Today I took a break from the building activities and went with the European smiths to visit the Japanese smith's workshop. He is a highly respected sword smith and it was a great honour to both be invited to his workshop and to be allowed to film.
Firstly we went to the special tea house he has behind his workshop to see one of his swords:
Then we went to his workshop where he gave us a demonstration on his forge and gave Manne and Gunther the opportunity to have a go too. Unlike European smiths he works seated, with his feet down in a pit, with his forge one side and power hammer the other. It seems a very efficient way to work and his overalls remain amazingly white!
It was unbelievably hot there; it is at a much lower altitude than our work site so outside the air temperature was very high and exceedingly humid. Added to that was the temperature of the forge and my camera was getting so hot I could hardly hold it.
The video is rather special so it will have to wait for another time, probably until my return to England. Tomorrow it is most likely the Japanese building will be raised and on Sunday the European one - the sites are too close together to raise them both at once although they are both nearly ready I am told.
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