Handmade gifts and Tsukiji Fish Market

 I made this owl for my nephew at the request of my sister-in-law. It was because there was a little owl in a book that he kept grabbing and it was getting rather beat up. This was a replacement for it.

On the right is a picture of a baby shower gift. I used socks and headbands to make the cupcakes.



There was so much to see at Tsukiji Fish Market!

I believe this was salmon and salmon eggs or ikura.

Lots of shellfish.

 Not sure what kind of fish is on the right, they were dead and live fish.

 Extra large pieces of fish. We got to watch a piece of fish getting cut. It was very interesting!

More to come...

A Gift, Aprons and Unagi Ichinoya Restaurant

 I got this coin purse as a gift made out of some sort of wrappers, which I still haven't used, partly because it is too nice to use.

One of the women at Bernina club made and hand quilted this quilt! It was later on display at one of the quilt shows I went to.

I made the following aprons for my EA and I to use at school for our Fashion Design class. We used it for the scissors, seam ripper, and anything else we needed for the class. I use mine everyday for passes, pens, pencils, collateral that I collect from the students, etc.

One of the families we know in Japan took us to a restaurant that was serving unagi for over 100 years, but because I couldn't eat anything with gluten, this was my dinner. I had a platter of sashimi with crab and a large salad.

The unagi came in a dish donburi style. I heard it was delicious!

The name if the restaurant is Unagi Ichinoya. I don't know what the kanji is.


More to come later...

Old photos and Tobu Supermarket

Found this old picture in my files of the time we went to see Wicked at the Neal Blaisdell Center. After I took this picture, I found out that we weren't suppose to take pictures. I loved the show! It was the best Broadway show I've seen so far. One of the main characters in it was from Hawaii, which made it better.

The next two pictures are of Christmas gifts I made and have since given, since the last time I posted. A Christmas stocking for my nephew, hot pads and coasters form my mom. My nephew used to like to play with the hot pads and coasters. 

The following pictures are more from our trip to Japan. The first is of the train system. Boy, talk about extensive and confusing! Even those who live there use an app to travel on the trains. We rode the subway and the other trains. The only train we did not ride was the Shinkansen or bullet train. The hardest part was not being able to understand some of the operators when they announced which stations we were approaching, because they mumbled! Luckily, most of the trains had the names of the approaching stations above the doors and most of the people were very nice. I was even able to communicate with them using my broken Japanese.

We went exploring the next day and found a supermarket in the Tobu Store near our hotel. Yay! All the vegetables were neatly packaged. We also found sashimi, hot food, etc. It kind of reminded us of Shirokiya here. There was even a guy cooking sweet potatoes on the hot rocks!

We ended up eating meals and buying water from this supermarket...more to come in a later post.

Door Prizes, Rainbows, and Japan

 It's been a while since I've posted. The left is a picture of a half yard of fabric I won at one of the Bernina Club meetings that I attended.

The one on the right is a picture of a fat quarter that I got during an exchange at a club meeting. Each person who wanted to participate, needed to bring a fat quarter. Then we passed them down to the person on our left. We were supposed to make something with it, but I still have not used either of the fabrics pictured. Since I have gone back to working full time, I have not had the time or energy to sew much. Sigh.

 This is a picture of a double rainbow that we saw on the way to church one Sunday.

 We just got back from Japan. This photo was taken the night we arrived. We needed to catch the bus from Narita to our hotel in Kawagoe.

 The next day we went to Harajuku in the rain. It was the day before Typhoon Phanfone hit and we got very soaked. My jeans were dripping wet. I also ended up buying a new umbrella because I was having trouble fitting my old fat umbrella into the plastics provided by the stores. Each store provides these skinny plastic bags to put your wet umbrella in so that your umbrella doesn't drip water all over the floor inside the store. Each time you go in, you close your umbrella and put it in the plastic bag. When you leave you put the plastic bag into the container provided by the store. We used lots of plastic bags that day. The rain was coming down non-stop.

After Harajuku, we went to Shibuya to see the statue of Hachiko, where it was still raining. We ate lunch in Shibuya at Tenka Sushi. It was nice to warm up with a hot drink and get out of the rain. As we were leaving, we discovered that they were having a lunch time special, 100 yen for each plate of sushi! That made lunch even better!

Back at Kawagoe station, we did some exploring. This display came on a 3 pm. My daughter thinks it comes on a 3 pm daily. Anyway, there is music with drums, a float and dolls about the Kawagoe festival.

I'll post more in another post.