Shofuso

I woke up Easter Sunday waiting for Zach to reveal the “surprise” he’d been taunting me with since the night before. I knew we were going somewhere around the city, it was mostly outside,  and I needed my camera. As we drove closer to the destination (in Fairmount Park) I saw one sign with several area destinations. Two of them said: Horitcultural Center and Japanese Tea House & Gardens.
Me: WE’RE GOING TO THE JAPANESE TEA HOUSE!?
Him: *grin*

I’d always wanted to visit Shofuso but for some reason hadn’t gotten around to it. For a very small fee, we could walk around the tea house (without shoes – no shoes in the old tea house and on the awesome tatami mats), wander the stone pavers winding about a beautiful garden and koi pond, and see a small exhibit of photography in the newly opened 130+ year old Sakura Pavilion down the road from the tea house. Zach had read about the pavilions being renovated and thought we might like to take a look. I didn’t take any photos of the pavilions themselves because they were very difficult to photograph, but the guy who walked us over to the pavilions and gave us a short history of them also let us into the unfinished one (there are two of them) to see the difference. It was quite impressive. I found even photographing the sparse tea house itself a challenge, but was quite glad to see what I came up with when I took the photos off my camera.

The first little room we walked past had a teapot sitting on a sort of podium. A kimono hung on the wall behind it. The next room led us to something that kinda reminded me of a bath, but perhaps was more of a kitchen with the water basins covered with wooden slats. Behind me was a bureau. There were no signs stating I couldn’t touch it, so of course my curiosity led me to start opening the little wooden drawers and moving the sliders to reveal baskets, ceramic bowls, scrubbers, and other tea ceremony supplies.

A meal was placed in front of the kitchen area and I noticed saki containers on a shelf of the adjacent wall.

I snuck a peek in a hallway shelving unit with sliding panels and found some tatami mats stored inside. Zach was impressed with how comfortable they were to walk on as we wandered the little house. A koto (Japanese stringed instrument) lay on the shelf below the tatamis.

Happy New year

I have to admit, 2011 has been quite good to me. I got a job, went on a fantastic vacation to Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks, finally chopped my hair off like I’d been wanting to for a while, have a new found love for reading from getting a Kindle for my birthday, have been able to afford nice things for myself, Zach, and others, and I stopped being a vegetarian. Things I have to look forward to: training myself to be a better runner, our next vacation we’ve already booked for Yosemite National Park (at the end of May), testing my patience and perseverance as I save for a new camera, be more creative with cooking now I’ve got two awesome cookbooks, and maybe Zach and I moving into a bigger place.

I hope all my friends and family have a safe and happy New Year’s. Here are the last breakfast photos for 2011.

Christmas

Oh goodness, where to begin. I feel as though the week leading up to Christmas was all manner of hectic as I ran about getting last minute things and working. Today is the only day I get off work. Boo. Poor Zach didn’t get any time off at all. Major Boo.

The living room still has wrapping paper and boxes spread all over the floor. The kitchen looks….. yeah… can’t even describe that one it’s so bad. I wish I had vacation time – just to clean. Ridiculous, I know.

But the holiday was very nice and we both had a great time. Zach got off work early on Christmas Eve. We drove to his parent’s house for the traditional dinner out at a chinese restaurant. His father’s side of the family is Jewish, but his dad is non-practicing. They just like to go for tradition’s sake, which I love.  Luckily the restaurant we always go to has a sushi bar, which is always delicious. We then opened presents with his family afterwards. Zach got some much wanted gun accessories for his collection and I received another cook book, which I’m very glad of since I was thinking the other day I’d like to have more to choose recipes from. A couple years ago they got me the Rodale Whole Foods Cookbook and this year I got the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. I know Cook’s Illustrated magazine has great recipes in it so I was quite in awe of getting the cookbook with all 20 years’ worth of recipes. They also got me an amazon kindle gift card so I have quite a bit now I can use towards downloading good versions of books I want.

After teasing Zach several times about opening our presents on Christmas Eve, we went to bed. (He’s such a goody-good type. He prefers opening them on Christmas Day). I took some last photos of the tree and Bijioux, laying in her bed under the tree, before we nodded off for the night.

I won’t go into detail of all we gave each other, but we were both happily surprised by what we received. I will mention I was shocked when I got a wrapped piece of paper, which was a  print out receipt for us to see My Neighbor Totoro at the IFC Center in NY on New Year’s Day! I LOVE Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli films with a passion. I’ve collected all the Miyazaki and I’m now eyeing up the rest of the Studio Ghibli catalog. We’ve watched almost all of them, but don’t have them on DVD at all. Recently all new transfers have been made to ALL Studio Ghibli films and over a week half they are being shown in NY. So on NYD we’ll be taking a bus (already scheduled/paid for as well) to NY and watch one of our favorites on the big screen. SQUEEE!  If any of my NY friends have recommendations for places to eat and maybe a couple things to do around the IFC, please let us know! We’re not overly familiar with NY so recs are highly appreciated!

After lounging about in our PJs and letting Bijoux sprawl out on all the wrapping paper on the floor (seriously, what’s with cats loving paper and crinkly things so much?) we got dressed and trekked it out to my parent’s house. Gifts were exchanged there between us, my parents and my sister & brother in law. Basically, it was another kitchen themed Christmas for us. But it’s all stuff we very much wanted/needed. We now have knives – that actually cut things! This is a new phenomenon for us.

My family confronted me on why I decided to start eating meat again, which seemed to them something truly spectacular. Unfortunately, my response was not anything that was going to wow them or anyone else. I honestly don’t have a reason for why I started eating meat again. Although my diet won’t entirely be meat meals now. I prefer to do a 50/50 with vegetarian meals I’ve been eating for the past 14 years. My dad laughed and said my response was like Forrest Gump when asked why he was running and he responded “I just felt like running.” Well, true enough, the same can be said for me. There’s no grandiose soul-reaching reason why I was vegetarian for so long, nor why I’m no longer one. I think part of me realized I was limiting myself and while I know many vegetarians would scoff at such a statement – meh, I’m ok with that.

The afternoon was spent eating my mom’s assortment of Christmas cookies, playing Wii games, playing with Mischa- my parent’s dog, and terrorizing Squirrel- my sister’s cat. A few games of Uno around the breakfast table after dinner concluded the night. At least our portion of it at my parent’s house. When we left, instead of taking the exit to our apartment back along the highway we zoomed on past and back out to the suburbs near Zach’s house to hang out with our friends.

Every Christmas day our friends Jess and Jule have friends over once family leaves their house. This can range from a small get together to a large noisy gathering, such as it was last night with roughly 25 people packed in  Jess’s room before spreading out into other areas of the house to chat. We got to see friends who we’ve not seen since last Christmas and catch up with those we see on and off. It’s always a nice gathering and a tradition I rather like. There tends to be a lot of those with Zach and his family/friends.

Several hours later we were back in the car and finally heading home. Now to figure out where the heck to put everything in our already bursting-at-the-seams apartment and somehow do mild cleaning without it feel like cleaning on my only day off this holiday season.

Another Merkel Christmas

My friends in the ‘burbs have done it again.  There is another Merkel and the Merkelettes Christmas album this year called ‘Tis the Season to be Merkel. So click the link for another round of funny holiday songs by my friends.  There’s even liner notes on the tumblr page this year for it, dripping with sarcasm that I know was written by none other than Jule.  Why the name Merkel? Well, it’s actually the last name of a friend who sings the songs, although I had to laugh when I saw what his first name was listed as in the liner notes. Actually, all the names were rather funny.   Enjoy!

O Christmas Tree

Here’s the yearly dose of Christmas tree decor photos. Like last year, I rather like these in black and white.

The day things go BOOM in the sky

I wonder if that [title of this post] is how animals think of July 4th in the US. I know my cat would most likely add some choice expletives in her description because she does not like fireworks (or lightning/thunder for that matter). She always hides under the bed or in the little space between the sofa and coffee table in the living room as close to my feet as possible.  (I then trip over her and nearly break a limb every time.)

But this year Zach and I decided to spend the day out in the suburbs, so poor Bijioux was left alone in the apartment and most likely huddled under the bed the whole evening. After spending the afternoon in a pool and then stuffing ourselves with barbecued foods for dinner we headed out to our friend’s house to set off some fireworks and then walk to the school where the main fair/fireworks were happening for the town.

Many people compare the fireworks from one year to another. I wondered how well we really remember what the fireworks were like after seeing them so long ago and if we only think they were better this year or last year.  Or is it the fact that so many people spend time with their family and friends on that holiday that good or bad fireworks become equated to how good a time we had with the people we spent that holiday with.