Sakurayama Kaleidoscope Workshop

Last night Bojan, Sakane San and I went to my local cafe Sakurayama to make kaleidoscopes. Tomoko san has been teaching people to make kaleidoscopes for years, and she has a keen passion for collecting all types of which a selection is available for customers to play with.

We made simple ones consisting of a cardboard tube encompassing a mirrored triangular prism. At one end is the viewing hole and the other is a small plastic receptacle of a chosen arrangement of beads, sparkles and berries. The exterior is decorated with a napkin design of choice, carefully glued over the top of a heavily textured satin card. The end results were great and reiterated the  thrill and effectiveness of simple visual trickery.

Tomoko and Keiko where wonderful hosts: kind, caring, attentive and seemingly chuffed or the night’s proceedings. Once the hot beverages and cake came out we were well past our scheduled 9 pm end time, but the laughter and conversation was healthy and once Cezar and Ilya popped in, the room was buzzing. We all left not too long after as it was getting quite late and Bojan needed to catch a bus to Kyoto. Our odd group consisting of  Japanese, Serbian, Swedish, Russian and Australian nationalities, casually walked down to Otsuka station to bid Bojan and Sakane farewell.

I hope Tomoko San and Keiko San enjoyed themselves as much as we did because they, and along with Kazuya san, deserve all the happiness and fulfillment that comes their way. A memorable evening.