Nikko

Konichi-wa once again. It's another business trip for me to Japan.
Today two of my collegues and I headed to Nikko, a small town about 150km North of Tokyo with many shrines and temples and also the entrance to the Nikko National Park. They are very proud to call themselves a World Heritage Site and they deserve it.

At the entrance of the shrine areal they is this lovely bridge.

Also quite famous are these three monkeys: hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.What intrigued me without ends are the hundreds of stone lanterns which all were covered with moss, giving them a mystique flavor.

That Stupid Grin

I did go and saw the Star Trek movie last night and still have difficulties to get that stupid grin off my face. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptic about the movie - it's been a long time since anything Star Trek really was any good - but, boy, that movie did deliver. First of all, the chemistry between the actors was great. There were many, many nods to the good old times, enough to made me laugh out several times. The actions was good, too, and the special effects a thing of beauty. And the story didn't suck either. All in all, a very happy old Star Trek fan here.

Well, I've been busy as well.

This top was done within ten days. I used some yarn from an old project which I had not liked how it came out. I could - with about 30cm to spare - have made do with the yarn I had, if I had foregone the little armlets, but as I really like them I'm happy had I made the trip to my favorite yarn store and got another skein of the yarn.


The pattern is a variation of something I saw in a German magazine, but really, all I took was the basic stitch pattern and made up the rest pretty much on the go.
This time I'm happy with the outcome, so I don't think I'm going to rip that up again.

Another thing I finished is a summer scarf I've started last summer in June and was sitting around doing nothing for the longest time.


Pattern is the Lace Ribbon Scarf from the Summer 2008 issue of Knitty. The yarn is some mysterious yarn from Japan (Gokuhoso by Wister) and I knitted it with 3mm needles. I tried to block it, but the yarn just springs back to curling inward, so I guess it's some sort of acrylic. It's soft enough, though, and I really liked how it came out.


Finally, I have two new starts. One is almost done already, so I'll make a post about it when I done. The other is a pair of Monkey socks. It is, by far, the most popular sock pattern on Ravelry and I finally decided to give it a try.


I do like it so far and the only down is that within 3cm of knitting, I managed to break one of my brand new KnitPro wooden needles. Luckily the set came with six (instead of the usual 5) needles, so I could go on without hunting down another needle. But still, it is annoying. I don't even knit that tight, really.

Live long and prosper

konnichi wa

Yep, Japan again.

I'll quickly skip over the long flight (11:00 hours) and the jetlag (yes, I have it), to come to the good bits.

A) The weather: Since I've arrived here it's been sunny and comfortable. Yes it's sort of cold (after all, it's winter here, too) but not too bad really, and almost no wind.

B) Food: Yummy. One example lunch today

First, though, you have to tackle the menue.

Many restaurants in Japan have picture menues and also often have some sort of examples of what they have to offer in form of a plastic model. Sad to say, this restaurant didn't. Luckily one of my collegues is bi-lingual (English / Japanese), so he helped us to get what we wanted.

I wanted Udon soup (with tempura)




C) History: We went to visit Matsumoto, which is famous for its castle.


400 years old and in an excellent condition (it never saw a battle, though, even though it was as a fortress originally). To protect the indoor floors, every visitor gets a pair of slippers and they have to carry their outdoor shoes in a plastic bag with them. I don't know why we got nicer slippers then the rest, but well, we did. Maybe because we were obviously foreigners.



D) Knitting: This time I opted for not taking any cross stitch, but concentrate instead on some knitting. So I took a skein of Rowan kidsilk haze and started on a fancy little scarf.


I already pretty much doubled the length from the one in this pictures on the (long) train ride back.

So, tomorrow I'll go to Tokyo for some shopping (electronics, maybe another lens for my camera and, if I can find it, some yarn)

Harajuku Omotesando Genki Festival Super Yosakoi 2007

Upps, my controlls are all in Japanese now ... I have to see if I get this done.

Today was my first day off since I've arrived in Japan. After sleeping in (oh, that was sooooo nice) I got my camera and headed down to Tokyo. This is a six minute train ride to Kumagaya and then another 50min with the Express train (Shinkansen).
My first goal was Harajuku, which is known for teenagers hanging out at the weekends in the weirdes costumes (they call it cosplay), and I just wanted to shoot some (with the camera, what did you think?)

When I arrived in the sweltering heat (it's August, its Tokyo ... there's no other way), I was pretty surprised to see some sort of dance contest / performance going on. Groups of up to a 100 people doing a mix of traditional and modern dance and the only thing in commen I saw in all groups was that they seem to use some sort of rattle in there dances (some also used fans and lanterns, but there was allways the rattles). After a couple of those groups, I wandered off, only to find out that before they go up on the stage they have a form of dancing parade. Very, very cool.

At home I learnd that this was the Harajuku Omotesando Genki Festival Super Yosakoi 2007





Some of the teams were very good and I was also very impressed with everybody's stamina. It's no mean thing to dance for hours in a heat like at the moment and then go up on a stage and do an extra five minute skit.

After some shopping around (and not buying) I went to Shinjuku, which is famous for electronics stores. I've had my eyes on a zoom lens for my new camera. The lens I wanted was circa 25% less expensive than the cheapest I've seen in Germany (via internet) so I did buy.

On my way back I stopped at the Sushi restaurant. You sit on a type of bar and little plates with sushi will travel by on a conveyer belt. All you need to do is to pick a plate and take it down. Payment is decided by the colors of the plate you stack in front of you. Simple.


I think at one point I picked a $12 plate, but I can't even remember which it was, though I suspect that it was the little grilled fish, which still had the bones in ....

I didn't have that much time to work on the Blackwork Dragon, but I got some progress to show.

bbq

On Saturday was our annual BBQ in the Hundsrück.


As you can see, there was not much risk of us starving (actually, that one only one of the two bbq setup - the other one was for meat and chicken and such)
There was plenty of cake too and salats and bread and ....
And it was plenty of fun. We talked and stitched and talked and played and talked and (well, you get the drift)

Stitching: I've got back to the Medieval Tiles from Dracolair. Now that I've got he GAST Midnigh, I've got to finish the two squares that were only three/quarters done.



A prize goes to whoever figures out what mistake I've made (and will no fix :)) in the lower of the blue squares.
Only one of the big squares to be done and to finish the border.

For the Japan Trip, though I've left the tiles at home and started something else.



The beginning of the blackwork dragon by Dragon Dreams on a 28ct white linen and with DMC310. This is after 12 hours of flight - not bad I'd say (I stitched through three movies, but actually managed some sleep). Blackwork has a few things speaking for it, mostly that you don't need to carry many different colors and don't need to change every few stitches.
I've played a bit with blackwork before, but this is the first major project and I'm enjoying it so far - though, it's my second go on him. I've tried to do him with a veriagate thread before, but that didn't work out the way I wanted. I'm much happier with the simple black on white version.

I'm back in Japan for roughly three weeks. More about that next post.

Back to the Roots

Some instant - or at least quick - gratification.

Moon Dragon by DragonDreams on 28ct Cashel linen in the color Millenium (I do love that color)

It was a fast stitch, three evenings for the pattern and another for the backstitch.

Isn't he cute.

Stitching at home is once again hindered by the loan of the CameCube from a friend including Legends of Zelda: The Twilight Princess. I love how Link (aka the hero) has been animated. Cute fellow ;)

Yesterday I went and saw Transformes (second time for me, as I've seen it already in Kechikan). My friend has been/is a big Tranformers fan with quite a few stories to her credit, so I was really interested what she was thinking of the movie. She loved it, and we both agree that they better put out a score (not the 'songs inspired by the movie' which is the only thing available at the moment)

I've got another doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, so I took the day off. I need to do some shopping before flying off to Japan for three weeks next Sunday. In the US I know where to get things when I need them, Japan is a little bit more difficult.

Home, Sweet Home

Got home from Japan pretty much okay, except that we had a delay of 2 1/2 hours. This time, I couldn't sleep on the plane and 11 1/2 hours can be pretty damn long when you can't do nothing but sit around and wait for the plane to get you to your destination. The plane was also somewhat fuller than on the flight to Japan, so I had less space (though, luckily, the plane was not completely full and the middle seat was still free)

So, here's the update on the pictures from last week.

Mariner's Light:

I think it turned out really pretty and I will frame it soon to have it go together with the other picture from the series. Though I probably will try and couch the long stitches in the background map down a bit more. In the stitching frame it looked okay, but now I can get them to lay straight.

For Japan I took along a set of small kits I've got over the years.

The top three I've got in New Zealand, the knot pattern I got last year in Scottland, and I think I've got the border collie in South England a while back.
I did finish the Kiwi bird and the penguin in Japan and started out on the border collie, but didn't get very far. I just did not have that much time while I was there.

And a quick peek at the new traveling project: Medieval Tiles from Dracolair



I finished the upper left square today and started on the next one. Loads of blended colors and many, many quarter stitches - a speciality I've seen in several Dracolair designs (this is the fourth pattern I'm stitching)

My DVD burner seemed to have died on me - I was in the middle of the process of burning a DVD when the program stopped and now the computer doesn't even know there's a second DVD drive on the computer. Can't open it either. Ah well, here's a chance of getting something newer and faster.

I also switched from the old Mozilla browser to SeaMonkey - with the Firefox Mozilla browser I couldn't blog anymore. Every time I tried to open my dashboard, the program crashed. No problem so far with the new program, though I need to find out how to import my bookmarks. I've tried, but obviously I'm making something wrong *shrug*
I'll work on this next week, when I have more time, and am not quite as befuddled by jetlag.

Please Order Hope of Cleaning

or: Big in Japan, part 2

The line I've used as the title comes from a little, laminated card that I found in my room today (actually, I probably has been here all week, but only tonight I've noticed it). The full text goes like:
"Please order hope of cleaning to the front desk between 2:00 p.m from 9:00 am"

(anybody any idea what this might mean ....?)

I just thought I let you in on some of the things I've notes here in Japan over the last couple of days.

First of, one thing I really like about Japan is that here I have the feeling that I'm actually tall. With a height of 5'4ish, I'm at the shorter end of the scale when I'm in Europe or the US. I usually don't mind too much, but here, here I enjoy it in a way that half the people on the train at shorter than I am :)

Speaking of trains - usually the trains in Japan are not quite as crowded that one seen on the tv. Yes, sure, at rush hour in Tokyo you might get a little bit closer to your neighbor than you'd like, but I for once have never seen any guys with white gloves pushing the crowd in so they can close that door.
And, normally, the trains are very punctual - I was quite shocked then I saw that the 21:50 train from Kumagaya was 20min late (at least that what I think is what happened - it was past 22:05 and there was a sign that the next train is the 21:50 and there was something, something 20 something written in Japanese. Which I don't read very well (hmm, who do I kid - I can identify maybe 2 to 3 symbols, and it's only because I know the second symbol in Kumagaya is that little house with the funny roof, that I know which train I have to pick)

Japanese people, on priciple, are pretty much living by the clock. The bus, leaving the station to go for the factory, leaves at 8:50. Not at 8:49 or at 8:51, and if you are there 10 seconds too late, you can bow all the way you want, the driver will not stop and let you in.
Or at lunch time: it's at 12:00, so you drop whatever you do and go to lunch - never mind that half the fab is also going and there are long lines to the food. Would you go 10, 15 minutes later, there's no line and everything would be much more relaxed, but, no, 12:00 is lunch time, and it's at 12:00 you're going to stand in line for your Ramen soup of whatever there is today with the rice.
BTW, the other half of the factory goes at 12:30 - perfect repeat of the first round.

Japanese food, by the way, I do love. It is not as expensive as one would think - though, of course, there are ways to spend loads of money, if you want. And normally it's also very good. Of course, if you don't like fish, it might get a bit more difficult to find something, but there is plenty of other stuff than Sushi and Sashimi. What I love is to order (or rather point at the pictures of the menue and holding up fingers on how many of whatever you want) loads of little stuff and then share around. Most stuff is brought at the same time (no matter if there's enought space on the table or not) and you just pick and choose what you like. Sometimes, you might get something you don't like (like Nato ... brrrr), but if you're lucky somebody else at the table is more than willing to take it.

There's a lot more stuff on Japan, like the three store parking garage next to the hotel I'm in, which is only for bicycles, or my pondering that only a man could have designed the school uniforms for girls - really, those mini skirts can't be healthy - but for today I think this is enough.

Ah, one more thing. I've finished the little Kiwi bird last night and started on the Penguin.

Sayonara

Big in Japan

Sorry about the picutre less, short blog.
I planed on an updated on Sunday, but for some reason I just couldn't log in. Every time I've tried the web browser died on me. Well, just a very short update
- I finished 'Mariner's Light' on Saturday (while watching the Eurovision Song Contest with friends). I still need to frame it though.
- I started on 'Medieval Tiles' by Dracolair (originally I planed on something else, but the fabric hasn't arrived yet)
- for the Japan trip I pulled out five small kits I've bought here and there (three in New Zealand and two in UK). I've started with 'Kiwi' from Rose Alma Designs (logically bought in NZ), but didn't get soooooo much done. Who would have thought that the plane to Japan was 2/3 empty and I actually could stretch out across three seats and get some sleep.
- My new camera has arrived *big, happy grin* and I couldn't be happier. It's a Nikon D40x, a sweet little D-SLR camera and I'm sure some pictures will make it to the this blog, eventually.

Sayonara from Japan