Morning glory

Today, I made a pouch with an applique of "Asagao", morning glory.
I like this flower very much. The "Asa" means morning, and the "gao" means face. It is a flower that blossom in the morning. There are also "Yuugao(evening glory)" and "Hirugao(afternoon glory)".


By the way, I put thin adhesive interlining on a cotton, and cut it as a shape of morning glory.
Then, I appliqued them on a cotton and made it as a zipper pouch.

Asagao has a star at the center!

A walk in Kawasaki

Kawasaki is a city between Tokyo and Yokohama.
Now, I'm learning to be a volunteer guide and today I went to Kawasaki in a lesson. Some volunteer guides led us around Kawasaki.

This is a picture of the oldest elementary school in Kawasaki. It is more than 100 years old.

This is a tiny street of old style bars. I like this kind of narrow street very much.

This is a temple near the station. Today we visited some temples to know the history around Kawasaki.

I found a cat sleeping. But when I was taking pictures, I waked her/him up. I'm sorry...

This is a small plate in a temple and it teaches us the bond of a couple is most important for a family.

This Buddha is build as an unknown person's grave.

These are guardian deity of children in front of the Buddha. There are lots of these set of 6 statues in Japan, and they are always hooded.

This is a small dog statue in a big Shrine. It's really cute.

At last, we arrived at a big river. The other side of this river is Tokyo.


Today was a best day for walking! The autumn in Japan is dry and mostly sunny! I like this season very much(Also, it's best season for eating).

Onigiri, Rice balls

For the lunch of today, I made some Rice balls.
The best Onigiri for me is the one with only some salt. I don't need any filling or any seaweed. Because I like the taste of rice very much, and I like eating them with some other small dishes.
Today, I had some ideas of Onigiri, so I put fillings to all Onigiri.
The left one has dried bonito flakes, smoked cheese and a bit of soy sauce.
And the center one has wakame seaweed, sesames and saled cod roe in the center.
For the last one, I flied some leaves of Japanese radish, bacon and a piece of garlic. I tasted it with some soy sauce and mixed them with rice.
That's all.
Oh, I found the other dream. It's to open an Onigiri shop in Italy!

Yokohama Jazz festival

Every October, there is a big event of Jazz in Yokohama, "Yokohama Jazz Promenade".
This year, it's the first time for me and my boyfriend to go to the festival. Because we missed the schedule every year, so we haven't seen it yet.

It is held in two days, and there are a lot of venues where we can see Jazz performances. If we had paid for a ticket to see the performances in some halls or some Jazz bars, we could see some of them. Because we didn't buy any tickets, so we could see only performances on street.
But there are a lot of places of free performances, so we enjoyed them in two days. The bands on free performances are all amateurs, but some of their performances were very good.
In the first day, we went to a park in the middle of business buildings.


The event began at noon, and when it ended, the sun has already set.
There were fewer audiences than the afternoon, so we couldn't leave there...
Even kids and dogs were enjoyed the performances.



The second day, we went to another place, on the big street near the port. There are lots of ginkgo tree around there, so when the wind blew, it smelled...


At last, we went to a subway station to see the last performance. I enjoyed this performance the best, because it sounded like rock.



In California, I could see many street performers every day. But in Japan, I can see very few of them, only in some particular places. So I like this kind of events very much.

A walk near Yokohama station

Yokohama is a very big city and there are a lot of buildings. But we can find nature and old districts in this city. So we like this city very much.

This is one of my walking courses near Yokohama station.
At first, I found a building like the Lego brick.


It's one of new condominium buildings. These days, they built a lot of big condominiums, and the sky I can see is getting narrower and narrower.

Under my foot, there were brown fallen leaves.


One water bus was going to the station. I waved my hand to them, and a child waved back to me.


We walked along the river. There are some wood decks to relaxing, and many benches to take a rest.


After the river, we walked to an old residential district. There are many small houses and we met some pretty cats.


They wanted to be touched. So lovely small cat.


I found other cats. There were a lot of cats around there. We found some foods for cats along the street. Maybe people live there feed them.


She is also living there.


When I looked back, I could see the new condominiums near the station.


A boy was fishing.


Then, we went across the rail of freight trains. There is a central wholesale market of Yokohama near there.


I checked my height with a scale of a kindergarten.

Also, my boyfriend checked it.


At last, we arrived a small park by the sea. We came here because I like staying near the sea.


The sky turned dark soon, and we became very hungry, so we entered a small chinese restaurant.



I hope you like these pictures.

WAGASHI -Japanese confectionary-

Recently accessories of sweets are very popular in Japan. But most of them are western confectionary like cakes, macaroons, pies etc...
I like them but I also like Japanese confectionaries very much. So I made some plushes of Japanese confectionaries.


These confectionaries are not only delicious, but also very cute.
Among them, I like the cherry cake very much. It's with a salty cherry leaf and it has a very good smell of cherry.


Then, I made some Kompeito. It's sugar candy and originally from Portugal.
I like the shapes very much, but it's difficult to make.
I tried some ideas and made up them.



It's my pleasure to make my favorite foods.
I want to make some vegetables, next time.

Chestnut

Two days ago, I found some good chestnuts in a small vegetable shop near my house.
There is a very big dog in the shop and he is its poster dog.

We bought a bag of chestnuts.


I wanted to cook rice with chestnuts. It's the taste of autumn for me.
At first, to peel chestnuts easily, I boiled them with pressure cooker. Then, I and my boyfriend peeled them one by one.
I put rice, some soy sauce, salt and peeled chestnuts to the rice cooker. That's all.

Then, I made some sweats with the rest of chestnuts. In a small pan, I put chestnuts and a little water and some spoons of sugar. Then, I cooked them for a while. I put them to a plastic bag and mushed them with my hand.
Then, I made the shape with plastic wrap. I put a spoon of chestnuts on the wrap and hold it and twist the wrap. That's all.

I made them with my boyfriend. Because we have no jobs now, we can cook together. I like this time very much.