Heidelberg in the snow

Yesterday we went to Heidelberg. It was the first time for me to see it with snow and it was very beautiful.

Not so many tourists were there...

We went to Vetter brewery. It has famous beer with the highes "Stammwürze" 33% !!!

And it tasted very rich and delicious.

Leberknödelsuppe (liverdumpling-soup)

And here a funny phrase on the wall... meaing "don't spend all your money for drinking, rather buy beer for it!"

Schweinehaxe with beer-sauce ^^

 

And here are some scenic spots of Heidelberg...

later we went up to the castle...

the big barrel in the castle.

 

 

Merry X-mas

First of all, sorry for not updating here so long, but before the holidays, my life was so busy. We all caught a cold, I had a water damage in my appartement and this time I needed to write about 120 X-mas cards and I still did not manage to write everybody. What a year !!! It was busy, exciting and full of new experiences for us all... we went to Singapore, moved from north to south of Japan and so much more... Looking back, it feels that it was 5 years instead of just one...

O.k but enough of this... right now we enjoy a wonderful X-mas at my father's place... so let me tell you all about our stay.

When we started from Fukuoka and took the plane to Tokyo we had a wonderful view of Mt.Fuji.

At home at my father's place the beautiful X-mas decoration, my Mom made in my childhood's days welcomed us. I will never forget when she made those pics and hang them up every December. Without them I can never get in the X-mas feeling.

 

While I prepared the X-mas dinner... mostly salads with fish, eel, caviar and the crab-cocktailsalad, my Mom always made.

 

and YES !!! We really have a white X-mas this year !!!

2011 Year of the rabbit

Due to the Chinese Zodiac, 2011 is the year of the rabbit. Right now there are NewYear cards on sale everywhere over here and I love all those colorful and playful designs. In the last days I tried my own version of rabbits and it was a lot of fun.

These here are not for sale, but I can do further commissions. Please contact me, if you are interested to have your own year of the rabbit painting. 

The size of those 3 is about B-5.

Exhibition in Ginza 23-28 Nov.

This is my final group-exhibition in 2010, in the gallery "Noah" in Ginza. Unfortunatelly, I can not come, but I want to invite everybody, who lives in Tokyo area to come and see it. Here are my works, which will be for sale there.

More Koi

Had some time to paint today, so I could finally finish another painting. Done with acrylics, watercolor and airbrush on paper.

**** SOLD ****

Kuju part 2

The next morning already began with an exciting thing. The keeper of the inn gave us some raw eggs and we drove to an onsen to boil them there.

The area is full of small spa's and there is steam and sulfur-smell everywhere...

...there is even a power-plant there, transforming the energy of the earth into electricity.

 

.

 

 

I was very surprised, because the landscape there looked a lot like central-Hokkaido.

Close by there is the largest hanging-bridge in Japan.

 

We went over it to enjoy the beautiful red-leaf scenery.

The view was awesome !!! There are different waterfalls there and with the red Japanese maple and the pines it looked totally magic.

Back home, we finished the day enjoying one of the beautiful sunsets at "our beach" ^_^

Weekend at Kuju-part 1

After so many busy weeks, we decided once again to "flee" to Kuju mountians... The drive was smooth, it took about 2 hours by car and I drove half of the way, which was really fun. I hate driving in the cities, but going by highway is nice.

Kuju is just breathtaking beautiful at this time of the year... you see reeds swaying in the wind everywhere and this white-soft colors combined by dots of red maple-trees and oddly shaped pines and elm-trees together with the Autumn sun is like a dream...

I tried to catch the view several times with my camera, but it's difficult, because you will never geht the whole panorama and the soft light with it totally...

Gentian ^^

and the "black dots" are cows.

 

since the weather was great we hiked up to misokobushi-yama.

 

and enjoyed the breathtaking view there.

During our Summer-vacation we were on two of those mountains you see here. The steam between are the hot-spas there.

Here we are at the little Onsen-village close by.

Here is the Utaseiyu-onsen. Water falls down from 3m and you can sit under that waterfall and get a massage with hot onsen water. After our hike this was wonderfully relaxing. I felt very refreshed afterwards. 

At the other side of the road, a shop sells cool and refreshing drinks. Just the right thing after a bath in the hot-spa.

Here is a shot from one of the beautiful decos of the inn, we stayed at. The inn was beautiful and very "traditional" and old...

...and the dinner was delicious !!! I definetelly want to stay there again.

Catching up...

Here are finally some photos from the group-exhibition in Fukuoka. 

unfortunatelly, I could not be there very often, because I caught a cold and felt very tired and exhausted and I was also busy with the kids and my family. But I met wonderful new friends and other artists there and I hope we can all keep in touch.

My art was also featured in the Blog of Motomura-san. The director of an art and design community here in Kyushu. You can check out his blog here:

http://taigart.seesaa.net/

And the article about me is here:

http://taigart.seesaa.net/article/167351514.html

On Saturday, we hiked up to Takasu-yama.

The view and the ancient trees up there were beautiful. It gave me some rest and I finally felt relaxed again.

After such busy weeks and events, it was what I needed most... being in the nature with my family.

In the evening we went to Tenjin, stopped by at the exhibition once more (whcih was great fun again) and then we went to town and discovered the Kirin beer pub. The food was delicious and reminded me a lot of Hakodate beer hall.

 

We enjoyed the little snacks and smoked chicken there...

before we went on to another great place, the Spanish Tapa restaurant, "Bar Mar".

Anyway, it was a great weekend and exhibition and now I hope for a calm November, where I can finally catch up with letters, mail and painting.