{"id":932,"date":"2012-01-25T17:19:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T08:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karatsupots.com\/wordpress\/?p=932"},"modified":"2012-01-25T17:19:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T08:19:20","slug":"shirakawa-porcelain-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karatsupots.com\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/shirakawa-porcelain-mine.html","title":{"rendered":"Shirakawa Porcelain Mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Took a hike up the mountain today to the now closed Shirakawa Toseki (porcelain stone) mine. This was the base ingredient for Arita’s glazes for hundreds of years. The mine is extensive, but I stayed near the entrance as old mines are not among the safest places on this earth. The passages from the main entrance radiated out in several directions and where light still filtered in, you could see that some of them extended several hundred meters. And that is just what you could see from the light filtering in. Who knows how much farther they go?<\/p>\n

In the entrance area, pillars of rock were left to hold up the roof, but there were boulders in several places on the floor, from what looked like recent rock falls. The roof of the cave is probably about 20 feet tall. The expanse of white rock is really stunning to see.<\/p>\n