Winter in Fukuoka

I'm often asked "How is Fukuoka in Winter?" Well, when you look at this, you hardly think of X-mas or Winter, although this pic was taken last weekend.

but, it can get quite cold, as you see here... this was 2 weeks ago at Aburayama and it also snowed down in Fukuoka.

and yes, even it's hard to catch the X-mas mood, because of green trees, palm trees and Sasanqua blossom, we DO have awesome X-mas illumination downtown.

and the even better thing is, it's also still mushroom season.

This is Pleurotus ostreatus, Oystermushroom.

and here this was actually my very first find of Catathelasma.

In Germany, it's called "Hartpilz" or "Wurzelmöhrling". It can be white, but there is also an orange color type of this species.

Already too old to eat, but I will pick it next year.

Oh and while we went downtown Tenjin, we discovered a new and delicious restaurant.

It's specialized on Salmon, smoked with Bamboo coal.

The restaurant is quite new, the personnel friendly, excellent service and the food is totally delicious !!!

It's called "Bambù Salmone"

Please check out the homepage for further info:

www.bene-p.jp

We will go there again ^___^

Back to art again :D

Some of you wondered, what has happened to my art...

don't worry, I don't intend to stop, I just was so busy this Summer and Autumn, but now I'm back.

I just finished a comission for a wonderful friend.

A portrait of a lion 60x60 cm, Acrylics on thick paper...

Was my first Lion and it was so much fun to do it.

If you want to comission me, please contact me:

martoo1973@yahoo.de

 

After X-mas I will also work on a piece for the Spring Exhibition in the "Tokyo metropolitan museum", so stay tuned ^^

Mikaeri waterfalls in Saga

These photos are actually about a month old, but I never had the chance to upload them...

This is Mikaeri waterfall in Saga and it's really a beautiful spot. Nearby is an Onsen and we took a bath there after our walk.

And on our way back, near Raizan we found a lot of "Akebi". Those are fruits of a vine, which climbs the trees.

The fruit is outside very bitter, but the pulp with the seeds is very sweet.

If you fry the mantle of the fruit, the bitterness goes away. Anyway, we were very lucky...

due to weather conditions there were only a few Akebi in other places, but here we found so many.

 

Mushroom hunt in Karatsu

Last weekend we went to Karatsu area and picked a lot of mushrooms.

On the left, there are Suillus luteus and on the right Suillus bovinus.

Suillus luteus fir perfectly with Misoshiru (miso soup), while Suillus bovinus make very good cold pickles. They turn violet, if you boil them and they also tase delicious with "Ikura" (Salmon eggs) and a little soysauce.

Here, I cooked some japanese/european tapas with them.

Photos from my cooking-class

Thanks to the EU Association in Fukuoka I was able to give my first German cooking class this weekend at Shokubunka Cooking studio

http://www.syokubunka-studio.jp/

There were about 20 students with 10 of them I cooked German food (Potato salad,

potato soup and Jägerschnitzel with cream sauce)

and 10 of them learned to cook Spain cuisine from their spanish teacher Maribell.

Unfortunatelly I forgot my camera, but Yoko-san, one of the students, was so kind to lend me the pictures she took.

Yoko-san, arigatou :)

Here you see the Schnitzel and potato salad... we had great fun preparing everything and the people from the EU Association did a great job, organizing everything.

Here is the Spanish food, which was delicious, too.

Hope to do this again someday :)

Muu-chan speaking ...

Here are some videos with Muu speaking German... ;)

"Na kommste raus...oops!"

 

"Dann kommste rein!"

 

 

"Naacht, gute Nacht"

 

 

Visit at Nokonoshima

A while ago, we went to Nokonoshima again. It's an island across of Fukuoka and you can reach it by a ferry not far from our house. Here you see the skyline of Fukuoka.

And this is, what Nokonoshima is famous for: The beautiful Cosmos Park.

Those flowers bloom in October and I was lucky to see them at full bloom this year.

Autumn Exhibition in Tokyo

Sorry for my long silence, but I was busy and I post a lot of personal stuff on facebook now...

But here is the info of the Autumn exhibition of "Salon Blanc" in Tokyo.

I will fly to Toyko tomorrow and I'm already looking forward to see all my friends there and of course I will post pictures from the show here. 

Here is my entry for the show. :)

After such a hot Summer, I wanted to paint something cool and refreshing.

Done with airbrush and acrylics on wooden board. Size is 60x80cm.

Original available

Rüdesheim and Storks

Yesterday, we drove to Rüdesheim. About 13 years ago my husband and I met here for the very first time, so this place will always be special for us.

From the city we took the ropeway up to the Germania statue...

...and enjoyed the view over the wine-fields, Rüdesheim and River Rhein.

In the evening we wanted to take some pics of the countryside near my hometown...

...and we were lucky to see a lot of storks there. They just recently became more and more common in this area and they remind me so much of the graceful "Tsuru" (Japanese Cranes).

Mushroom hunt in Germany

Here we are, spending our Summer holidays in Germany (Hessen) this time. Fukuoka was so hot in these days (37 °C and high humidity), that we could not do anything outdoors at all, so here we enjoy to take some walks sit outside and simply relax...

... and of course we instantly went to the forest to look for mushrooms... not too much there, some Russulae and old boletus,

but yesterday we discovered a "Tonbimaitake" / "Riesenporling" (Meripilus giganteus).

In Germany people hardly eat them, as those mushrooms seem a little bit like leather,

but in Akita it's one of the most expensive and apprechiated mushroom.

Best is to cook it like "Schnitzel" or "Karage" and fry it...

And it really tasted wonderful, like calf-meat... I hope we will find some more of these mushrooms.

Natsuyasumi / Summer holidays

Sorry, for not updating here for such a long time. It was mostly raining here with 30-32 C and we mostly survived the weekends resting and doing Onsen. This time rain-season really was heavy here.

But nevertheless, we found some of our fave mushrooms, called Tamagotake in Japanese.

And here is a recent pic of Muu, wo still loves to chew on my O-mamori.

He learned speaking a lot of new words, like "Na kommste raus" (come out) and

"Na kommste rein" (come in) and also "Kuß" (kiss), "Tadaima" (I'm back) and other things. He always makes me laught and wonder. I hope I can record him speaking someday and post it here, but he is still to shy and to curious, when I hold a camera and stops speaking, when I record him.

We brought him to the pet shop today and I already miss him. He will be there, during our vacation... 

And here you see a gorgeous sunset at "our" beach. We went there today with a drink and simply enjoyed the scenery.

Will post more from our trip to Germany, so stay tuned ;)

The lone tree

Finished this in my painting group a while ago...

Done with acrylics and airbrush on canvas board.

Size is about 22x27 cm

Original available 

Mushroom art

Because of special demand, here is my mushroom art, I did back in 2009 for the "Science festival" in Hakodate. Maybe I will expand that series of paintings someday. All originals are availabe.

Always beware, when you pick mushrooms. Make sure you really KNOW them.

Some of the mushrooms are edible, but some can wipe out a whole family.

 

Amanita muscaria

Suillus grevillei

Amanita hemibapha

Lepista nuda

Leccinum Scabrum 

Helvella crispa

Lactarius laeticolorus

Morchella conica

Coprinus comatus

Armillariella mella

Gyromitra esculenta

Amanita Verna

Boletus subvelutipes

and here are the press releases of the show and event at the science cafe back then.