Season’s Greetings from my snowy hometown in Nagano :-)
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2011.12.04 | Notes An unplanned visit to Coogee Beach. One of the things I love about the summer in Sydney is that you can decide to go to the beach at 5pm and still have enough time to enjoy playing at the beach, in the sun.
Had too much fun with my favorite animal-footprint-flip-flops (by kiko+) :-) 2011.12.01 | Notes I’m a fan of the Taiwanese “pearl milk tea” (also widely known as “bubble tea”) and it just occurred to me to try making one at home. What I wanted was a less sweetened version, using my favorite tea leaves with hints of honey and brown sugar …and LOTS of pearls :-)
Thanks to my Taiwanese friend Lyn who kindly got me the “raw” pearls (=starch balls), the pearl milk tea making was super easy & turned out great! In the right hand side glass are the pearls before cooked. 2011.11.29 | Notes My charming friend Zilia, a Hungarian scholar in “yokai” (Japanese monster art), was visiting Sydney and we met up for a coffee :-) Here are her books accompanied by the beautiful souvenirs she got me from Japan.
She makes a tremendous contribution in keeping an aspect of Japanese art history alive within a global context. My deep respect for her! 2011.11.27 | Notes
The mystique-looking Sydney Town Hall – with one of this year’s beautiful Christmas lights & projections. Christmas is just around the corner! Here comes the week to immerse myself in Japanese cinema, at the 15th Japanese Film Festival Sydney thanks to Japan Foundation! It’s good to watch a movie in my mother tongue once in a while :-D
I got a few tickets in advance, and so DIYed a simple folder to keep them together. It has pockets on both front and back as well as on the inside, for my four different tickets. I used the beautiful golden wrapping paper I kept off a souvenir my friend Mariko brought me from Japan sometime ago, shaping it using some origami methods (=no cut & paste, just folding). A perfect fit! 2011.11.15 | Notes The beautiful Jacaranda trees have been blooming across Sydney, turning the city into purple. They remind me of Sakura (cherry blossom) trees in Japan that color the cities in pale pink as spring arrives.
I love that purple “carpet” appearing under each tree. Made new business cards :-)
2011.10.08 | Tiny DIY Tiny DIY of the Day :-)
As I was organizing my drawer I wanted a card holder (for storing those extra cards I don’t usually carry around). So I picked up an old magazine, chose 4-5 pages that are color coordinated, cut these into strips, and “weaved” them until I came up with a card holder-looking shape. Did this off the top of my head but turned out decent! Fun and easy. 2011.09.30 | Notes Went on a quick exploration of Sydney Children’s Festival, “Sydney’s largest arts-based festival for kids”. There was a variety of tempting hands-on activities and other fun things offered for children (too bad I don’t qualify as a child anymore to experience these!).
As I’m passionate about designing/organizing children’s workshops (which I had been doing for a couple of years back in Tokyo, including taking part in Workshop Collection, one of Japan’s largest workshop festivals for children where I conducted an original drawing workshop titled “ekopii” [ah, I should post a write-up on it in English!]), walking around in this festival was particularly an exciting and inspirational experience for me. It also triggered me to rethink the concept of “workshop” and its role in society, which I (now notice that) so far had predominantly learnt and understood from Japanese materials and contexts – I want to gain a deeper understating of the Australian and international ways of such. |
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© FROM LiA WITH LOVE |
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