Wow.  Three months went by fast...again.

I hope you have been doing well.  I hope you had an awesome holiday season and an exciting but not tiring New Year!

Too much has happened in the last three month so today I will focus in on Christmas and my New Year's holiday....

I use to love watching a Charlie Brown Christmas or How the Grinch Stole Christmas on TV when I was a kid in the USA but this year in Japan guess what was on TV!

Although only about 1% of Japanese claim to be Christians, Christmas is none the less one of the most popular foreign holidaysin Japan with cakes and teeny tiny Christmas trees. 

(Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan.)  

Winter vacation usually starts from the 29th and goes on till about the 4th.  (It is a bit longer for students though.)

I took a pretty long holiday.

The 23rd to today!

:-)

Here's what else I ate during the New Year holiday:

in Nagasaki

"Osechi" is a boxed meal that is filled with dishes that are made to last for a few days so that housewives don't have to be constantly cooking...we are supposed to let the kitchen rest... but you know how things are....it really doesn't end up that way!

The white bowls with the white round rice cakes on top are called "ozoni".  This is a soup that you put the rice cakes in.  Each region in Japan has their own flavors.  Osaka is miso based.  The city where my  mother is from (Fukuoka) has a clear fish/seaweed broth and in Nagasaki (where my husband is from) it is made with a seaweed and chicken broth and has lots of vegetables in it...which is actually quite unique in Japan.

I still have not mastered the Nagasaki style...

Rice cakes also show up as decorations with little mikan (like tangerines) on top.

The above are the decorations my mom had.

The flowers must include"sho-chiku-bai":

Pine-Bamboo-Plum blossoms (or Japanese apricot)

It is hard to see all three but they are there!

Speaking of New Year decorations, 2012 is the year of the dragon and this is my dragon at home!

This year I have made a motto:

Keep it simple.

and my NewYear's resolution is:

Do!

Combining the two means lots more de-cluttering this year!

I can't believe no matter how much 2stuff" I throw away there's still tons more.

Today I threw away old yellowed cards and envelopes and organized the ones that I have like so:

I had so many categories that I couldn't find the right cards when I needed them the most....I'd just keep buying and buying....

(the postcard with the girl in the kimono is something I bought in Kyoto but I do not know who painted it....)

If anybody out there would like to trade postcards please let me know!

Also, if you have any questions about my de-cluttering experience please leave a comment.  I will be posting more about my motto "keep it simple"soon!

Until then, I hope you have a wonderful January and a happy New Year!

My trip to the UK and books, books, books!

Hello.
...
Yes, I know...I have been a VERY bad blogger. SO here are my excuses and everything in between!

1. Work became really busy.  I mean REALLY busy...
2. I went to the UK!!!! in July.
Here are the pictures:

the British Museum

Spent the whole day here and still didn't get to see everything...

The weather was fantastic during my whole stay in London!

the feet of a buddha

After the British Museum, I went to a lovely antiquarian bookseller...

Jarndyce

and bought:

a 1871 edition of the Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

and a 1911 edition of Intentions by Oscar Wilde

the red book on the left is a recent buy.

It is a reproduction (facsimile) of the 1911 first edition of 

The Concise Oxford Dictionary

published to commemorate the 100th anniversary. 

It looks fabulous with the old books that I have.

The inside of the Tate Modern Museum

I spent at least 5 hours here!

London old and new.

Keble College in Oxford. The dining hall.

The dorm room I stayed in at Keble College.

I wonder who is staying there now.  

I left a copy of Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" on the bookshelf.

I had so  much fun in the UK. 

It was only a few weeks later that the riots in London started and that made me very sad...

3. In August I went to Okinawa:

and saw people dancing in the streets.

Visited Shuri Castle on my day off and found 

an interesting looking spigot!

4. At the end of August I had a few days of vacation and visited Nagasaki.  Found a very interesting structure:

that turned out to be a very long slide!

...

5. I also went to two other Prefectures in Japan (sorry no pictures) and of course Tokyo again...all for work...

But a few things arrived in the mail that reminded me of the blogging world...

first it was :

the author Lisa's bloodspot blog is here:

http://papertigertail.blogspot.com/

Finally going to start reading this now!

Which reminded me I have to write a blog on this wonderful series

but I might just wait till her new book arrives!

In the meantime check out the author's blog here:

http://cristyburne.wordpress.com/

And then IT came...

If you are a longtime blogger fan then she needs no introduction...

Tess the author of the Life at Willow Manor blog has published her first booklet of poems.

I said I would buy it if she published it and I have.  It arrived safely here in Japan just a few weeks ago.  I used to love poems but drifted away not being able to find anything new that resonated...but Patina (as is the Willow Manor blog) is filled with poems that are lovely to read out loud and lovely to read silently just like a short story.

I looked up Patina in my brand new First Edition Concise Oxford Dictionary and it says,

"Patina: Incrustation, usu. green, on surface of old bronze, esteemed as ornament. "

Hello again.  I think I am back at blogging!