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.

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.

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.

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

something

something i did in my spare time.lucky for me and her, hana is liking nightime sleeps.the sticky weather i am sure has something to do with it. probably has something to do with why i would spend so much time folding the alphabet.that and i am waiting for dear koichi to get home.i made pesto today looks so yum.he is only 1 hour and 40 minutes late so far.i could spell a few words out with my new alphabet for when he gets home but i think i will just sleep.

cheerycherrycherub

i have no power to get up to get my camera off the kitchen table to download the photos onto the computer to go with this post.the words better make up for it.im waiting up tonight to buy a jesscia ogden top of yahoo auction.it is a tshirt with a print i love for ages of overlapping circles.i hope i get it although i just translated the text and found out it is a size 8.it would probably fit me if hana would decide how much milk she would like to drink so that i wasnt constantly engorged (and leaking).yesterday was a hell day.i would like to forget it but everytime i look at hana i am reminded of it by the purple swelling oval shape on her forehead.someone didnt put her belt on when she was sitting in the pram.in a restaurant i really didnt want to be in.at the time of the day i really shouldnt have been there.where the floor just had to be concrete.poor little hana.she has never cried like that before and i have never felt so sick.and mad.and she is ok. she had a hellish week.fluctuating temperatures.little sharp things popping up in her mouth all over the place.me carting her to all sorts of crowded places for my visa.i really got to take a breath. im running running.i wish i could just sit.like he does.not at all fazed by the house stuff, times. food, all of it.my sister bought me tea.the package says cheery tea. i thought for days she had sent me cherry tea.how i love cherries.i wondered why there were no cherries in the ingredients.i was warmed by how my sister had known how much i love cherries (esp as they are inseason here now) and how nobody else really knows that about me.all along it was cheery tea.she told me on the phone when she ponted out that hers was energy tea (is that right??).i gotta get cheery and still eat my cherries.and watch out for my little cherub.

biscuit

after a day in the big smoke i came home with a pack of these little fellows.the photo doesnt do its detail justice.it is about 15cm long big and its nose is a pine nut, its eyes raisins. it is sprinkled with black sesame seeds.cant bring myself to taste it.

its getting muggy here and the rainy season if you ask me has started.luckily the sun came out for a little while this afternoon to make the rainbows dance off the crystal in the kitchen. hana woke up this morning grinding her top to bottom teeth.seems like they popped out a fair bit overnight.thankgoodness i went to bed at 7pm last night so i could deal with the high demands of a teething 9mth old princess.the day got better.
in the time i spent preparing this japanese vegetable for cooking hana kept herself entertained with the tape measure magnet.100centimeters out 100 centimeters in. the vegetable is called fuki or butterbur. it has to be peeled and to be peeled it has to be boiled and then it has to be simmered in stock and then cooled and eaten (the next day).tomorrow we will eat today.

etiquette

when i bought hanas little silver shoes in australia recently i didnt really think of them as shoes.i thought of them as these little silver accessories which accentuated my daughters cuteness.when i came back to japan and we visited koichis mother she removed the little accessories when we entered the house.i thought why would you want to take them off she looks so cute but anyway... it was only when she visited our house and hana had her shoes on again (she does have them off sometimes :-) that she commented on hana having her shoes on inside.oops, thats right! id never even thought of it like that.so now they live at the front door or in her mouth (she loves to chew leather and velcro).today i bought her a pair of these maryjane socks.quite ironic.i wonder where this fits into japanese etiquette?

bored

thought i should post a picture of the new house (in my dreams).koichi visited this house in N.S.W australia designed by architect Glenn Murcutt.it is actually the owners second house.
today koichi went second house shopping with his mother.they want a house by the beach.id settle for this one by the pond.
hana and i took a walk around the lake next door to our house this morning at 730 am.in complete contrast to my surrounds i listened to sarah blasko and the veronicas on my ipod. the leaves of the maple trees made a roof of stars above our heads and the elderly people swept the leaves like they do every morning although usually i hear them rather than see them doing it.nothing really happened today to write about.i have come to that conclusion after sitting for too long at this computer when i could be doing something to call nothing.cleaning squashed vegies off the floor, eating the breads i bought on our walk (chocolate and ginger cake-did i say bread?) and what i really want to do is cut my hair which right now feels more like a straw broom and i dont need another one of those in the house.really what i want to say is i am bored shitless.

lamingtons

left overs from afternoon.not leftovers actually because i didnt begin to eat them.
the red cubes are a really intense strawberry jelly.the blue waves are a candy with real gold foil sparkles and the fish are very sweet dissolve in your mouth and make the green tea not so bitter kind of traditional japanese sweet sweets.

camera cord

its a hodge podge (whatever that means) of images taken over the past few days

kitchen window, despite the weather there is always a rainbow

that room at night becomes one big futon where hana rolls around and at 5 am crawls all over us

little girl with teeth

this morning

friends

we went to an exhibition on the weekend of artists who use masking tape as their medium.we could buy beautiful coloured tape which they had especially manufactured.the hot pink was irresistable.

hana is not impressed with the hat thing

and thank goodness for my neck she has taken to the pram :-) her neck seemed fine when she woke up too.

green

as always when i come back to japan from drought stricken australia it doesnt stop raining.although our house isnt a traditional japanese house actually its not even a house..the windows here do frame a beautiful green view of the adjacent park.hundertwasser was right in saying that colours are so much more vibrant and beautiful on rainy days.
its quite humid here and the only thing to enjoy about that is the smells coming out of and lingering around my box of essentail oils.
i took little hanny for a walk today, she was fascinated by the umbrella.not sure if fascinated is the right word but she did a good job of getting us both wet. i was so happy to find organic frozen peas at the supermarket. she hasnt really eaten peas and with her obsession for all things small and edible i couldnt resist. when we got home and after steaming them it was such a pleasure to drop them on her tray and watch her pick them up and eat them. that was today's highlight.watching her little fingers dancing with green peas.

here

well its been a long time between posts.so long in fact i dont know what to write.
and the cameras broken and the baby has a cold so i shouldnt really be here right now.

print

it took me a week but i have finally tested out the print goco machine i bought from a flea market last weekend. i forgot how much i love the suprise each time a print is made and how addictive it is.as for the design it is very similar to something i made before called junglegym and well i couldnt get a really clean and clear print so i decided to go with the grit and embrace it.no idea what i will do with all these papers but gee it was fun. hana gave to about 20 minutes of printing pleasure and it was definately long enough to get that little fire in me burning again..



i wish i could say hana looked this happy after i had tried to distract her with one hand as i printed with the other but she didnt. i am happy though to show you her beautiful smile which i finally managed to photograph.her big cheeks are rosy and so much water runs from her mouth but those little teeth are still hiding away (deeply?) in her gums.

cucumber

i had my camera at the supermarket today and couldnt resist this.just what you want for valentines day right? heart shaped cucumbers.......koichi actually loves cucumber especially pickled.the thought should stop there.i wont buy a innocent cucumber forced into being something else and then further torment it by pickling it.

snail

i just lost a verrry long post about nothing in particular but i have no time to write about nothing in particular again so in brief......
have two pouches and one sling.
hana loves being carried allll day.
back is broken.
pouch is adjusted and worn correctly.
hana is just heavy.
back is broken.
search long and hard for the right pram.
conditions being must be light, can be pushed facing to and away from baby, storage space.
see kate spade pram (for maclaren).
fits none of the above conditions.
is green blue and white primarily.
is quilted fabric.
has a very cute appliqued snail.
bought it.
hana doesnt mind it but still wants to be carried.
today pushed home empty pram and carried happy hana in sling.
pram becomes trolley and walking stick on wheels.

Hana Hana

little hana and her new friend that her obaachan bought for her after insisting on their similarity.....they both squeek..
today i completely exhausted us both by travellling across town to take back my new coat as the button fell off. only after i unsuccessfully tried to swap the coat for a new one as the button cannot be replaced did i realise how small a button is in comparison to how tired i became.i dont care the button is missing. our energy is far more important. buttons are sooooo small.

Elf

Well she isn t quite an elf but i had to write something to do with christmas...actually this post is about her pants.and they are green...
i found this great site (which i would give a link to if i knew how to) that taught me how to make baby pants from old sweaters.so this is my attempt.the arms became legs and the turtle neck became a belly warmer. i bought the sweater at a fleamarket for 50cents-yen. now all those sweaters that are too small for me right now ,sitting in my cupboards, are under threat...
as for little hana these days or should i say nights..she has decided it is time to scream.i have no idea how to stop her.tonight i had to laugh at myself because i was explaining to her that even though i screamed just like that when she was born i had a very good reason and she cant just scream for no really good reason. its just getting too cold to put her in the sling and do blockies.

not melting

if i were home i would be melting....but im in japan and its freezing.its also nearly christmas and my homesickness is amplified at this time of year.starbucks christmas carols just doesnt do it for me.
my camera has about 400 photos on it so to download anything will take an afternoon and i only have minutes because it is daytime and hana knows it is daytime so she knows to sleep only 20minutes maximum.so todays photo is from my mobile phone.i spent a week sitting at the kitchen table meticulously cutting away at coloured contact to make tiny christmas decorations for our big tree.sometimes it feels like i have no time and then its like i have all the time in the world.