Porcelain

I have some friends who are quite the artiest. One of them paints on the dishes. She paints beautiful flowers. Roses are her favorites. The large plates on the wall and on the cupboard are just gorgeous. Well, owing to her friendship with us, I go visit her with some other friends of hers and learn a bit of porcelain paintings.
It's like painting on papers in one way but is quite different in another. The more you move your brush on the same spot using same color, the more you'll find your brush takes off the color on a plate. No matter how it is, I enjoy this get-together. I enjoy porcelain and to tell the truth I love our "lunch time" and "coffee break" updating our daily-life.

Hina-Arare

Valentine's day is over. Now every store which sells Japanese sweets(Wagashi)is ready for Hina-Arare(small cubic rice crackers)of various flavors, and Hina-gashi(Japanese sweets made from beans and grains) for the coming Dolls Festival for girls on March 3. This is our next fun.
The Dolls Festival is especially for girls and this custom has a long history. Nowadays many family with girls decorates the set of dolls with ancient costumes to wish their daughters' lifelong happiness. We decorate some Hina-arare and Hina-gashi next to the dolls for offerings.
Here are some Hina-Arare and Hina-gashi which I got from the different stores. They are so adorable to look at and worth decorating by the day of March 3.
I packed some of them and sent it out for my daughter studying in Kyoto.
I can easily imagine how she looks when she finds all these Hina-arare in the box.
Eventually women love the Dolls Festival no matter how old they get.

Blogging from my mobile

I'm now on the way to one of my friends. The weather is changing every
minute. Windy and Sooooo cold.

The way we have the Valentine's Day in Japan

One of the Japanese confectioneries had brought about this western culture into our society almost fifty years ago. But they somehow moderated it. What they did is that they promoted the Valentine's day as the very special day that women can confess their love to someone special with a box of chocolates. Since then every year women of all ages have been so anxious to get prepared boxes of chocolates for this day. In fact every chocolate manufacturer put varieties of fancy chocolates into markets and we all happy to visit every department stores and shopping centers to pick up your favorites. Indeed all the chocolates corners turned to be colorful and fancy stages. It worth of visiting and looking around. Nowadays women's giving chocolates to men on the Valentines day is so widespread and get popular among friends and company colleagues and staffs and even in families to show their appreciation.
I bought two boxes of chocolates from different chocolatiers for my husband and my son. Here is still one left with me. It's the one for my husband. I'll keep it until he gets home from New Deli, India next week. I can't wait to hand it out to him and enjoy fancy chocolates together at coffee time.

Happiness is doing something I'd love to

I wish I could draw. I enjoy drawing once in a while, not very often. I enjoy it for my own sake. Since I am not a regular painter, I don't have enough good tools. As a matter of fact, I paint on my lap top computer using a soft for drawing. Changing a mouse to a pencil, it's much easier to draw. Thing is that I don't have enough time to draw. If only I had abandoned all those house chores one day and spent the whole day in anyway I like, it will be such a treat!
Whenever I stroll around the books at the shop, I always stop at the corner of books of drawing. I've found this very cute little text book for illustrating. There are lots of model drawings and with some tips for drawing on every even numbered page, a reader is supposed to draw his/her own on every odd numbered page on the right.Isn't it neat? So I bought it and now in between house chores at the kitchen table I open it and with a pencil in my hand, I enjoy it. Gee,it's really fun and I'm enjoying letting time pass for one of my favorite things.

What a magic!

A friend of mine, who visited Cappadocia, Turkey in Dec. gave me a souvenir.
It is an "Instant Fruit drink---Apple Tea".
I didn't forget about it but it was just the matter of timing to open it.
So today I felt like trying this special tea which my friend brought back with her as a souvenir all the way from Turkey to some of her dear friends who are anxious to get something nice from her.
When I opened the bag, I was so much surprised to see all the white powder inside.
How could you dare to call it a "tea"? Is this some kind of a joke?
Being skeptical for what I'm looking at at this site, I just followed the direction putting two spoonful of this apple tea powder in a cup and poured hot water onto it. See what had happened? Two spoonful of this white powder turned to brown---the color of what I understand as "tea" in my life.
How exciting! It surely gives everyone in my family a nice surprise and enjoy it.