pinku

Happy Holidays!!

Thank you all so much for your congrats - we had a great first anniversary and being married still sometimes so surreal - a good surreal that is! Santa even came to our house to congratulate us on Monday......um and bring us pizza. How cute is that!

So we leave Tokes today and are flying to Australia where we'll be catching up with family, friends, and doing a road trip from Mackay to Cairns to spend time here:

The beautiful Great Barrier Reef and Whitsundays

Dude I can't wait! Happy holidays to you all! No doubt I'll post a couple of times while I am home.

with much love from pinku xxoo

DazKat make it one year today!

Today is our first year wedding anniversary! Woohoo! How quickly did that year go by??! It's even kind of hard to reflect on a year that seriously went by so quickly. Big kisses to the best husband ever!!!

To celebrate, as I mentioned here earlier, we had our portrait painted by our artist friend, Tomoki. We are really happy with the way it turned out except Darin is planning to add some stubble to his face later this week! People have commented that we look slightly Japanese including the artist himself. I think it's perfect really capturing our first year as a married couple in Japan. We are looking into having it mounted onto a Japanese scroll which will probably cost one million dollars, but it's worth a try.

Here's the artist and the portrait:

And us with our portrait

And as an extra special anniversary surprise I bought tickets to this show and kept it a secret from Darin right until we reached the train station near the venue. I just told him we were going on a secret trip. He thought we were going to Disneyland, Costco or an onsen.

This is just how surprised he was:

Um and now looking at that photo, I think it might be a good idea to add some stubble to the portrait.

It was the Pixies last night in Japan, and we loved the show. This also happens to be the same venue (Studio Coast/Ageha) where Madonna played her secret invitation-only show in Tokyo last Wednesday night. I would have given my right arm (well at least a finger) to be there even though she only sang five songs. And to finish off here's a pic of the Pixies live on stage. The security was pretty lax - no bag search and there were quite a few people taking photos. Frank Black made his guitar look so tiny and Kim Deal was really smiley the whole time and even managed to smoke and drink through the whole show - impressive!

You can read about our legal marriage in Japan last year - HERE!!!

Ebay Auctions Ending!

How fast does a week go by these days??!! It's frightening. Five days until we leave for Australia but more importantly there are only  six to eight hours left on my Japanese craft book auctions on Ebay.

Go and bid now!

Have a great weekend and I'll leave you with some random shots that I've been meaning to post!!!

PINK WINNERS!!!

Drumroll.........and the winning photos of the Pinku 2nd birthday photo contest are:

Vanessa Oguchi

Hitomi Chinda

Vanessa Oguchi

Vanessa Oguchi

Congratulations to Vanessa and Hitomi - you will be receiving a special pink prize soon! My two judges....(well there was actually supposed to be three, but my third judge piked!!!) each selected their two favourite photos and they did not know who took each photo. Vanessa swept the board with her genius in capturing the love of pink BUT I must say that I truly loved every single photo that was entered and if I was a rich woman I would send a prize to everyone. Seriously. I am not just saying that. Thank you all so much for taking the time to participate!!!!!!

All of the submitted photos will be posted in my permanent pink fix folder and everyone will be credited accordingly.

A big pink thank you to you all!

Ebay Auctions!!!!

Wow, I just spent five hours listing 10 Japanese craft books on EBAY.....I am so tired - back so achey.... There is a whole array of different books but they mostly contain knitting and crochet patterns for adult sweaters, children's clothes, hats, scarves, etc. There's also a Hello Kitty xmas book, an Aranzi Aronzo felt character book (luckily I have a second copy of this one otherwise I wouldn't be selling it), and two really cute amigurumi books.

I figured it was time to part with these books and share some Japanese craft book love and they will hopefully still make it in time for xmas. They'd make a great present.

So check out my auctions here!!!!!

You can also see all of the photos in my ebay photos gallery!!

Here are the covers of all the books! Ok I'm going to drink some red wine now considering it's Saturday night and all!

In the newspaper again

The Tokyo SNB continues to attract attention from virtually every media outlet in Japan. I think we have now been interviewed by every major newspaper, most of the major tv stations, NHK radio, and the list doesn't end there. I got Darin to scan in this article coz it is really awesome. The illustrator Hiro HAYASHI has a column in the Sankei Shinbun and this week (Tuesday Nov 29) his topic was the Tokyo SNB, or rather the so-called knit cafe boom in Tokyo. This boom is seriously something the newspapers have made up - there is no boom, but it would be great if there really was one though.

Anyway, the drawing was so cool I was kind of bummed that I didn't get drawn.....too busy running around trying to answer all of the reporters questions. So anyway even after contacting me a million times, Hayashi-san did end up getting the days of the Tokyo SNB mixed up - it's actually the 1st and 3rd Tueesday of every month, not Wednesday. Here's the illustration with Tokyo SNB members: Carrie, Pinn and Andrea - way to go girls!!!!

give a little love

Um, yeah so I still haven't been able to round up all of my photo contest judges in one place, so no results yet.

Sorry, but it will happen in the next couple of weeks because two weeks from today Darin and I are escaping the winter winds of Japan and are flying to sunny Queensland in the southern hemisphere to enjoy three hot balmy weeks with family, friends, and the Great Barrier Reef. Darin and I are doing the Reefsleep and we are so psyched - it'll be my first time scuba diving and I can't wait!!!

This will be a well-earned three-week vacation.

So what's been going on at Casa Bendalok - we've been spending time with our buddies Steph and Keith who are visiting from New York. We took them to Yukari onsen in Jindaiji for their first outdoor hot spring experience and to top it all off we showed them the real Tokyo last night by taking them to karaoke in Shinjuku!!! Sadly they leave today, but no doubt we'll see you guys again soon. It was a blast......so much so that I forgot to take any photos.

Also if you are looking for a super original Christmas present for yourself or a loved one, Darin is giving away one of his paintings to the first person who donates $100 to the charity of their choice. Details here!!!

Oh yeah and last Friday night our friend Tomoki came over to our house and painted our 1st wedding anniversary portrait. I was so nervous posing and all which is silly, but it ended up being a really fun and special experience. You only have to wait 11 more days to see the painting as I will be posting it on pinku on the day of our legal marriage anniversary - Dec 12!!