Skip navigation.

BiLINGo☆バイリンゴ

Diary of an "alien" working mum

Posts tagged with "day-out"

Christmas Market in London

Monday, 11. December 2006, 23:00:31

, ,

Hi. On the weekend I went to get some secret Santa presents in London.

Here is some of the photographs I took - sorry about the quality as I didn't know how to adjust white. I added some in my 365 album too.

I read from a friend's blog that there is a market open in the grounds of Natural History Museum. On the day I went the chocolate company Lindt had a special Santa's grotto, as well as chocolate serving stand, so all the more merrier. I saw a reindeer first time in my life. Parents were eager to take the photo of their children with raindeers and a sleigh, but some young ones started crying....Must be really scary is you are 2 years old...

Read more...

13 comments

Countdown to Christmas

Sunday, 3. December 2006, 23:24:30

, ,

Finally the first week of December! I was looking foward to this weekend, as I had a place in mind to go to...

Read more...

11 comments

Nice weather for a date

Sunday, 12. November 2006, 21:24:39

, ,



"Hi, Thanks for coming a long way! Come this way, I will show you my girl friend."



"Darling, our guests have arrived."



"Let me introduce you to my girlfriend. Doesn't she look beautiful?"



"Well, darling. You look more handsome than anyone else around here."



"Where shall we have tea....Guests are not allowed to come on our lawn....What about over there?"



"Don't worry, darling. We will get our men to serve them tea....:D"

For more pictures taken in Cambridge, I will add a link here . bye

12 comments

London Open House weekend!

Sunday, 17. September 2006, 21:25:53

, ,

Hi, how was your weekend? :smile:

This weekend was something special. For one, the annual architectural event was held over London.
For two, I held a party for a friend moving back to Tokyo.
I had been busier than usual at work and was a bit under the weather lately, but this weekend was given me a good amount of energy (mentally) .

Last year I couldn't get into Gherkin (Swiss Re building) because the queue was way too long. This year the viewing was strictly limited to booking only. I didn't know that and found out the day before the places were fully booked before the weekend. :no: Never mind, but is there another chance to view the inside of the building or listen to the talks by the architect next year? According to The Times, Swiss Re Tower has been put up for sale for at least 600 million pounds!! Who could afford it???, I am interested.

So, this year, due to the time available I focused only on two buildings, Channel 4 Headquarters and Richard Rogers Partnership. I was so excited to be able to go into Sir Richard's studio. The studio offered a guided tour, so it was fulfilling and stimulating experience for me. I wish similar event was held in Tokyo too. I have added a couple of albums and you find them here. I will upload the photographs of RR studio sometime soon!

For the party, there were 10 of us, but it was a potluck party so that we all had fun over drinks and nibbles.
The party started aound 8pm but lasted until 3am....you probably wonder how we could sustain conversation that long, but we did. The only snag was that I felt my age more than the last time we had such party.
I probably need to start some sort of work out.

Anyway, tomorrow will be a public holiday (Respect the Aged day) in Japan. I've come to realize that I am lucky to have both my parents in good health. I think they are leading much healthier lifestyle than us, a kind of low calorie (similar to, but not strictly micro-biotic) diet and exercise...

Live long and prosper :spock:

5 comments

Doshi village (道志村）

Friday, 11. August 2006, 14:20:50

, ,

Hi, how was your day? :wink:

Today my father drove us to Doshi Village in Yamanashi prefecture. People from Yokohama city visit there often, as they have friendship city agreement. Although it is a tiny village it has a kind of Japanesque elements I miss often while living in England - Onsen (hot spa) and waterfall to begin with.

The water was pure and clear, no misquitos but some dragonflies and butterflies. The air was crisp and fresh, and even today the temperature only went up to around 26 degrees.

I took a long and relaxing bath in Doshi Onsen, a hot spa in the village. The price for an adult to use the facility for 2 hours was mere 500 yen (about 2 pounds 50 pence). It was lovely. While I was in the spa, others were playing outside, dipping in water and catching small fish. There are plenty camping sites nearby, so I recommend this place to nature lovers.

Here are the pics:


Waterfall


Mikey is enjoying cool water.


Can you see granite rock with a mark like a shooting target? That is called Matosama. Minamoto no Yoritomo (源頼朝） is said to be trained around here so that villagers have respected this rock.







Ulie caught some rice fish.



6 comments

Inokashira park (井の頭恩賜公園）

Thursday, 10. August 2006, 12:21:39

, ,

Hi :wink:

On the hot summer day we went to Inokashira Park. This park is where my heart was when I was studying at a uni. I was staying at my aunties place then.



I love this swan boat!


There is a little shrine at the edge of the park.


We picked Omikuji, a little fortune telling slip, and me and Ulie picked up Daikichi! (The luckiest but also a trickiest).




Totoro maybe living nearby...




Ghibli museum.

And there he is!

4 comments

Karaoke box!

Wednesday, 9. August 2006, 12:00:00

, ,

My brother and sister-in-law took us to Karaoke Box. It was the very first time for me to go to Karaoke box, and it was a real fun!!! We all enjoyed singing and drinking, sitting in a very comfortable leather chairs. It had a very private feel, but we sang in full volume. I saw diffents character in my children, they were so excited and doing DJ in English! In Japan there are many Karaoke-box like this, air conditioned, clean, reasonable price and even provides lunch/dinner/drinks. I really wish we had something similar in England.

3 comments

Tanabata Festival

Sunday, 6. August 2006, 12:00:00

, ,

The hotel we stayed in had a coach service to Sendai station, so we decided to go see the famous Sendai Tanabata Festival. Tanabata is a Japanese star festival, a traditional summer event celebrating the meeting of Vega and Altar, and the festival in Sendai is by far the grandest of all.

It was another very hot day in Japan, temperature varying from 30 to 37 degrees. In Sendai, official temperature was supposed to be around 30 degrees that day, but there were so many people it felt hotter than my body temperature!

Here are the some of pics.

One of the main shopping streets. The street was packed with people and we felt like we are on a conveyer belt as more and more people were rushing into the streets. Shops on the both sides selling refreshments too.






Beautiful handmade decorations hangs from the ceiling. We even found the world cup version!


My favourite is this one.


We had delicious Sushi lunch in Sushikan - Anago was really tasty!!!:happy:

3 comments

Koiwai farm (小岩井農場）

Saturday, 5. August 2006, 12:00:00

, ,








Dinner at a Japanese restaurant consisted of local and seasonal dishes.

No comments

Fujiwara Heritage Park

Friday, 4. August 2006, 12:00:00

, ,

A little before midnight we left Tokyo to drive to the north. We headed to Iwate prefecture. On the way to our hotel, we visited Fujiwara Heritage Park （えさし藤原の郷）, where a number of historical dramas and movies were filmed. The most recent one is Yoshitune by NHK. The popular film Onmyoji and its sequal were also filmed there.

Here are the photographs.


In this park those two films and a lot of other historical dramas were filmed.


The map of the heritage park.




Luckily, we could watch traditional Shishi odori (deer dance), which was identified as intangible cultural heritage there.



It was over 30 degrees, but these guys were dancing, wearing the gears weigh about 15kg!!!

3 comments

1 2 Next »

Showing posts 1 - 10 of 12.

January 2010
S M T W T F S
December 2009February 2010
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Favourite blogs

Japanese culture & Media

  • Watashi to Tokyo

    Mari-san's personal introduction to Tokyo and its culture (English)

  • Yamato Damacy (大和魂）

    Jeshii and Rahman's weekly video programme (updated every Friday) in English/Japanese, also available on Google Video

  • Japander

    Ever so famous and still going strong! You can see many of Hollywood movie stars acting silly on Japanese TV commercials (in English)

  • Utamap　（うたまっぷ）

    J-PoP song lyrics (in Japanese only)

  • Japanese Food

    Flickr's groop photo pool and discussion forum (in English only)

  • Japan travel guide

    All around magazine on Japan, travel guide, entertaiment guide, currency converter, all in one - handy (in English only)

  • Junk Food Mania

    I love junk food! Here are Mr Kamiya's selections of Japanese junk foods (in Japanese only).

  • Japan Today

    English forum to discuss current topics in Japan (in English only)

Language tool

  • Google translator

    You can translate a whole web page, or sections of documents in your language. As this is a machine translation, so there might be reasonable amount of errors, but at least it would help you understand texts written in other languages.

  • Space Alc

    Here you can find Eijiro (英辞郎） Japanese/English dictionary. If you want to translate Englsh words to Japanese, just type in word/phrases in the imput area (box) provided on top of the page.

  • Google scholar

    Search through journal articles, abstracts and other scholarly literature

Films, photography and other interest

  • Earth from Above

    Fuji film's degital feature on Yann Arthus Bertland photographs. Please enjoy this when you felt like travelling/flying...:)

  • Nostalghia.com

    A Tribute site for the late Andrei Tarkofsky.

  • Gadget Lab

    Wired magazine gadget column (in English only)

  • IMDB

    Internet Movie Data Base

  • Chip Chick

    NYU student's blog on tech gadget

  • Sudoku Scratch Pad

    Daily Sudoku puzzle - available in English/French

On-line Charity

  • Donate with your click （クリック募金）

    If you click the corporate homepage from the list, the company will donate 1yen per click for you to any charity they are involved with. It does not cost you anything financially, but clicking every now and then help those charities finance number o

Football

Cooking