Souvenir de Tokoname

Towards the end of our Japanese jaunt I sent off a box [a Japanese Post-office box,therefore covered in instructions] full of stuff not needed on the trip,and including this tile,given to me in a suitably raku/serendipitous fashion by a woodworker we met in Tokoname.It looks like one of the pieces from the last firings of the salt-kilns a couple of years ago before they were all closed down,and therefore encapsulates that Japanese sense of simplicity,beauty and transience- bitter-sweet,like chocolate,which,interestingly,it rather resembles.