You gotta love Japan…this is from the official government website (Ministry of the Environment)

Visiting Japan last summer was so much fun, but one of the problems we ran into over and over was trash disposal. There are no single trash cans, but stacks of bins for recycling. Which is wonderful, but it was the one time my sister and I really couldn’t figure out the pictograms. I had several days where I got chastised by old Japanese ladies about trying to put something in the wrong bin, and wandered around all day with trash in my pockets.

Point being they are very environmentally conscious. I really would love to print this out to frame…I have a lot of Christmas bags I’ve made through the years to try to cut down on paper waste, but this is a much easier soltion.

I spotted this book over on the Something’s Hiding in Here Blog. This is sooo Japanese.

From the Check and Stripes book

When my sister and I visited my brother last summer in Tokyo we definitely noticed we were overly colorful…everyone there in western style clothes was so muted. Navy, cream, lots of linen. The most fascinating thing was that a lot of the teenagers dressed in the traditional yukata when they went out to party. I have a few my grandmother bought when they lived over there…eventually I need to pull them out and do somehting with them.

I bought several Japanese sewing books while there. They are all incredible. The bookstores had huge selections. All of them are about the same size, and range from traditional to western. All for under $15 dollars US!

My favorite thing was that so many of the upscale department stored had sections that specialized in trims: lace and vintage buttons.

This is a total substitute today. I had planned on sewing all day, but Little-Sis was up all night with a stomach bug, which means I was up all night too. I have learned not to cut up things while sleepy.

We’ve had a busy week…spring break and all. We’ve been learning about quilting this week, so a lot of sewing. We checked out a ton of kids books on quilts from the library, and spent an afternoon looking at all of my old family quilts. Here’s the rundown.

Monday: The husband’s family stopped by for several hours. We had scones and tea.

Tuesday: The husband took the day off to work on the new room we’re adding on. More on that in a latter post.

Wednesday: The girls and I went out to the park, and library and fabric store. I’ll be honest, the park and library were totally a bribe for good behavior at the fabric store.

Thursday: we went to the Valentine Museum here in town with my parents. They have a lot of textiles and we were hoping to see some quilts, but not much in that vein was out. Then over to St John’s church…it’s where Patrick Henry gave his “Liberty or death” speech. That part was sort of a hoot. There were at least 7 guys dressed in colonial garb. They were doing a reenactment of the speech for a reporter from the Pilot & Ledger Star. We skipped the speech, but the girls still liked all the “old fashioned” people.

It is from a pattern I made a while back. We’ve adjusted it so it has the exact right amount of twirl.

And as a funny postscript today she asked if we could take creme-brulee into school instead of cupcakes. Hard to say no, but I do not think they’s appreciate the blowtorch.

My sister lives in Santa Monica, but frequently gets to travel to San Francisco. So I am prematurely and vicariously planning what I will do next time I visit.

Britex Fabrics

Oh well, winter break is over. Back to the grindstone…

We had a great weekend. It’s one of the things we love about Richmond…we’re close enough to get to most of the cities on the east coast to make for easy time for a weekend trips.

Sunday we went to all the memorials…Lincoln, World War II, Korea. Tucked away we also found an old one for the World War, before there was a second one.

 Eventually it started to rain, so we had lunch and cut out. Stopped by Ikea on the way home to look at kitchen cabinets…we just started the addition on the kitchen last week. I’l post a picture of our current one ASAP so you can see what we’re living with.

Some of my favorite things:

• Mexican Hot Chocolate at the Indian Museum-it had hot pepper in it so it was spicy
• Tiny bookstore at the Lincoln Meorial-all Linloln all the time
• Sculpture at the Library of Congress-I really wanted a book about the archetecture of the Library building. You know, something explaining all the details. They had a great booksotre, but nothing about the building itself. Like this:

The husband and I are on a road trip to DC. Want proof:

Us looking goofy

So far we’ve been to the Indian Museum, Library of Congress, Capitol Building Grounds…basically all the things we don’t get to do when we have the girls along. No dinosaurs this weekend.

Library of Congress

Indian Museum

More Library

So far the Library of Congress has been my favorite. As a kid my dad was stationed at Ft. Meade MD for three years, so we did DC quite a bit. At the time he was working with the national guard and one of the guys was also a secret service agent at the White House, so when we visited we got to see all the inside stuff, like the oval office and the security rooms in the basement. I am sure now that would all be totally off limits. Even then security was pretty tight…I remember my little sister’s Kermit the Frog doll getting frisked.

So we always had to go see the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum. Yawn. The Library of Congress is amazing. I had no idea the architecture was so incredible. These are all of the Jefferson building.

My dream is to one day have some need of checking something out to read int he main reading room…historical knitting copywrite anyone?

I’ve been playing with Google Maps

I thought this would be a fun way to keep track of knitting stores. I even included Toku-Hands that we visited last summer in Tokyo.

I am back from Japan. It has been a great trip, but I am really ready to be home. This is the longest I have been away from the girls ever.

Japan is the motherland of crafting. There is such attention to detail in everything.

We spent the last two days in Kyoto. Our sister-in-law Masae arranged a traditional Japanese hotel. We ate dinner in the room on the floor-Japanese style.

Kyoto was very interesting. Many more foreigners there. I think since so much of the old areas are preserved, and with all the books and movies about Geishas in the past few years it is more of a tourist hot spot.

We got to see the Kyoto O-bon festival (see the Wikipedia article …they have a better picture). The symbol here is for big. They light these in torches on the surrounding mountain sides. This is to say goodbye to all the spirits of the ancestors that visit this week.

Masae arranged for a taxi-tour guide on Friday. He spoke great English and was quite a hoot. He asked where we wanted to go-we gave the polite Japanese answer-”wherever you think is best”. This is a big tip if you travel there-you have no opinion and learn to go with the flow. Also, be prepared for raw squid for breakfast. Not a fiber oriented cuisine.

So he drove us quickly by the Gion (Geisha area) and seemed to hint that this was a tourist spot. We spent the rest of the day visiting temples.

(Mee looking tired holding a fish-head)

I tried lots of new stuff. I used a traditional Japanese toilet…I know TMI. I ate things with eyeballs still in them. I got to see a Keirin bike race. I went to the fabric district. I got whispered about in foreign tongues.

Keirin Race-notice the color coordination of the uniforms!

Oh, here’s some of the traditional fabric:

There is an entire area of fabric shops. Most were closed due to O-bon, but each had a specialty. Imagine if you will, one store for knit fabrics, one for quilting, one for suits, one of quilted fabric for children’s jackets. IT went on and on-just as well they were mostly closed…it would have been hard to get me out of there.

I’ll post some more pictures in the next few days. I got several Japanese sewing books and some yarn that is already half a sweater. That’s the other great thing about international travel…lots of knitting time.

Here are some of the photos from the temples we’ve seen.

The Meji Shrine is a Shinto shrine:

It is in a park setting surrounded by trees. It is hard to believe it is in the middle of Tokyo.

And the Asakusa temple compound is Buddist:

This shrine compound is very large. It has a five story pagoda.

The amazing thing is that this is right in the middle of the Asukasa neighborhood. This is one of the few old parts of the city that are preserved. The market runs right up to the gates of the temple compound.

The story is that two fishermen dragged a statue of the godess of compassion out of the river sometime in the 600’s AD. The temple was built around it. Noone is allowed to see the statue, so the story goes that you do not know if it is really there, you just have to trust that it is. Interesting to think about practicing faith in such a way that you have to learn to trust in compassion.

The interior of the temple.

We are here!! My sister and I arrived Saturday afternoon (about 3 in the morning East Coast time). Tokyo is amazing. Where to begin.

 First, the city is amazing. It is so clean, and people are so nice. We are quite lucky since our brother Bo both speaks and reads Japanese. This could be a bit overwhelming without a tour guide.

Sunday we went to Shibuya with Bo and Masae (his wife). This is a shopping district a bit north of where they live. It is right next to the Harajuku area…we saw several of the kids all dressed up. This has actually been one fo our first observations. People are much nicer dressed than most folks in the US. Much more fashoin concious. At teh same time that seem much more accepting of people doing their own thing. A lot of the women use umbrellas to protect from the sun.

 Then there are the department stores. They make Saks feel like the local K-Mart. Clean. And they sell everything. Each has one floor that is dedicated to food. Sort of like a food court, but much higher quality. Fresh fruit and meat. French pastries. I need to get a photo before we come back, it is incredible.

We went to one yesterday called Printemps. (Go ahead and look, I’ll wait. I know the Japanese is hard to read, just click) At least 7 floors of goods. Mostly woemen’s clothes and house hold items. Sally got some snappy shoes, and I bought some gifts for work folks.

 The interesting thing is that even in the department stores they have a lot of areas that sell crafting type items. This is the button section in Printemps, in case you want to embellish what you buy. They had different areas that sold lace trim and other things like that.

Then there is Hand Messe. Forget going to the Pyramids at Giza, this is makes the trip of a lifetime. It has 24 levels. Each specializes in one type of this. Like handcrafts, or stationary, or lumber, or Halloween costumes. 24 FLOORS. It bills itself as the “Vreative life store”. That is is. It even has an area that sells labratory equipment.

I bought enough Noro Kureon to make a sweater. and some time clover needles.

More tomorrow on the temples we saw yesterday.