My husband suggested shopping in the cute downtown district of AizuWakamatsu.  It’s REALLY quiet and slow-paced compared to anywhere in Tokyo.  Don’t think it’s going to be just like Harajuku!

This is an antique store we popped into.  I asked permission to take photos, and so these photos are allowed by the owner.

My parents love antique stores in the U.S.  However, a Japanese antique store is naturally very different than an American one.  So I find it interesting to look around in a place like this.

By the way, do you ever watch a show like Antique Roadshow (A British show where people bring their antiques in to be evaluated?)

Japan has the same sort of show on TV.  People bring in things from their home.  After talking about the item at length, and after doing a professional examination of the item, the MC says (in English), “OPEN THE PRICE!”

Then the value of the pottery, or the record album collection, or the painting, or whatever it is, is revealed.

Sometimes it is BIG BUCKS!

And sometimes…it is nothing!  (Because the item is a fake.)

It’s a neat show, one I recommend watching if you happen to be in Japan.

Japanese dolls.  Some of my manuscripts have dolls in them, old dolls. So I like to examine dolls like these when I have a chance.  Most of my research about antique items comes from books in the library, since I don’t usually have the opportunity to examine the actual item.

I included this kind of traditional Japanese stove in the manuscript of the third book in my trilogy.  Actually, my in-laws have one in the old part of their home.

City folks don’t see these much (if ever.)  Nowadays they are only in old houses.  My in-laws NEVER use theirs.

traditional garden

Notice the American flag.

A card game that is no longer known very well by Japanese youth.  This game is played by the characters in the first book of my trilogy.

As you can see, there are pictures on the cards.  While researching, I spent a lot of time looking at these in library books, and also ordered some off the internet.  (I have never seen them sold here in Fukushima City.)  The pictures can be any theme imaginable–whatever would have appealed to kids a hundred or so years ago.   Kind of like today’s Pokemon cards, and so on.