Located just a few minutes away from Yokota Air Base is Joyful Honda, a large home store that offers a variety of DIY workshops and art experiences near their arts and crafts section.

I stopped by recently and made a reservation for one of their ceramics classes to see what it was all about, excited to learn something new.

A few days later I headed back to Joyful to begin the class. Even though there were some hiccups due to the language barrier, it was amazing!

Day 1

When I arrived, I headed to the back corner of the Arts and Crafts building. I met a store employee who told me the class was cancelled because the instructor was sick. A little kill joy to hear but before I could say anything, he offered to teach me himself! I was granted a one-on-one personal class by this employee.

Of course, we couldn’t really understand each other much, but that didn’t stop us. He first brought out a massive slab of clay and prepared it for me. He spoke in all Japanese and I spoke in English with elementary level Japanese. I had to shape a bowl and carve it hollow using special tools. I’m more of a visual learner, so I caught on quickly. Two hours later, I had my rice bowl in shape. He examined it, told me it was good to go and that he would bake it in a special oven. He told me to return another day to glaze my creation.

Since this was a personal class, he only charged me 900 yen for the clay used. The class itself varies but it can cost around 2,000-4,000 yen. I got lucky here and saved some yen!

2 weeks later

I returned to Joyful Honda and checked in while the store employee brought out my bowl. I was excited to glaze! We both prepared the undercoat, which required me to get a bit messy, but it was still fun. An hour later, I finished glazing my bowl and was given another time to come back to paint it. I told him I wanted to paint my bowl blue, and he said he would prepare the paint for me on the day I came.

Absolutely great customer service.

Day 3 of class

I returned and checked in just like last time. The employee came out joyfully with my bowl in hand. I saw it was already painted beautifully and professionally blue! Yes, things got lost in translation, but I wasn’t upset.

Knowing my own skills, I would never have been able to make this bowl look as amazing as he did. Overall, this was a cool and easy class to take that didn’t require much language skills.

There are lots of DIY craft classes at Joyful Honda, including leather design, advanced pottery and basic ceramics, which was the class I originally signed up for. I would come back again to try another course because it was fun to do something new.

Things to know

• Address: 442 Tonogaya, Mizuho, Nishitama District, Tokyo 190-1212

• *Hours of operations vary for the workshop; morning times are the best time.

• *Payment is cash only.

• *Parking is free!

Yokota Air Base