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.

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