Washi Tour 2010 Part 2 Tosa Washi Museum

Day 2 – As soon as we arrived in Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku Island, it was straight to the Japanese Paper Museum in Ino Town. The museum focused on Tosa Washi (washi made in Kochi) and displayed papers from historical to modern times. In 1976, the Japanese government designated Tosa Washi as a traditional Japanese craft, with Tengucho & Seicho-shi as cultural assets. The museum was a great introduction to washi in Japan and a glimpse of the real papermakers we were about to see.

Washi Tour 2010 Part 1 Introduction

In March of 2010, Hiromi and I led a Washi Tour in Japan, which will be documented here in separate blog posts. I took many pictures and will try to share as much as I can, so as a warning the posts may be image heavy!

For this tour, the group consisted mostly of conservators and their family members from Rome, Italy. So, this was going to be a Washi Tour focusing on conservation papers. We met the group in our hotel restuarant over dinner the first night in Kyoto. Introductions, schedule overview, Q&A were done, as well as instructions for the early morning departure the next day.

We warned the group beforehand that we would be constantly loading and unloading the bus/hotel/etc so the best way was to pack light. However, (especially since many washi tour participants go on travelling around Japan beyond the tour), it is not so easy touring Japan with just one small suitcase. Shopping and souvenirs are a must afterall. So, we experienced our first hustle: the loading of the bus, which had to temporarily park in the tight street in front of the hotel. Once in the tour bus, the group was able to spread around, relax, and enjoy the views en route to Kochi Prefecture on Shikoku Island.

Rest area/ Tourist point we stopped at along the way: