Japan

December catch up

| Sonia Knits

Apologies for leaving you hanging with the reveal of my Christmas ornament. December has been a lot. It’s like all of the crappy things that could happen in a year jammed into a month, namely our 3 parents being in hospital for unrelated things. For the record January to November were pretty good. But some good things also happened in December.

Beginning with my Knitting group’s Christmas party. I made this little fellow for our Ornament swap:

The pattern is called Scrap yarn Hedgehog by Midori Hirose. It looks tricky, but wasn’t, my kind of knitting. I liked not having to attach things, it was pretty much a all-in-one knit. I hoped to make one for our tree and my niece, but as I mentioned December has been busy.

I went to Daylesford with friends for 2 nights. It felt like a different retreat this time, I wish I could have been more present. That’s okay we get to do it again in just a few months time.

Fast forward to Christmas eve and we were celebrating with our friends at their place. Our usual traditions are KK, 2 competitive activities and lunch. It is always very enjoyable and we look forward to it every year since it has become a tradition.

Here is Damian modelling our completed balloon wreath. We won, but only because Damian bribed the judge, outrageous!

Christmas Day this year was at one of my sister’s homes. It was a wonderful celebration to have everyone there. Except for Suzy (my eldest sister) who was missed.

With less than 5 days left for the year, I’m taking stock of my UFO’s for which there are quite a few, more than usual anyway.

3 pairs of socks, my EXP sweater, and my crochet blanket. I will be able to complete my Christmas socks (8ply), but I’m not sure about the rest! And I really wanted to finished my Nimue blanket this year, gah!

I will say, I am really enjoying knitting the EXP, but it’s quite slow with the half fisherman’s rib stitches. My 4 friends who are also making this with me are further along!

Japan!

| Sonia Knits

It’s almost a week since we arrived home from Japan, and I’m taking my time to get back to everything. It’s been six years since we visited Japan, and this was our fourth visit.

We were chaperoning Damian’s mum in our first week in Tokyo. We did a couple of arts & crafts classes, Laquer-Makie painting and making Hanako stamps. Carol also undertook a master class with a Sumie master painter.

We wined and dined and had amazing food in Tokyo, we even took Carol to Karaoke! Carol has been once before to Japan many years ago, she said she saw a different side to Japan through our lens 🙂

I also visited Walnut, the Amirisu yarn store on our ‘shopping day’. I had a lovely time whilst Damian and Carol had a cool drink at a cafe around the corner.

After the week, we farewelled Carol and boarded a Shinkansen to Hokkaido. Our first stop was Sapporo for 4 days, and then we backtracked Hakodate for a further 4 days.

We visited the morning (5:50am) fish market with our hotel’s chef in Hakodate, and ate a delicious breakfast from the fish we purchased (cooked and sashimi-ed by the chef of course!). We made friends with the locals and ate delicious food. The hospitality in Hakodate was outstanding.

The thing that has stayed with me from this trip though, is the incredible kindness and helpfulness we received from complete strangers. On a rainy day in Sapporo, we alighted from our streetcar and took shelter at the tram stop, just for a moment so we could work out which direction we were meant to be going in. An older woman who had been on the streetcar with us had got off at the same stop. She had begun to go on her way, but then came back, and offered us her umbrella, the one that she was holding open over herself. Shocked, we of course couldn’t and didn’t accept her offer, she would get wet! and it was too nice an umbrella to give to complete strangers from Australia! I’ll never forget her, she wore a beautiful green hand-knitted beret with a sparkly brooch. I might have been admiring it on the tram. I profusely thanked her as she went on her way again. I don’t think I’ve said ‘thank you’ so often as I have while visiting Japan, everyone is so polite…

For the final five days of our trip we returned to Tokyo. We ate more amazing food, found our favourite Yakitori place in Shimbashi, we tried our hand at Glass-etching and Leather sandal making!

On the day before flying home, we went to the WB Harry Potter Studio Tour. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was my first taste of Butterbeer, and I much prefer it to real beer.

Now to start dreaming of our next overseas travel and rest.