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.

Karatsu and mountains...

This weekend, we did a lot of hiking. Rainseason is coming and soon it will be too hot and humid for that. On Saturday, we hiked the whole Nijinomatsubara beach at Karatsu... the beach is 5km long and it took us 2 hours to walk the 10 km total forth and back...

Later we had a delicious course at our fave place, the Nijinomatsubara Hotel...

The course was 1800 Yen ( about 20 Euros) and totally delicious, as always... I think I would pay 3 times more for the same arrangement and quality if I went to Europe.

Here is the kid's plate (10 Euro)

One day later we drove up in the mountains and picked some wild strawberries (Hebi-ichigo) and Rasberries for making jam...

and I could not resists, picking some Udo (Aralia cordata) for Tenpura...

After a few kilometers, I also got a bunch of woodruff for my Maywine :D

The funny thing is, normally woodruff does not grow here and I only found it in 3 spots in Kyushu so far... all of them are well known hiking spots and a lot of hobby hikers recently come here... so maybe one of them brought the seeds accidentally on his backpack or boots... I just realized, when we hiked down, the seeds sticked to my clothes and boots as well... anyway, thanks to the hikers, I have my Maywine here, too :D

Kuju mountains 2

Here is another painting of Kuju mountains, I just finished recently.

Done with acrylics, watercolor, pen and airbrush on paper.

Size is about 23x33 cm.

Original available.

Climbing Hikosan

During Golden week, we hiked at the highest mountain of Fukuoka, Hiko-san.

At first we took the monorail-car and already had a beautiful view over the other mountains.

Here you see the old Shirne near the entrance to the hiking-trail.

Due to an old Shinto legend, the child of Amaterasu, the sun-goddess,

descended as an eagle from heaven on this mountain.

The first 500 meters where quite tough, but after this, the remaining 1,5km where not so diffucult anymore.

 

An ancient stairway, which was used for pilgrims made it easy to hike.

Normally we mostly hike on narrow trails.

Anyway, the view was breathtaking and I also love to hike there once again in Autumn to see the different colors of the leaves.

 

Dontaku Matsuri

Yesterday, we went to the Dontaku Matsuri, one of the biggest festivals in Japan.

The word Dontaku comes actually from the Dutch word "Zondag", which means "Sunday".

There are a lot of colorful parades with people wearing fancy costumes.

Everybody can take part and the atmosphere is really great.

Here, you see the Mascot of "Fukuya", which is a famous Mentaiko shop here.

Before the parade ended, we went to "Cotton fields" a great beer restaurant.

They have beer from all over the world...

... and the best spear-ribs.

After the parade, the festival is split up in several locations all over the city and people continue to sing and to dance. We had so much fun and I want to go there again next year.

Rhododendron blossom

Cherry-blossom in Japan is famous all over the world, but Rhododendron-blossom here is as beautiful.

In Hokkaido, we always went to Esan to see it, but here we finally discovered a park near Nijo and Ukitake as big as the one in Esan.

Over 5000 Rhododendronbushes are there and the view is awesome.

HAPPY Golden week ^_^