Sunday

summer


festival in the park beside our house over the past two nights.lots of drumming and dancing.children in yukata.beautiful lanterns.chirping? cicadas.

japanese slush puppy.gourmet version at fancy riverside restaurant.matcha kakigori. powdered green tea over soft balls of rice and red bean paste topped with condensed milk.tasted better than it sounds or looks.hana thought so too, although she preferred her father s version with black sugar syrup...

then close by i found the answer to my problem of what i would do if i moved back to australia.buy a citroen 2cvs and convert it into a cafe.

there is fun to be found in laundering (when it is someone elses)

and then i woke up today and reminded myself of home.

Wednesday

i love these cuttings day and night.

i love this cloth folded and hung with light behind it. the more uneven the fold the better the pattern.

i enjoy to watch hana spend her time doing what she loves most.

i also enjoy watching her do what she does least.

Sunday

vegetables and

early start to do the day and after 15 minutes of waking hana is in to it...

one of the good things about waking early on a sunday morning is we get first picks from the oragnic vegetable van which comes and parks around the corner from our house. its usually me and 5 or six middle aged women and one man with his dog who always goes for the cherry tomatoes waiting.this morning i was joined by koichi.recently he bought a nice vegetable cookbook so today it was cabbage cabbage and more cabbage.


he then went to the supermarket and bought some grapes.i like the pink box they came in.no these ones arent peeled.we put them in the freezer and eat them when they have turned to sherbert.yum.

Saturday

geoff

a yahoo japan search on geoff mcfetridge led me to a new cafe in harajuku which has used his patterns in their interior.sunshine studio cafe.right now and before before i am/ was in love with his work.we made the effort and after a few mishaps, like forgetting the map, we got there for lunch.i had intended on taking many photos but didnt.i will have to go back.we ate hamburgers, taco rice, drank grapefruit juice and ate coconut cake and listened to good music including ben lee.strange in that context as it reminds me so much of driving in rural victoria with my sister.anyway its early sleep tonight for me as these legs have done some serious walking and carrying today.i must remember to pull out the camera more often.i almost forgot, today on the train we sat next to a tshirt wearing foreign man.hana was on my knee and pulled at the hair on his arms.it was pretty funny.she hasnt really seen hair on arms like that before.quite rare in japan on men and women.hana loves to make friends with the people she sits next to.on the other side of us there were some seriously solariumed, hair extensioned, lonnnng false nailed, mini skirted japanese women and hana loved them and all their bits.they loved her and her bits too.but no photos this time.
the whale bench seat.no whale served by the way.hana and koichi trying to contain her..

the toilet room.well worth a look.refreshingly blue after the caafe is so black and white and wooden.the pattern has so many crazy stories happening in it or you can just see it like a mass of blobby shapes.

Friday

japan today


after talking to my beautiful sisters last night i decided to share more of my everyday events with them via this blog.perhaps it will encourage them to come visit me or maybe they will want to come save me.
here are our beds (futons) outside in the afternoon sun. the humidity calls for them to be sunned whenever the sun comes out in the rainy season, otherwise a little green pattern may decide to grow all over them.all year though we try to put our bed outside when it is sunny.they say it take only 10minutes of sunshine to get the benefit.apart from drying the benefit being maybe that nice smell and dead dustmites?? its not fun lugging them in and outside in this temperature especially.i would have them over the back balcony but the cherry blossoms have had a recent growth spurt and decided to pop over the railing and say hi.fine in spring but not enjoying the potential caterpillars and spiders the trees bring with them.am however enjoying the shade so i shouldnt complain, not to mention the greenery.anyway, after sunning the beds i hit them.belt them with a heart made of bamboo.a strong heart, just like mine.love to belt them.very satisfying seeing the dust come out and to get out those frustrations mainly of having to do this in the first place.

most days i take a walk to this little rice ball shop nearby.one day i will have a riceball (onigiri) shop in australia.i figure eating them everyday is studying.i am inspired also by my favourite film kamome shokudo (seagull diner).the film is about a japanese woman who makes a japanese restaurant in finland.they are not really riceballs that are rice triangles.they have all different fillings and the rice is not flavoured like with sushi rolls.my favourite is grilled salmon which is flaked and lightly salted.they also make grilled onigiri here which is delicous.on the weeked at about 730am koichi hana and i usually go for a walk to get some.they are still hot. i also like tuna and mayonaise, perilla leaf pickled vegetables, and pickled plum.im not very adventurous with my fillings.i usually eat the same ones each time.there are also fish egg ones small sausages and feremted soya beans.


and today was our first delivery from the milkman.one day he just appeared at the door with a handful of freebies and so when he came back to collect the bottles and ask if we wanted to order i couldnt refuse.im not really a milk drinker but i do like ice coffee in glass bottles.so we ordered coffee milk, plain milk and a spirulina type green thingo.my iron is so low i think it is the reason i have restless legs at the moment.the green thingo is really high in iron.koichi mixed it with half a glass of milk but i couldnt drink it in one go.i might see what it is like on cereal.i used to only be able to drink milk after eating fish and chips.and they dont serve milk at tempura restaurants here.tempura being the closest dish i get to fish and chips here.all they share in common is lots of oil.


Monday

hot

its hot. its steamy.how i went without an airconditioner before i will never know.hana sweats most when i feed her i sweat often.it is like a hot bathroom outside.i want to go out.there are huge sales on in tokyo. i dont need anything.there is cookies and cream icecream in the freezer and i cant stop thinking about it. hana is sleeping now, she hasnt woken in 3 hours. a recent record.her 530 am starts and very short daytime naps are killing me. she doesnt know why.she doesnt know how to sleep.she wakes up and is already tired.or still tired.i wnat to teach her to sleep.i dont want her to cry.i want to make something. i want to want to make something more than i want to make something. i made juice from red perilla leaves.so many perilla leaves. i have no photo of the amazing magenta juice.well no photo where you can see the intense colour.if it wasnt magenta i wouldnt drink so much of it. i dont drink that much of it.ok photo time sleep is calling me too.
hana has top teeth.

she likes to cruise with assistance

the perilla leaf ball and juice i squeezed out of it.

a little part of my house i look at often but dont really look at.

goodnight