expect it’s really well run and absolutely fine for someone traveling alone as I do, but who doesn’t want her hand held every minute of every day – I’d recommend them if you are interested!)

More later…now I have some quilts to go and look at!

Helen

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 25th, 2014 at 12:09 am and is filed under Places, Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.