How Bazaar

This weekend base was hosting a "Far East Bazaar". I saw the signs posted a few weeks back, but didn't think much of it. I mentioned the event to Jeff in passing, and he enthusiastically told me we needed to go check it out. I wasn't aware that he had attended a few of these bazaars down in Southern Japan while he was deployed.

The last bazaar he went to featured this gorgeous chess set that he got at a steal, in my opinion. It's housed in a beautiful wood case with dragon decals and beautiful gold locks. Solid wood. The board itself is also solid wood, and the pieces are beautifully carved. I'm not a chess person, but I love the set.

I knew he had picked it up on his last deployment to Japan. When he said he bought it at a similar bazaar, I knew we had to go.

Who knew what we could find?


I forgot to bring my camera to take some pictures of the bazaar itself, but it was hosted in a hangar on base. It was large, obviously. They had tons of Asian furniture, which took up about half of the hangar. We fell in love with quite a few of the pieces, especially one large and in charge dark wood entertainment center. But the prices of solid wood and the likelihood that damage would occur during one move or another made us resist. The rest of the place was filled with everything from $2 paper ornaments to much more expensive wood carvings, paintings, etc. If we had unlimited funds, we would've needed a truck to bring home all the things we saw and loved. Jeff had his eye on a $3,000 sword for a while. Too bad that's outside of our budget.

But of course, some things weren't. A few things were within our budget and quickly snatched before they were gone. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy some locally made products that we could keep forever. Sure, we could always buy some "oriental decor" at the local home goods store in the states, but how much better will our house look when it's filled with authentic decor from all our travels? That's our goal, anyways.

The first thing we picked up was this sake set. I saw the beautiful midnight blue glaze on the ceramic pieces and could not walk away. They had sushi sets, bowls, plates, and sake sets. After some thinking, Jeff decided the sake set would make the most sense. He had his eye on another gorgeous gray set, but I couldn't let this midnight blue glaze go. It's my favorite color, and well-made ceramic pieces go straight for my heart. I love it. Now all we need to do is find some good sake.

(By the way, I tried my first sake a few weeks ago! I went out with some girlfriends for a birthday, and between way too many other drinks, we tried some sake with lime. It was delicious! We all agreed that we needed to find that exact sake and buy it by the bottle in the future.)

I'm also a sucker for paintings and prints. There were tables and tables of gorgeous images of Japan. Most were hundreds over our price range.

We saw this print in a larger scale and I stopped in my tracks. I loved it. Jeff said he had seen the print multiple times in the past and shared my love for the gorgeous waves and the miniscule Mt. Fuji in the background. Too bad it was way too expensive even for mutual love. We walked down a few tables and found smaller, more affordable prints. Perfect! The print is made on wood, and the frame is solid. It's going to stay around for a while. I love it, and it had many brothers and sisters I was wishing I had the means to purchase and bring home. We were both drooling over all the nature scenes, with beautiful bamboo and cherry blossoms. There were also tons of prints of buildings and structures from Japan, but Jeff and I both prefer the more natural elements.

Ready for my favorite? They had all sorts of carved animals scattered throughout the vendors. I fell in love with two elephants. One was some kind of stone, colored bright red. Another was solid jade. We argued in indecision for a while, then I picked the jade elephant. As much as I loved the red, we both prefer blues and greens in our home, so this little beauty will undoubtedly match any decor we have in the future. Red, not so much.

This guy is big. Heavy. He's a hunk of rock carved roughly and gorgeously. I love him. I like that the carving isn't perfect ad that it looks like it's a hunk of jade. I don't like things too perfect. Jeff's been cracking jokes about my love for this elephant all weekend.

As I was drooling over the elephant, Jeff mentioned possibly buying two and using them as bookends in the future. I liked the idea, but the way he was shaped might not make the best bookends. Then I noticed the guard dogs sitting next to him. Their rectangular bases would make perfect bookends, and since they're also solid jade, just as heavy.  I begged until Jeff let me get them and their brother, the chunky elephant ;)

Don't quote me, but from my limited knowledge I understand that these guard dog structures are placed around sacred buildings to protect from evil spirits. We decided they would protect our knowledge, since they'll eventually be guarding our collection of books.





So that's what we came home with. I was one happy girl. And of course, I immediately went about moving decor around to make room for my new favorites.

My favorite elephant was put on the entertainment stand where everyone could see him. I decided to hang the print over the entertainment stand as well. It's small, but with all the movies and decor on that wall, anything bigger would look too cluttered. I love it.

You can see the scale of the print in relation to all our movies and chunky entertainment stand better here. I love how it worked out that everything from the planters to the German stein to the print have touches of midnight blue. I've also got green and brown thrown up there. And NCIS just to top it off ;)