Friend of Kyo Modern -Aizuya-

A friend of mine is from Fukushima.

Many people now know Fukushima as the town with nuclear disaster.

But what Fukushima is famous for is its beautiful culture.

It's famous for stunning castle(Tsuruga), beautiful traditional style villages and national parks (Minami Aizu), cute Akabeko doll and Aizu momen.

Momen means cotton.

Aizu momen has distinctive stripe patterns.  It's often dyed with indigo, but does come in different colours. (ie my apron in the photo) The texture of the cotton is tough and also absorbent.

My friend Hiki sells aprons, brooches, bags, beverage coaster and luncheon mat made of Aizu momen.

Her website is currently under the maintenance, but you can still contact her by email or phone.  The contact details are below:

aizuaus@gmail.com
0430 378 438

Some of her products are available in shops in Sydney. Please contact her for more information.


Her and I will be holding a stall at Ryokan Gojyuan in Balmain, Sydney on the 28th of April. It will be on from 10am till around 3 or 4pm.

If you will be in the area on the day, please pop in!

Ryokan Gojyuan

http://www.ryokangojyuan.com/en/index.php

Market this Saturday

As I mentioned in the news section of this blog, I will be at Kirribilli market this Saturday. It's on from 8am to 3pm.

I will be there with 2 of my friends.

One of them will be selling homewares from her town Fukushima. As you might know, Fukushima was one of the area which was badly affected by the earthquake and nuclear power plants.

My friend is trying to support her hometown by selling fashion accessories and homewares made of cotton called Aizu Momen. It is striped designed cotton fabric dyed with indigo, originaited around 1643 in Fukushima.

My other friend will be selling lovely hand woven jewelly  pouches and hats for baby.  I don't have a photo of it but pouches are in a shape of macaroon. It looks so realistic that it looks almost eatable!

We will be on either gravel or green area on the market. Hope it will be a nice sunny day!

Information of the market is available here.

It happened at 14:26pm in Japan time. The earthquake hit northern part of Japan then followed by huge Tsunami.

I can't believe it's been 1 year. I still feel like it happened recently.

This time last year, I discovered the news when my mother rang. She lives in Kyoto so she was safe but she was panicking.  I didn't realise how bad the damage was until I checked news online.

I thought it was some kind of movie scene or some kind of bad joke... I couldn't believe what I was watching.

For 2 weeks, I kept watching Japanese news online. I felt so frustrated and useless. The only thing I could do was donating money and get involved in fund raising events. 

People in northern Japan are still suffering from the affect. If you are in Sydney, there are couple of events you can join to help earthquake victims.

There is a Japanese volunteering group which runs fund raising event. The website is mainly in Japanese but you can still check out the information of up coming events.

http://sites.google.com/site/helpjapansydney/

There is also a market in Manly. It's on every 3rd Saturday of the month.  This is running by Sydney Rainbow Stay. Their website is below:

http://sites.google.com/site/sydneyrainbowstayen/

My hear will go to everyone who was and still is affected by the earthquake.

It's this time of the year again!

Happy Hina Matsuri!


When a baby girl is born, one of family members buy a set of Hina dolls as gift to a baby. The Hina doll set represents a wedding ceremony of loyal family in Heian period. (794~1192)

On this day, we eat Chirashi Zushi(=Sushi), fish and special sweets to celebrate the day, and wish for good health and happiness of the girls in a family.

I have 2 sets which is bit unusual. I have a full set from my father's side grandmother and only the bride and groom from my father's aunt. (the in the picture above)

My grandmother is deceased so Hina dolls became my very valuable asset. It's getting bit old and some of them needs to be repaired. I probably should take them back to Japan with me next time for repair!