When I travel around, I always buy some cups as souvenir. Though most of them are made in China, they are different in design and texture. I left most of my collections in China when moving to the bay, hopefully one day I could ship them here after we've settled down.
In 2006, I made my second trip to Japan and visited Kyoto as one of my stops. There I got my first piece of Kiyomizu Yaki, a famous ceramic brand more than 1,000-year old. I bought a small cup for osake (a Japanese alcohol) at 700 yen, the cheapest one in the store. It's in white and sapphire, with a natural transition between these two colors. The surface is smooth and the touch is gentle, though you can get a glimpse of its original clay-texture at the bottom. It's so lovely that even I don't drink, I decided to keep it as a decoration. Master-made Kiyomizu Yaki wine cups can worth thousands of dollars with gorgeous colors and pleasant shapes, giving people a taste of beauty during fancy drinking.
On my return to Tokyo, I visited the headquarter of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), where I bought my first made-in-Japan mug. You can find cartoons of all prime ministers in Japan from the first PM Itō Hirobumi after Meiji Restoration in 1885 to the latest one, which was Koyizumi Jyuichirou in 2006. After that, five new faces are added to the mug. This mug is so far my favorite one, and has been serving as my "main cup" in the last several years due to its perfect applicability for water, tea and coffee. Even I packed most of my stuff and left them in Beijing, it traveled with me to California and then to New Jersey where I went to school. It's already more than six years old, but never disappoints me with its solid quality.
The most dramatic mug I've got was in Boston. It's about 20 cm high with embossment of famous scenic pots in Boston: the freedom trail, Faneuil Hall, ducks, etc. I gave it to my mum as a gift from my first US trip. I think she did use it for a while, though finally decided to lock it away out of its impractical volume and expensive look. Another mug ended up with the same cold treatment was one bought in New York. It's an elegant black round belly mug with a logo of "Sex and the City" in pink. I got it on my visit to CNN and used it for coffee for about a year. Its pearl black gloss went perfect with the color of coffee, and always offered me good treatments. But it's unreasonably heavy and I finally decided to leave it in China.
The last cup I bought was in June this year on my graduation from Princeton. I went to a university store on Nassau Street, and bought a black mug with "Princeton 2012" and a school badge on it as my last souvenir. It gained my favor very quickly and I even made a painting for it. (see right, it's called "a mug by my laptop") However I soon found a crack on it and had to put it away, whose position was soon retaken by Japanese PMs.
It's fun to keep these lovely cups by side and recall the stories behind them. I met a friend in Japan who bought a t-shirt everywhere he went. I guess this is our own way of recording lives. Now I only wish I'd find a place for these cute stuff.
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