X-mas in Germany, food and fun

 

As usual, we use to spend X-mas and new years eve in Germany with my father. We always enjoy the quiet time we have there and... of course the wonderful and delicious German food.

 

My father places the presents under the tree, Tsuyoshi is the chef of the Wine-cellar and I prepare the food. We mostly eat all kinds of fish-salad and a shrimp-cocktail, my mom used to make.

The next day we eat duck...

 

First of all, the kids prepare the potatoe-dumplings, typical for German style food (Braten).

and here is the whole meal... crispy duck, red cabbage, sauce and potatoe dumpling.

We also visited a lot of restaurants we always do, but I did not take any photos of it this time, because I already wrote about it here last year^^ 

Well, this time we drove to Darmstadt. This is the Mathildenhöhe. It looks a little bit grey and dark in Winter, but in Spring and Summer it's a more beautiful place.

We had a new and wonderful culinaric experience yesterday though...

My father invited us to the Klosterschänke of Kloster Eberbach. A historic cloister in the famous Rheingau.

http://kloster-eberbach.de/gastronomie.html

I had Riesling-soup

and goose with red-wine sauce...

the kids ate boar-meat...

and Tsuyoshi and my Dad took the deer. All of the dishes were delicious and the cloister-beer, too. I hope we can visit here in Summer someday, too. The historic buildings and the view are beautiful.

 

 

Today is new years eve and I still have a lot to prepare, so I want to wish everybody a happy new year... see you in 2012 !!!

new available postcard-sized art

Here is some availabe postcard-sized art from me. Each piece is 3000 Jpn Yen.

All paintings are originals, 10x14,8cm.

The price includes framing and shipping.

Please contact me for further information.

martoo1973@yahoo.de

*** In a private collection ***

*** in a private collection ***

Hiking at Furuyu

This Sunday, we decided to hike Jouyama (城山) near Furuyu (古湯), which is an old Onsen-village with many hot-spas. The nature here is still more Autumn than Winter...

And you can still see typical Japanese Autumn-colors...

The entrance is beside an old, beautiful Shrine.

And on the side of the hiking trail are the ruins of some medieval houses, along with beautiful japanese Maple.

Rocks in this area are very high quality, so people used them to build residences, statues and shrine-gates.

After a one hour hike we reached the top. Down there you see the village, where we started.

If the weather is good, you can see Kuju-mountains from here.

The castle was built on this spot, but only the old pine-trees remained.

Later we took a bath in the Onsen and bought some vegetables from the farmers...