pinku

Back from the dead

Gah - I have a blogging block!

Gosh since I last posted the sakura have bloomed and now the park is covered in a carpet of pale pink petals every morning - it's beautiful. To be honest I find this time the most exciting because everything is turning green - it makes me SO happy.

Darin got really sick with viral gastroenteritis which meant that he threw up three days straight and couldn't eat or drink anything even water - it was miserable but after a few hours on a IV drip all is better!! thank goodness.

our hanami spot

I took this funny photo of Darin. shadows are hilarious.

I'm nearly finished my sockapaloooza socks and the crochet skirt from the Happy Hooker. So no doubt there will be more regular posts and photos coming up.

Oh and here's a picture of Sugar just coz she's so cute. Man we have to try and take some video of her 'popcorning' at night. It's hilarious. She jumps around and gets really active at about 10pm every night - it's funny. So there's the purling puppies, so maybe I'll start a one woman blogring named Cast Off Cavies!!

Boats in the park (the little girl in the boat was taking pics of her dad - cute!)

petals in the pond

Anna R-D

Wow, I've been having a great day today. What a nice change! The beginning of this year (ever since we got back from Australia) has been a little lacklustre. I wasn't feeling it at all and being sick twice certainly didn't help. The spring weather has made me so much happier!

I got up early this morning so that I could work out at the gym longer than usual. Going in my lunch break means that I really only have 25 minutes which is just not enough. I started a new program and it was really challenging. It has made me feel good. Then Darin tells me my new bag which I ordered from Demano arrived at the house and that a torrent I have been wanting to download has finally succeeded. It was the finale of the Biggest Loser - S2. I am completely addicted to the Biggest Loser series and cry in nearly every episode. It is so encouraging and positive. The transformations are amazing. I love that a show promoting exercise and a reasonable diet is proving a big hit both in the US and Australia.

And now that I exercise in the morning, I can enjoy some SPECIAL time (as Darin calls it) during lunch. Today I had a lovely lunch with a work friend and then we wandered around the cherry blossoms at the Aoyama Cemetary which are in full bloom - right now. Here's a pic of the cherry blossoms in Inokashira Park - I took this photo with my camera on the way to work this morning.

It tops off a great week actually. On the weekend we went to Keirin with some buddies and that was an interesting experience. I'll post my photos in Flickr later, but in the meantime you can read Darin's post about the Keirin. My only advice is that I wouldn't really recommend  soing to Keirin for a date - it kind of smells of stale smoke and is FULL of old men. I ended up playing a game called 'Spot the Female' - it was hard. The only bonus was there was no line at the ladies toilets. We had one wager, guess what colour racer I bet on?

Here's a great polaroid shot of Darin taken at Keirin.

My favourite thing about Keirin was the old man food stall selling soba/udon/curry and onigiri - that's it. Oh and the free rokucha and water machine.

And on the way home, I spotted an awesome looking thrift store that is only open between 1:30pm and 5pm on Sundays - it was 4pm on Sunday. Guess what we found! Not one but TWO Print Goccos and a whole case of inks. They were originally priced at 250 yen and 300 yen respectively, but they were on sale for half price. Meaning that we walked out of there with all of that for much less than $10.

I also scored a cute vintage Japanese dress with the tags still on it for 200 yen, which I am now calling my wimbledon dress.

BUT I have been saving the best news for last. This happy spring post is dedicated to Anna Di-Iorio Reyes - the new, new daughter of our good friends, Angie and Sam. She was born on Sunday March 26th at 1:59am. Man, I am so happy for you guys and I want to come and meet Anna soon.

Random Thursday

I'm in no mood to make any sense today. I'm just gonna share a bunch of random stuff that is well......random.

Recently Jo posted about spotting some dogs in Japan wearing plaid skirts. More evidence that Japanese people take their pet love to a whole new level. When we went to pick up sugar the other day, we met her previous carer in a small animals specialty pet store for the hand over. They sell rabbits, ferrets, and guinea pigs etc. I mean dog clothes are pretty common even in western countries now, but how about ferret clothes??

You could even buy your ferret a skajan (or a special embroidered Japanese jacket) at the pet store

And then I came across EVEN MORE extreme pet love evidence in our park on Tuesday (a public holiday here in Japan). The weather was great and there were tons of little flea market stalls in the park. One such stall owner brought her pet on a leash and wearing a dress .

Yes a pig! This was a first. Here's another shot from further away. Her pig was charming all the little kids.

On another pet related note, we've started thinking about a new habitat for Sugar. The word 'cage' is not mentioned in our house. I like this one. However anyone who has ever been to our apartment may realize that we won't have anywhere to sleep if we make it this big.

And last but not least, go and check out my husband's new blog -Road to Robocco - it's a beer-related blog which will track our path towards winning Robocco. Darin also discusses a new campaign by a society representing people with Down Syndrome in Japan. I wasn't sure how to react at first, but Darin sums it up nicely.

We love Sugar!

For valentine's day this year, my plan was to get a guinea pig for Darin (and me). We've been talking about getting a pet for a while but can't have a cat or a dog according to our rental contract. First we thought about turtles, but nothing ever came of that even though we bought a turtle care book in preparation. So I started looking around at pet stores but none of the ones in Kichijoji sell guinea pigs - only super expensive pure bred puppies, kittens, hamsters and some rabbits.

Somehow I stumbled across a great internet bulletin board in Japanese where people list guinea pigs pets that they can no longer care for. One of the most recent postings was from a lady whose guinea pig had just given birth to four babies. A few emails, photos and a visit later, we decided to take home Sugar. We picked her up yesterday and bought her lots of good guinea pig food. She's still pretty small as she's only four weeks old and she's still pretty shy but she has already won our hearts. She makes the cutest little sounds when you pet her and even watching her devour a piece of apple is cute. I could barely sleep last night I was so worried about her and how she was settling in and even my dream was all about guinea pigs....

sugar on daddy's tummy eating apple

this morning huddled under a piece of towel...she's still a little scared of us.

Weekend (Feb 25-26)

Five things I did on the weekend (via Red Current)

So I have been really busy lately, but feel very guilty about not posting. So here's a list of what I did on the weekend:

1. Had C&J over for dinner. Since it was a special 'long time no see, catch-up dinner', Darin pulled out all the stops and served up classy frito pies for everyone. That was a first for everyone. I even got a frozen sara lee cheesecake (a difficult find in Japan)

frito pie

the aftermath (btw, we have switched from kirin to asahi gold so Darin can win this robot - as the website says, 'it talks, it keeps your beer cold, it opens your beers AND it pours your beers'. So as you can see the beer drinking was for a worthy cause)

2. I had a business meeting with my partners, Pinn and Taeko. I might have mentioned my idea to some of you, but it looks like it really is going to happen. I'm not going to give out any details yet - don't want to jinx it, but I'm very excited. Keep watching this space for news....

3. Went to the latest clothes swap with Pinn, Jo, Jenn, Martine and about 50 other women. Got rid of a lot of clothes and picked up some really great pieces!!

4. Cried while watching the women's figure skating finals. I hadn't watched any of the Olympics, but this was great. Every time they had a 'special background story' on a skater, I'd cry. So much hardship, so much glory. I felt like a proud mum. Glad that Japan picked up at least one medal and it was a pretty gold one too. Have any of you girls living in Tokyo ever seen an ice skating rink?

5. Daz and I found a butterfly in our apartment. At first we thought it had flown in from outside but we soon realized that it was trying to fly but couldn't . Soon the realization hit us that this butterfly's metamorphis more than likely occured somewhere in our house. It was kind of gross and cool all at the same time. The butterfly started flying all of a sudden yesterday so we released him into the wild, wild wilderness of Tokyo to begin a beautiful new butterfly life cycle.

Bonus list

One thing I did at lunch:

1. Listened to Craftypod while knitting my SockapalOOOza sock. Am down to the toe decreases so I might have an exciting sock photo for  you soon.

Four things

Part of my Valentine's Day present - I love me some berries!

spring in winter in the park - I love me some row boat action (Valentine's Day 2006)

Tagged by Lucy

Four jobs I've had:

Making sandwiches and hamburgers at a local takeaway
Call-centre operator
Translator
The 7-11 (this was my favourite by far - unlimited magazine reading time, free slurpies, time to do uni work and I really loved it when people asked what time we closed)

Four Movies I can watch over and over:

Dirty Dancing - I know all the songs off by heart....it's true
Valley Girl - I love Nicholas Cage
Raiders of the Lost Ark - I love Harrison Ford
Pretty Woman - I do NOT love Richard Gere but this movie.....a classic

Special mention: Little Lord Fauntleroy (newer version with Ricky Shroder) - used to watch this all the time with my mum

Four Places I've Lived:

Brisbane, Australia
Hirosaki, Japan
Kyoto, Japan
Oakland, USA

TV shows I love:

Veronica Mars
Project Runway/Catwalk
The Daily Show
The Sopranos - can't wait for the new season in March!

Four places I've vacationed:

China (this was a super poor student vacation when I was 20 - one of the most interesting months of my life)
Sarawak and Sabah, Malaysia (probably climbed the only mountain I will EVER climb - Mt Kinabalu)
Thailand - got married!
India - got Delhi belly!

Four of my favorite dishes:

Crepes with lemon and sugar (I will eat these until I die)
Any Japanese food (esp. miso soup, sushi, oyakodon, any nabe and Japanese-style mabo dofu)
Anything from the King Chow (my dad's restaurant) but especially the bbq pork after it comes out the oven, King Chow special chow mein, steak and black bean, peking beef, mongolian lamb and the new Malaysian curries are out of this world
Spagbog - there's nothing like a bowl of spagbog - the ultimate comfort food.

Special mention: my mum's meatloaf - thank goodness I have mastered this recipe...

Four sites I visit daily:

Bloglines
Sydney Morning Herald
Yahoo Japan Weather
My credit card website.....

Four places I would rather be right now:

Swimming outside anywhere warm
At home, knitting in bed
Travelling in South East Asia
Getting a massage/pedicure/manicure

dough-knit

I feel like a completely random post today. The weather is miserable - overcast, cold and rainy.

After reading Blue Lotus's post the other day about Doughnut Plant, I thought I'd check them out even though I have never been a doughnut fan except for those hot cinnamon sugar doughnuts that come straight out of the hot oil and into my mouth at Doughnut King at Stafford City (ok local hometown reference - sorry). Anyways, I found that the newly-opened Dean and Deluca Cafe near my work sells the glazed ones, so I went there in my lunchbreak yesterday on a doughnut mission. Ok - normally I wouldn't pay 320 yen for a doughnut, but after travelling in Australia which was surprisingly expensive, all of a sudden 320 yen seemed reasonable for a rare treat anyway. I'm not a doughnut connoiseur, but it was pretty good although I am sure it would have been better fresh as is the case with all deep-fried food. I chose the pistachio-flavoured one and the only thing I didn't like was the amaretto flavour. So today I went back and bought a vanilla bean flavoured one instead.....it was good too. Not oily, but the glaze is really sticky so now there is doughnut glaze all over my mouse. And man are those doughnuts big. The man at Dean and Deluca was insistent about wrapping my one doughnut in wax paper, then putting it in a paper bag and then putting that bag in another plastic carry bag. When I told him I didn't want a plastic bag he told me in a whispered voice that the doughnut oil would stain the bag. Shock, horror! Little did he know that it wouldn't be in the bag long enough to stain it. I have banned myself from going back now at least until next month...

FYI - you can also buy them on the Internet here in Japan.

the vanilla bean one with my hand included for scale

Continuing on in random fashion, I'm really glad that I never listed myself as a knitting blog...You know why - coz I would so get my butt kicked out of the webring for hardly ever posting stuff about knitting. However here's a knitting picture for you. It's a new ad for Kanebo that I spied (=couldn't miss) in the subway station today. Um, they are some hot knitted hotpants if you know what I mean. That can be my pink fix for January...even though it's February.

And to finish up, I started watching Project Catwalk - the UK version of Project Runway. It's pretty much exactly the same except everyone's got British accents, they've got Liz Hurley instead of Heidi Klum and they focus quite a bit on who's getting pissed and who's sleeping with who....my vision of perfect reality tv entertainment. The garments also seem a lot more experimental than the ones produced by the designers in the US version - that's just an observation.

Oh wait - I have a Tokyo craft community announcement!! AVRIL is having a week sale from tomorrow until next Wednesday. You can also buy a box of yarn for either 5000 or 10,000 yen on the Internet - I think you can choose between small or large gauge yarn.

Aus-tray-lee-a

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Today is Australia Day and I'm feeling a little nostalgic - it always happens when I am far from home. I selected two verses from the famous poem, My Country, by Aussie poet Dorothea Mackellar to share with you. I usually don't celebrate Australia Day as such but it's great to have a day to reflect on where you are from and how it has influenced who you are today. We are having a little impromptu partay at our house tonight where we'll be drinking Coopers and eating sausages. So indulge me and let me share a few more of my favourite pics from our recent trip back to the homeland.

Please disregard the fact that I am drinking a Corona in this photo.....

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!!!

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!!