The Pizza/Pottery Place

I usually require a husband to visit a new place since I don't trust my own navigation skills to drive anywhere too far from my comfort zone - but not this time! A friend invited me on an outing with NIOSC - North Island Officer Spouses Club. She had been to this location before and graciously did the driving to the city of Onna, a beautiful resort town I had only seen once before. The club's April event was lunch and painting at Doka Doka cafe.

We started downstairs on a patio with picnic tables all set up with paint and brushes. We were able to choose what kind of pottery we wanted to paint: plate, bowl, or mug. Even though the instructor did not speak much English (and we did not speak much Japanese), he managed to convey some helpful tips on pottery painting. For example, "White and blue- beautiful! Brown and blue- not!" and "One stroke good, Two strokes ok, Three strokes too much." I painted flowers on my plate, and he asked me if they were sakura, or cherry blossoms. Of course I pretended I had the ability to paint specific types of flowers and agreed with him. While the colors appeared to be different shades of gray, he assured us the colors would appear after they were glazed and fired. I will have to wait a whole month to find out!

After painting we all headed upstairs to view the professional pottery. We had twenty minutes before the restaurant began serving food, but we all enjoyed browsing through the vases, cups, and bowls that were for sale and painted by our instructor. He does beautiful work!

For lunch we sat in a row at a bar overlooking the beautiful East China Sea. It was a lovely, breezy day and the water was turquoise. The doka doka pizza was as delicious as the view. I was so glad I could branch out to a new place with friends while Matt was at work, and I cannot wait to see what else NIOSC has planned!