our dinner

I don't know if it will thrill you as much as it did me but I thought I'd note our dinner, or perhaps the significance of what we ate, because I bought it...and its the first time I have bought crab and squid (my husband usually buys the sea creatures). I then proceeded to clean and prepare the squid (after a few tutorials in the past years), there it is in the background marinating in sake, soy sauce and curry powder. It was cooked with lots of garlic, ginger, onion and spring onion. The crab was already cooked and cost less than $10. Being prepared by my loved one is a beautiful dipping sauce, heavy on the fish sauce, garlic, chilli and few secrets...that's the garlic above, yes, we are schtinky today! I know I cannot have access to such fresh, cheap and high quality seafood at home, mostly, the best stuff is exported here! So, I am taking the time to buy more adventurously in the seafood section, and it is so much fun. It is also wonderful for the mooch to poke, prod, play and learn about parts of sea creatures ("look, gills Mummy") and how to make good food that is very tasty and doesn't cost much and easy to prepare.
and a simple, at home lunch, for the mooch...artwork in kewpie mayonnaise...by the mooch. I love good food!...but I am also looking forward to some hot chips at the beach in an Aussie summer....xxx

xmas lights

Xmas is here in Tokyo, without the santa's, kind of cool! When I see beautiful shops like this one Franc Franc I start to hyperventilate over the beautiful-ness of the things inside......so pretty..
Just outside is this annual showing of lights.....very blue this year...but pretty and sparkly....it wasn't too cold last night so the mooch was able to run around and get excited. Xmas is a bit more meaningful now he is right into the presents, I mean, the REAL meaning of Xmas...family, friends...yeh, right!
blue....
more blue.....
on the way home......peoples say Melbourne peoples like to wear black hmmm.....I will miss the safe, clean, reliable, affordable, convenient, efficient, public transport available in Tokyo.....

the mooch's room

I have been asked to submit some photos of the mooch's room to a magazine and thought I would post some of there here...it will be nice to look at them in the future as this lovely room will soon be packed away and put in a container on a ship bound for Melbourne.....
Most of the furniture is from IKEA, recovered from the gomi (table) or just absorbed from other people....
I made several of these pillows as I have posted about before and bought the duvet cover in a very cute shop in Stockholm...
I also made all of these mini mooch's except the little guy with the heart......

today

I will certainly miss the bento lunches, especially very cheap ones, these two less than $10 together....fish, veges, rice, eggs.....simple, convenient and very tasty.....downside is a lot of plastic so I don't get them very often and try to use my own chopsticks.....
Sun shines today!...Yoyogi park is so nice when it is quiet.....
..and Long Long can have a little off leash time and pretend to be a hunting dog....
he spotted a cat.....amongst the autumn leaves....I'm quite sure it is now winter, 7 degrees this morning, but very nice....
..even though there are still lovely leaves to be found here and there....

other things..

Our plans to celebrate my loved ones birthday, with party decorations and cake, mostly for the mooch to enjoy, even though it is 4 days after the event...loved one finally coming home after a very long business trip...
(We) I made a book for a present, one that is called "A Day" which outlines a day in the Mooch's life, so they can read it together and then to keep it so in the future when we forget all the little details, we can look back on this and enjoy the nostalgia!.....
...I'm sure favourite toys will be lost, broken and forgotten over the years....and a nice surprise is how much the mooch LOVES to look at this little book, its all about HIM, and that's what 3 year old's are ALL about!...
..a special order from my loved one was to make his jacket a bit more groovy without being too out there, he has to wear it to work after all, so I hope this does the trick!...
and last but not least a LOVELY omiyage package from the wonderful Miss Miho, from her recent trip to the Netherlands, look at the process of her book. Keep your fingers crossed for good news about a collaboration we have been planning.....

recent makes

Preparing papers to make party garlands...
stamping to make wrapping paper....just cut out a shape from a styrofoam meat tray and attach with glue or strong double sided tape to a cork....

and a recent sew...using the beautiful echino fabric...I wanted to preserve the design as it is just sooo cute...so I just made a simple elastic waited skirt that has an uneven hemline...very comfy and good for layering with leggins/spats underneath...
for anyone in Tokyo looking for YUZAWAYA, its now in Shinjuku at 11fl Takashimaya...but you may have known it...I just realised it opened on 1st Nov...so easy to get to now and BIG and open aisles, and a very big echino section....there is supposed to be a closing down sale in the old store in Ikebukuro....better check it out too....

I know the carving rubber stamp thing has pretty much had its day in blogland... thats fine for me to be a bit delayed then it feels like I'm at the start of something new! Anyway, carving, printing, stamping, it isn't new but it sure is fun! We (the mooch and I) are making a collaborative project, magnets.....the mooch's job is to prime the wooden disks, put the rosy cheeks on and with a bit of help, stamp the stamp.......so far so good. Fun, cute and happy! In other news.....teeth news....gosh, I think I have spent 50% at my life at the dentist....had 2 general anesthetics for different reasons, many, many teeth removed, crowned, posted, recreated, snapped, capped goes on and on.....for a weird reason, one of my molars has been giving me grief.....I was just putting off going to another dentist and find out the problem but, after 3 weeks I was imagining ANOTHER root canal.....so...off I went......we have no dental insurance to cover any visits here, (far various reasons) so I was also worried which part of my body they would need to amputate to pay for whatever was the problem.....anyway.....as it turns out, I'm simply grinding my teeth at night (when I can sleep) which in turn is breaking off small pieces of tooth making it sensitive...so there, I should arrive home, back in Oz totally toothless and that diagnosis cost only $50! PHEW!!......will deal with the lack of teeth at a later date....

long long

The whippet lunge.......I have been waking up at night...and cannot get back to sleep when I think about the process of moving...not the physical...I've moved about 1 million times in my life so that part is the easy bit...its the people and animals side that worries me............this dog has to travel apart from us and then spend 30 days in quarantine so my thoughts go all crazy about, travel duration and the stresses associated with being in a cage in the cargo of the plane....all the tooing and froing in different vehicles to here and there and various the peoples handling him, then the 30 days in another cage where it might be getting very hot in Oz by the end of the year....I guess I should be thanking someone that these days make it easy to actually take your dog with you when you go overseas!...and then bring it home again.....you don't think about these things when you first buy a dog!...well, we didn't anyways.....
...poor darlin' dog!...such a wonderful companion as a family member and so gentle with the mooch....lovely animal, I will keep worrying about you until we are together again xxx

cuteness

I don't often blog about other peoples things because I feel there are just so many other peoples blogs that talk about and promote other peoples works, ideas and products...so I just rabbit on about what I'm doing, of course.......but, I do it every now and again because some things are just so cute and such a great idea, its worth sharing! This is small sheet of stickers or seals, each one is a month of the year for 2010. You can use them as a quick reference or simply for decoration, which is the option I chose because the illustrations are gorgeous. I'd love to do some illo's for this place. Look at this lovely site for the artist who did the illo's for the seal calendar. Ok, back to me now :)

flowers blooming....

It's not just the season for lots of red, yellow and orange leaves, in fact, in this park, its still a little early.....which is great because it gives us a reason to go back, if we have some time of course...only approx 6 weekends to go.....of course, the first stop was the parked budgie (buggy)...
and many pretty dahlia....huge ones and beautiful colours....
and the most beautiful displays of chrysanthemums, the ones that Japanese designers have used for centuries. In fact, when I look at the care and devotion needed to raise such flowers, it almost feels like a step back in time. It seems like almost nowhere and no one in our modern life would have the time or patience to grow such things of beauty, just for looking at and for display......I guess this makes them even more special, and the fact that soon they will wither and die....
..to indicate the size of some of these flowers...
...incredible, like soldiers (or students) in rows, uniform and steady....
...with amazing variations of bonsai, topiary and these beauties, like a waterfall of flowers.....all on a bamboo frame....

such prettiness, so many people with cameras soaking up the day and even a school of grey haired photography students focused on catching shots of a beautiful kingfisher who was busy catching little silver fish from a big pond....we took the last time out from the day to sit by the koi carp pond and watch them silently swimming and the crows interacting in the matsu pine trees, singing and dancing, being silly and jumping down to splash in the pond..... unlike the really angry squarking ones we see around our house fighting over the garbage.....

the wind down...

I'm starting to wind down my time here in Tokyo. It's been an amazing two years but time to go now. Thank you for following my adventures and leaving me very sweet and lovely comments and emails, I really appreciate it! I'm going to do a Japan wrap up in the coming weeks then leave this space over xmas and new year until I settle down again. Thanks again for being super dooper!

hmmmm..

Yes, this is the one who was screaming in pain in the middle of the night.....and the same one that miraculously became better the moment we saw the emergency doctor.......I'm dancing in rings right now...but love him to bits xxx As a parent, I wish I had the filter to know when things are bad enough to see a doctor and not bad enough to just give a cuddle and support and feel OK with doing that....I guess it comes with experience.

the food....

All photo credits to my darling husband who has captured each dish beautifully.....and this is just a section of the food we ate!.....crab, a lot...
meals served by the guest house Mama's, usually wearing kimono or another kind of similar dress...
slices of fatty beef ready to be lightly boiled in the miso broth (in the ceramic dish behind)....veges are also added, you just quickly boil then eat, its called shabu shabu...
salmon, scallop and ginger.....
small kind of trout in soy, mochi and a snail type animal...
lovely grilled fresh fish in a miso paste, dyed renkon, a type of ginger root and the yellow is the pickled skin of the citrus fruit yuzu....incredible combination of flavours....as was the salt served with tempura which was mixed with ume plum and yuzu....we also ate a lot of sashimi and very fresh grilled fish.....
a small block of fresh tofu with soy, salmon roe and cucumber, texture and taste amazing...and of course the visual....
this is one of the mealtime starters, tofu, shrimp, sweet potato and the white radish with a type of pickle and in the back ground a steamed savoury egg custard called chauwan mushi....these meals are inluded in the cost of the room so you don't need to worry about brekky or dinner. And every meal at every place we stayed was like this!! Looking at it now, I feel more spolit than when we were actually eating it. As it is off season, we often had a whole room to ourselves to eat dinner, or it was served in our room. Unforgettable.

Hello..

Its been 2,500km travelled in our super little car, through a lot of valleys, mountains, rainy days and sunshine. I feel totally reinvigorated about Japan. Tokyo, or any city for that matter, can be tiring, day after day, noise, noise and noise, visually and auditorially (is it a word?)...so we took off...to see the greener pastures we know lie on the west of Japan.....the real heart of Japan for me, is here, in the country and the mountains and the sea.
You can see beautifully designed shops, houses and restaurants and ryokan (traditional Japanese guest house) everywhere, surrounded by space and any passing locals who are happy to acknowledge you, good morning or good evening, very, very lovely....
....lots of tea in Shizuoka and passing typhoon number 20, without the rain we would not have seen the beautiful mists hanging over the ranges....
...interiors and exteriors to keep me breathless.....and my memory card full to the brim....
....conversations overlooking spacious rice fields with people so unassuming and warm makes me feel so humble....
....visits to TWO of the most powerful shrines in Japan, this one in Tsuwano.....
...entrances to special places.....
....waterfalls and red leaves to be enjoyed by passing tourists...

...jizo keeping warm for the coming winter, this one has red lipstick!....
..the other powerful shrine...in Izumo, all 10 gods are in Izumo in October, they return to this shrine, it is an auspicious month to be in town....lucky us....
...and my most favourite place, the open ocean (with a bit of cement, it's Japan after all...).....an amazing journey not only to see new and beautiful things, but spend time with my lovely and wonderful family and share these days in a place that will always be the most special place for us outside of Oz. We will leave this place but never really leave. Japan has that kind of power.