Making your own glass in Otaru, Hokkaido - our experience

Our finished products!

This was our first ever trip to Hokkaido and our first ever trip together as a couple so we went a bit overboard beforehand planning and booking everything - making sure to cram in as much things to do, see and eat as possible! 
Prior to flying out to Hokkaido, our Japanese speaking friend kindly helped call the glass studio to book everything for us.

We were surprised the glass studio was not your typical tourist shop - we had the whole studio to ourselves! Kim-san was the owner of the studio and was super friendly! Although he wasn't fluent in English, we managed to communicate with a mixture of limited English, drawings, pointing and body lanuage :)!
Another surprising thing was that there was no time limit, he allowed us to spend as long as we wanted to pick and choose what we wanted and to take as many photos and videos as we liked.

Choosing our material, style and design

After we put on our aprons, arm protectors and gloves, we got a few practice runs each to get a feel of glass blowing before we got started on our actual glass.

 

It was a lot more difficult than what we expected but super fun! The glass was super hot and melty and would drip onto the floor if you didn't keep the rod rolling. You needed super hand-eye-mind coordination for this! Luckily, Kim-san and his assisstant was able to save a lot of the mistakes we made - I think the only thing they can't fix is if you blew too hard and created a hole at the other end of the glass.
Below are a few more pictures:

The finished product(s) needs to be left in the studio for 48 hours but they are happy to send it to your hotel.
If you are interested, please check out their Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kim-Glass-Design/344244828943906
Hope you enjoyed my first article!