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Our next destination is the Government Building. A fairly new facility, it has a spanning view of the city and sea. We are huddled around a display in the lobby where we meet again with Mr. Fujita. His pearls are proudly on display as recipients of the Govenor’s Award this year. The loose pearls...

This farm also had a young generation on staff. The owner’s daughter and son are grafters and are giving the Governor instructions on the nucleating process. And the Governor gives it a try. Being a surgeon, he is already equipped with some surgical skills.

Our walk behind the building takes us to the farm. The oysters in this area are receiving a special circulating treatment to relax them before the nucleation process. And who can resist a pic of the farm cat-

And now I’ll leave you with some eye candy as we enter the store. The Fukae Pearl Company has a storefront and the farm sits on the water below.

Our next stop takes us to Fukae Pearl Company. There was a whirl of ceremony as we approached. I ddn’t quite understand what was happening when we exited the bus but there was a line up of dignitaries from the government, including the governor of Nagasaki himself. They each handed out business...

We gather in the meeting room where Mr. Fujita joins us for final thoughts. He thanks us for traveling all the way to the western tip of Japan. His farm harvests approximately 600,000- 700,000 pearls a year. If all the pearls could be used for strands this would create about 10,000 strands...

We enter the grafting area where the room is separated into two sides. The senior more experienced grafters sit along the right side of the room, and the younger grafters sit to the left. Historically this process was such a guarded secret, but in changing times, we are allowed to view closely...

We return to the shore and while waiting for our next move I notice random things, like this bowl of beads used for nucleating sitting on the deck. They are pulling another net for us to view. The Akoya in this net are 5 years old and they begin opening them for us to dig in and find a pearl...

Mr. Fujita said there were many difficulties but finally he managed to survive. He is a philosophical man with quite a sense of humor. He created his philosophy to create harmony and has this vision hanging in the meeting room. Roughly translated: 1. Akoya and shellfish are living things. Take...

Day 3. It is day 2 of my entries, but to keep this in sync with our itinerary, this is day 3 of our tour. Thank you for noticing, Pella. Bunny is along for the adventure and has been safely nestling. I have been juggling more things than usual on these day trips and do not want Bunny to bounce...

Thank you! I hope to keep up with a daily journal entry as much as possible!

Most of our group. I will post introductions in a later post- We had a delicious lunch at the Tsushima Grand Hotel where Mr. Chikazawa joined us. We were able to share our thoughts and takeaways about our visit to his farm and ask him many questions. Our heads were as full as our bellies...

We say our goodbyes to this beautiful location and continue on our tour of the island. We work our way through the scenic area of Mt. Eboshi and Wadatsumi Shrine.

Our next stop is to see part of the cleaning process. This is a floating cleaning facility that is moved around the water and anchored in the area where the mollusks need to be cleaned. Inside, they are in the process of removing the shells from the netting for cleaning. They are approximately...

Next we see nets of nucleated oysters. After they are nucleated, they stay in nets for approximately 2 more years. They are cleaned a couple more times before Hamaage.

We pass a monument in honor of the pearl oysters that have sacrificed their lives for the pearls. At dinner, I learned from Mr. Ueda (president of Akoya Pearl Company) that it puts so much pressure on the shell to produce pearls very big. It would be like the size of a volleyball to a human.