Cherry Blossom 12

Here is a painting I finished this week... done with acrylics, watercolor, airbrush and pen on paper. Size is A-3, original available.

Kanoudake fotos

 

Somehow my camera is working again and I can upload the pictures of our hiking tour ^_^

Here you see Yumi and Yuki playing at a waterfall. The hike we did here, was the best so far, because we walked along a beautiful creek and there was always a cool breeze from the water. It was not so steep either and we saw many butterflies and dragonflies on the way.

On the top is an acnient shrine Kanoujinja 叶神社, where we rested. Yuki was not feeling well, so she slept a little bit in the shrine and recovered.

...and here you see Fukuoka...

Afterwards, we went to a park, where the kids enjoyed waterplay, but my camera stopped working, so I could not take any pictures there :(  

Hiking at Kanoudake

Today we went hinking at Kanoudake... the weather was great and found one of the most beautiful trails here so far yet. Unfortunatelly, my camera broke >_< but I will upload the pictures hopefully later.
After our hike, Yuki felt sick and we had to return home... looks like she caught too much sun in the last days. Now she is watching Pokemon with Yumi and has recovered a little bit.

Since I can not upload any fotos here right now, I'll put a painting here, I did back in 2008.

~SOLD~

Umi no hi

On Monday there was "Umi no hi", which means "Day of the Sea" and since it was hot, we went swimming in the evening at our "private beach" ^_^

 

The kids enjoyed it and now we can go every day, because they have finally holidays.

Back home, we could see a beautiful sunset...

unfortunatelly, my camera hardly capured the beauty of it... the colors were much more vibrant...

Finally Summer...

 

 

 

Today we went to Takaso-yama  and Takaso-shrine. One of the oldest shrines in Japan... the atmosphere was peaceful and I stopped for a small prayer to thank the gods, that I can be here.

Then we climbed Takaso-yama and saw a "shiroonitake family",

Lots of Leccinum hortonii,

and a single Tamagotake ^_^...

 

The climb was tough and it was over 30C, but we made it,

having a great view over Itohshima and Kaya-san... I want to paint this with a sunset-atmosphere someday.

  

On out way back we discovered a great Indian restaurant called "Sapuna". The food was delicious and we want to go there again.

Dragonfly

finished this today... done with acrylics, watercolor, pen and airbrush on paper... size is B4. The original will be available at my upcoming exhibition in Kobe this September.

Tamagotake... finally :D

 

On Sunday, we continued out search for Tamagotake (Amanita hemiphaba/Amanita Caesarea) and went to Aburayama. In Hokkaido we always found them under fir trees, but in Fukuoka, there are no fir-trees at all... this was the tricky part of it.

 

And here you see the poisenous Shiroonitake (Amanita Castanopsidis), translated Shiroonitake means "White devil mushroom" and yes, it's poisenous...

After searching and searching we asked some very nice people in the nature center and they told us, where we could find Tamagotake... so we tried our luck and YES, FINALLY, I we found one:

Beautiful, isn't it... ?!? On out way back, to Fukuoka, there were two more:

already hatched out of the egg...

...and this is what we had for dinner... a BIG crab... it costed less than 10 Euro, was fresh and totally Yummy !!!!!!!!!!!

more shrooms

The girls have to learn for their final tests on Monday, so we could not do so much... but look what we found in the pine grove near our appartement: Boletus Castaneus (Hasen-Roehrling)...

and the very poisenous and deadly Tengutake (amanita Pantharina or Pantherpilz in German)... no Tamagotake so far, but since there are a lot mushrooms of the amanita family growing, it SHOULD grow soon, too.

Oh and here you see our little fungus experiment at our balcony *lol*

They literally popped up in just one morning and withered in the evening... Dictyophora indusiata or Kinugassatake... *lol*

maybe we will go for another shroom excursion tomorrow ^_^

Mountains...

Another painting of mountians... done with acrylics, watercolor and airbrush on paper. Size is B4, original available.

Mushroom hunt at Itoshima

After sleeping very long today, we decided to go mushroom hunting. At first, we ate at a delicious ramen-shop called "Kirin Ramen".

Then we went to Ito-shima and tried our luck in a bamboo grove.

Actually, we were looking for Tamagotake, but it still seems a little bit too early for them. Instead, we found Lepista sordida, Komurasakishimeji in Japanese. A delicious mushroom with a similar taste like Lepista Nuda.

And here you see Dictyphora indusiata... called Kinugasatake in Japanese and Schleierdame in German, very rare in Germany, but here you can find them in almost every bamboo grove in the rain season... in China it's called Bamboo mushroom. 

And you better don't try those, if you want to stay healthy and alive... those are called Kibotake, or Entoloma murraii and they are poisenous !!!

Tomorrow we will probably try another place to look for Hatsutake and other mushrooms.

Lactarius laeticolorus

Now it's official, mushroom season has started in Fukuoka. I just went home from shopping and spotted one Akamomitake (lactarius laeticolorus) in Odo koen. ^_^

So I'm sure, there are plenty of them now in the forest. Those are very crispy mushrooms, which come out after heavy rain. They have orange milk if you cut them. They taste wonderful with Chahan (fried rice) but also in clear Japanese soup.

Can't wait for our mushroom hunt this weekend. I also hope to spot some Tamagotake now. 

more Koi...

Just finished another Koi pic... done with acrylics, watercolor and airbrush on paper.

Size is B4, Original available.

Rainseason, food and art

We had a lot of rain and it's hot and humid out there, but the beautiful side of this season are the gorgeous flowers everywhere...

Those just blossom near our appartement and I took a lot of photos as references for upcoming paintings.

Because of the rain, we could not do much, but we discovered a Izakaya, called "Shinchan" yesterday, where we had some great Sashimi and Carpaccio.

Today, the weather was a little bit better. We drove to the airport and submitted my painting to Makurazaki for the contest there. Due to the contest rules, I can not post the painting here yet, but I will tell you all about the upcoming show in the "Nanmeikan Museum" soon. I also was able to gather a lot of information about galleries and events here and I will check them out in the next months. I'm already excited !!!

My trip to Kobe

From Sunday to Monday I went to Kobe to meet my friend Erika. Erika is a great artist from Germany and exhibits every year in the "Galerie le port" in Kobe.

We haven't seen each other for 8 years and it was wonderful to meet her and her husband Udo again.

I also met some wonderful new friends and everybody was so nice and kind to me !!! Thank you all so much !!!

Erika's exhibition was wonderful! I love the vibrancy of colors in her art and I hope I can go to her next exhibition in Kobe as well.  

It was my first trip alone with the Shinkansen and it felt like a great adventure.

Before I took the train back home I took some fotos of Sannomiya. It has a very nice atmosphere and I can't wait to see more of it.

 

Here is the street in which the galerie is located.

Thank you so much, everybody !!! Have a great time in Hakodate... *sigh* I would love to come with you and visit there, too...

Ajisai

 

Here you see hortensia, Ajisai in Japanese. It's now the season of this beautiful flower and you can enjoy it in all kinds of different colors.

Broetchen

Actually, I was always scared of baking... don't know really why. I always loved to cook, but baking was something I never tried until we bought this cute oven some weeks ago.

There is one thing I never thought I can do. German "Broetchen" (rolls). I thought making them is an impossible task, especially for a baking noob like me.

But I was curious and found an easy-looking recipe:

http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/145141062849806/Broetchen.html

Here you see the still unbaked rolls.

Here they are baked and smelled like the real rolls, I love so much.

and yes, they really tasted like Broetchen !!! *yummy*

Now I finally get more confident with baking ^_^

Hiking at Aburayama

 

This weekend we went for Aburayama, a mountian-hiking-resort with a lot of trails and picknick-areas at the foot of the mountain.

But if you climb upwards, there are only a few people and you can see many exotic flowers, plants and butterflies.

 

After one hour we reached the top. The hiking was quite exhausting, especially because it's already hot Summer here.

 

We took another route down and on this pic you probably get an idea how steep it is.

On our way down we arrived at another park, where we had some great milk-icecream

and could relax a little...

Yuki and Yumi still had a lot energy left and played on the huge playground there.

In the evening, I was so tired, so I just prepared some Tortillias for everybody...

Oh, and one more thing,

do you know a fruit called "Biwa"?

It's very popular in Japan and it's just ripe now... near our appartement you can pick them fresh from the tree and it tastes really wonderful.

More Magnolias

Finished this today... done with acrylics, watercolor, color-pen and airbrush on paper.

In a private collection in the USA.

O-Bento

Today, Yumi has an excursion with her class and so I had to make "Bento" (japanese Lunchbox) for her. I really enjoy making Bento and back in Kindergarten, I used to make it everyday for the kids.

Now in school they have lunch and I can not do it anymore, only when they have excursion or a school-picknick... I really miss it.

Normally I make Onigiri, but today Yumi wanted to have noodle-salat and saussages.

Oh, and yesterday our new oven arrived!!! YAY !!!

It's a speacial one, which heats up til 350C, so we can make "real" Italian Stoneoven Pizza... can't wait to try it out...

...and my wonderful friends from "Timely Tales" put my painting on their website.

You can see it here:

http://timelytales.webs.com/musicalslyricsplots.htm

Now I must go back at my canvas... the idea I had some days ago did not work so well on a big format, so I have to try something different.

Rain and fun...

Now rainseason is slowly starting over here, and the whole weekend was rain, rain, rain and dark. But I must admit it is not as worse as I imagined. The weather is warm and the air is very clean. Back in Germany, rainy weather means cold and catching flu and snuggling up in some blankets... *brr*

I really enjoy the smell of the air here, while it rains... very soft, very pleasant...

Well, and since we could not hike or go fishing, we decided to go to some Izakaya and have fun.

Here you see Squid-sashimi... I LOVED Squid-sashimi back in Hakodate and here it tastes as delicious !!! What a nice surprise.

And I can also recommend the Aji-sashimi here in Fukuoka... so tasty and fresh...

On Sunday, we got a "special delivery". My husband was in Hakodate last week and fortunatelly, he had some time left, to "visit" our old morel-hunting-grounds. Just in time to pick at least 70 of them together with some fresh-grown woodruff.

So I decided to cook "morille a la creme" with pasta. The recipe is very simple. You need some morels, smoked ham, sour-cream, cream and consome.

Fry the ham in some oil, add the morels, then the cream and consome and the sauce is ready.

YUMMY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!