Saturday 27 December 2008

Subways

New graffiti.. Pretty good. The inside was all black with a string of characters leading you through. Very dark spacey and fairy tale in one.

Friday 26 December 2008

Stroll Around

Nice pond in a suburb, .innit mistah!

Thursday 25 December 2008

Fairy

On the tree, and a very late Merry Christmas ☆

Wednesday 24 December 2008

Christmas Eve

Beautiful red Poinsettia and Christmas cake, heavy, dark, alcoholic and stuffed with dried fruit kind.

Monday 22 December 2008

Winchester Cathederal


Pictures at dusk, leaving the Christmas Fayre.

Saturday 20 December 2008

Oxford Street Uniclo

Funny that in the U.K. the sign is in katakana and in Japan it's in the English alphabet. The London one looked really funky.

Friday 19 December 2008

Covent Garden Buskers

Two of a dancing and often comical string quartet, amazing that they can do all that and play so beautifully.

Thursday 18 December 2008

Fishing in the Freezing Cold

Over the Bosphorus Strait, last glimpse of Istanbul.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Tuesday 16 December 2008

Hookah Smoking

Relaxing in the evening drinking tea and smoking their water pipes.

Turkish Sweets

Were delicious, sticky sweet buttery pastries with lots of nuts. I was taking pictures in this shop, and when I  turned round and these two guys were waiting for their photo to be taken too!

Sunday 14 December 2008

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Huge, amazing it's so old, completed in 537 it was the religious focal point of the eastern orthodox church for nearly 1000 years..

Saturday 13 December 2008

Friday 12 December 2008

blue mosque and moon..


still in istanbul, i saw so much in so few days. really is the crossing point between east and west, two sides combined in one very busy city.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Monday 8 December 2008

Another morning shot

Another morning in Southampton, riding past the golf course.

Sunday 7 December 2008

Saturday 29 November 2008

mountain shape city....

is what yamagata shi means in english, and indeed the city is surrounded by mountains..

Thursday 27 November 2008

Wednesday 26 November 2008

paradise..

is the name of the run, and today it was, the sun was shining and hardly anyone around ; )

Monday 24 November 2008

at the top..

of mt. zao.. jizo-san, patron saint of travellers (or something like that), always pay a visit first time to the top in winter, eventually he'll be up to his neck in snow.

Thursday 20 November 2008

first snow...

always seems to come when i have to drive 40 minutes into the countryside to teach at kindergarten, this is an oddly designed public building, always like the way the snow sits on top of the silver ball and the red spirally stairway..

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Sunday 16 November 2008

giant pumpkin...

i HAD to take a picture of this huge vegetable, in the supermarket, late at night, with people giving the messily dressed white girl with a camera funny looks.... taking pictures in a supermarket is not something we do i guess!

Saturday 15 November 2008

morning yoga class...

waiting for students to come..such a lovely room to teach in with the straw mats, sunshine and mountain views ; )

Friday 14 November 2008

car rambling...

it's so much fun to go off up unknown tracks in the mountains....as longs as you don't get stuck..!

Thursday 13 November 2008

waiting....

for my husband to come and extricate my car from its akward postion on a mountain road....stuck again!

Monday 3 November 2008

taking photos...

while driving around...couldn't resist this sky ; )

Tuesday 28 October 2008

last mountain yoga..

for the year...ooohh was it a cold practice. but the air smelt sooo good!

Monday 27 October 2008

test drive....

up a mountain, yep, my car is really fixed this time...yippeeee!

Wednesday 22 October 2008

time to get serious...

about gourd lamp making, with some serious electronics shopping and a crash course in LED wirement!

Tuesday 21 October 2008

searching for gourds..

to make lamps, more difficult than one imagines! until i cycle past a small field where HUGE gourds were hanging, i left a note and this lovely man called and give me a few smaller ones! he wouldn't part with the giant ones...apparently he paints them in winter..

Monday 20 October 2008

supposed to be making...

a lamp from a gourd, but mine ended up a wingless goose...complete with moustache!

Sunday 19 October 2008

kaminoyama castle..

had a lovely little hot spring foot bath outside, very relaxing sitting round chatting with feet being boiled ; ) the water was HOT!

Saturday 18 October 2008

nice display of...

sake cups in a soba restaurant...soba (buckwheat noodles) was good too!

Friday 17 October 2008

overheating....

on the way back from the beach on a mountain road my poor car overheated and starting dripping bright green ooze, oh dear! i tried to fix it, but it just dripped and steamed more, it really didn't look very happy, so my husband had to leave work and come and rescue me!!

Thursday 16 October 2008

no waves....

but i loved the dotted stripe of clouds...it was such a beautiful day  ☆

Monday 13 October 2008

Saturday 11 October 2008

tohoku university of art and design..

beautiful building, reflecting the shape of the surrounding mountains..nearly full moon! they even have a funky painted bus that does the college route..

Friday 10 October 2008

kannon sama

the bodhisattva of complassion, in sanskrit her name is Avalokitesvara, and this particular version only comes out every 12 years, in the year of the rat...so i was lucky to see her, and when i did there was a group of ladies chanting, under all those ribbons in the picture below..

Thursday 9 October 2008

inside the temple..


so simple, but colourful, most of it was open ... no glass, i guess it's shuttered up in rain and snow....loved the ribbons leading to the altar and the paintings on the ceiling..