"I have just one dream before I leave Japan," my friend Anneke says plaintively, shortly after learning her family would be returning to the Netherlands a year earlier than expected. "And that is to go to Kyushu and see with my own eyes the famous ceramics towns there."
Kyushu, the third largest and southernmost of Japan's main islands, is indeed a dream destination for pottery lovers. Not only does it have one of the highest concentrations of kilns in the country, but it's full of museums and historical sites related to the development of ceramics in Japan. So, as a parting gift, I offer to take Anneke on a ceramics-centric farewell fling to Kyushu.
Getting there is easy: I go online and book the two-hour flight to Fukuoka from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The harder part is deciding where to go from there. There are dozens of pottery towns in Kyushu, but we need to narrow down our choices to fit a long weekend.