Joy of choosing new products

When I feel down, it makes me feel better to look at new products I might want to import from Kyoto.


When I decide what I want to get from Kyoto for my business, it's bit hard to choose what I want. Because I tend to choose what "I want" first and then start thinking "Hang on, I should get what people want instead!!"

But I think it's important to sell what I love- I want to share the joy of having Kyoto made Japanese fashion accessories. It's the colour, shape, history and people who make interests me.

Most of Nishijin products are made by an Nishijin weaving articst Shisen. I deal with her daughter to purchase Shien's products.

Most of Kyo Modern's chirimen products are made by various places and people in Kyoto.

For a personal reasons, I can't go back to Kyoto this year but I will keep eye on goodies that I might decide to import.

I miss going to markets in Kyoto. There are heaps!!I want to buy products for myself and Kyo Modern from there...

I've only been to Toji, Shimogamo shirine and Kitano tenmangu market. There are a lot more but I can never stay in Kyoto long enough. Most of markets are on monthly basis at a shrine or temple but because there are so many of them, there is always a market held every week. (It's not necessary on weekends).

Here are the some of the market names:

Kobou san market at Toji Temple

Chionin market at Chionin Hyakumanben

Kamigamo market at Kamigamo shrine

Tenjisan market at Kitano Tenmangu shrine

Be there early. There are usually many people at markets!

Chinese lion dance and Japanese lion dance

I celebrate new year twice a year.

I celebrate 1st of January and Chinese new year as my husband has Chinese back ground.

When I saw Chinese lion dance for the first time, I thought it was very powerful compare to Japanese one and a lot more gaudy. (My husband said Japanese one looks cheap but anyway)

In Japanese, it's called "Shishi-mai"  (獅子舞) The roots of Japanese lion dance said to be from China which I expected but colour of lion, music and dance are very different. 

Chinese lion dance is pretty fast and music is loud with a drum. Japanese lion dances follows normal  to slow speed and music is relatively quiet with small drums and Japanese traditional flute.  Until recently, I didn't know the style of dancing and design of the lion differs by region in Japan. 

The one I know is a red wooden  face with green cloth body. I do remember Okinawa which is part of Japan but very close to Taiwan has lion with lots of hair. But I really thought the rest of Japan all has the same lion.

Japanese lion dance is not only performed on the new year day, also at regional festivals through out the year. 
It looks like the one I know (red face one) is only performed on the new year celebration? 

Lion dance in Kanto region which is Tokyo and surrounding regions is very different to the one I know of.  It's done by 1 person inside, the head of lion is above eye level and a dancer plays drum while he dances! 


I became particulary interested in Sanbiki shishi-mai (Three lions) from Kanto region.  Fukushima is famous for that too. 

One of the site I visit occasionally had a good details of Sanbiki shishi-mai. It's only available in Japanese but has few pictures to give you ideas of how they look like. 

Sanbikishishi-mai at Nagasaki shrine, Tokyo


There are many Japanese lion dance footage available on You Tune. I spent 30 hour browsing different style. Now I feel like visiting different regions to see different lion dances in Japan.  

Japanese calligraphy

A friend of mine runs a monthly workshop of Japanese calligraphy in ryoan Gojyuan in Balmain, Sydney.

She has ran numbers of workshops in Australia before.

Learning calligraphy was compulsory in any schools in Japan. I wish I took calligraphy lessons more seriously so that I could have had nice hand writing!

If you are interested in learning Japanese calligraphy in Sydney,  please contact Tomoko directly or ryokan Gojyuan.

Tomoko: tomokoworld514@hotmail.com

More details are available on Tomoko's website: https://sites.google.com/site/mojiyafudeart/

also on Gojyuan's website: http://www.ryokangojyuan.com/en/workshops_calligraphy.php

Kamisaka Sekka exhibition at Art Gallery NSW

The exhibition of Kamisaka Sekka is on at Art gallery of NSW in Sydney.

Sekka is a Japanese artist who brought traditional paintings and lacquer ware to more modern designs. 


He was around in 1866 to 1942.

I went there last weekend and I was astonished with the colours he used. He drew lots of plants which looked so real. I wonder how he managed to make such colours.

Most of plants he drew were common ones I used to see in my town in Japan. (ie bush clover, peony, willow tree, etc) It was very nostalgic.

If you like "Japanese fine art", please go to this exhibition. You can also see art works from other artists who were inspired by Kamisaka Sekka.

The exhibition is on until the 26th of August.

More information is available here.

Fujipan the Japanese bakery

"Pan" means bread in Japanese. Apparently origin of this word is German or something else, I can't remember.

Anyway, Japanese style bread is a very good mix of European style bread with Asian taste. It's bit hard to describe by words. It's much easier if I can take you to a bakery in Japan!

There are so many varieties of bread in a Japanese bakery. As much as I like bakeries in Australia too, I still miss Japanese bakeries.

I only know one decent Japanese style bakery in Sydney and it's called Fuji pan. It's located on:

605 George Street, Shop 1
Corner of  Goulburn Street and George Street in Sydney CBD

It's actually owned by Fujiya restaurant which is located right above this shop.

They have pretty good varieties of bread and also some cakes. My recommendation is "Mochi Mochi" pan. (the one on the right. This particular one was chocolate flavour)

It's so soft and tasty! The shop is open till late but if you go there after 8pm, they normally don't have that much bread left (but often they are on clearance!) so get there early!

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!

Still sorting out

It has been just over 2 weeks since I came back from Japan. My body is now adjusted to Australian time and weather.

But there are still many things that needs to be done which were meant to be done before I left for Japan in December...ahhhh!

As I mentioned in the previous blog, I will have more time from next week so please wait for announcement for new products, stock of current products, etc.

So far, I have added purple and white flower mini hair clips at My Hair International in The Rocks, Sydney. Please look for a shelf right next to a counter.  Apart from hair cut, they do massage, facial, manicure and pedicure. They are open from 8am to 8pm during weekdays, 9am to 6pm on Saturday and 9am to 5pm on Sunday.

I'm writing this at 1am on Saturday night. And starting to think of Ramen. I miss having Ramen in Japan. There are many Ramen places in Sydney but only few of them are decent. A photo above is Nagahama style Ramen I ate in Kyoto. There is nothing better than eating nice Ramen in the middle of the night!!

Recovering

I've been back from Kyoto and still recovering from fatigue and also busy with other things...

Things should clear up by this weekend and I will then start uploading what I found in Kyoto and also the new products! Until then, please browse my website for news and availability of current products.

(Photo: Delicious hot pot I had )

News: Ryokan Gojyuan's open day

A friend of mine Linda is doing open day of her Ryokan Gojyuan in Balmain, Sydney this Saturday (10th of Dec).

I will be selling some of my products and promoting my town Kyoto. There will be other people selling their products and offering workshops as well.

It will be a fun day so please pop in anytime between 10am to 5pm! At this stage, I'm not sure if I will be there till the end but mostly likely tostay to help Linda.

You can visit Ryokan either by a bus or a ferry.  It's only a short ride!


Please refer to Ryokan Gojyuan's website for more information.

Mihana in Crows Nest

There are plenty of nice Japanese restaurants in Sydney but Mihana is the only one I know as a Japanese style "dining bar". 

The term dining bar is perhaps incorrect English. This term is widely used in Japan. It basically means it is a bar where you can have decent food.

Mihana offers large varieties of Sake and other Japanese style drinks. And also tasty Japanese food! They are open till late so I go there when I can't be bothered cooking on late Saturday night or after watching a late night movie session. 

Their website is under constructions at the moment but you can still get the idea of the atmosphere of the place from this website. 

http://www.mihana.com.au/

They open Monday to Saturday, closed on Sunday.  Private rooms are available for small groups. 

My recommendation is Chashu (pork) salad. Desserts are pretty good too!

Mihana Dining and Sake Bar
32 Falcon Street
Crows Nest
(02) 9901 3895

Trip to Cowra

The trip to Cowra from Sydney was suppose to be 4 hours and 20 minutes but because of traffic jams, it turned out to be 5 hours! It always bit busy around Kattomba and there were roadworks.

It was such a warm day so perfect for the festival.....except all the Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) were finished already!!



It must have been very warm in Cowra in this spring. It looked like Sakura finished about 2 weeks ago. So I was bit disappointed with that but still enjoyed the garden.

Cowra Japanese garden is the biggest Japanese style garden in Southern hemisphere. There were many native Japaneses plants, rocks and beautiful water features.





The entertainments at the festival included demonstration of Japanese sports(ie Aikido) and music. I was expecting to see large varieties of Japaneses style gifts in the garden's gift shop but there wasn't much.

After visiting the festival, I went to Cowra POW camp and the cemetery for Japanese hostages. The cemetery was very quiet. It was very peaceful. Many of the grave stone had age of hostages and some of them were very young. It made me cry. If they didn't have a mind set of being hostage is a stigma, they would have survived.

I spent one night in a town. It was the first time for me to stay in a motel!! I wasn't expecting much but a room was clean and all the necessary amenities were there so it turned out to be ok.

A funny thing was, on the way back to Sydney, I stopped over in a town called Leura. And they seemed to have a lot more Sakrua than Cowra. And it was still blossoming!  It was probably because Leura is colder than Cowra(I coould be wrong)

In the end, I was very glad that I finally went to Cowra after living in NSW for 5 years and I had a good time. It was worth it!

Thinking of Kyoto

In 2009, after having three wedding reception in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, my husband and I did honeymoon in Japan.

I left Japan when I was 16 years old so I didn't travel much while I was still living there. So it was a very good opportunity to rediscover Japan.  We did top half of Japan in 2009 and the second half in April this year.

Each prefecture (this is how we address a state in Japan) has different culture, food and dialect. In terms of food, I liked seafood from Tohoku region which is the north end of Honsyu island the most. It's the area where the earthquake happened in March this year. It made me so upset when I thought of people who I met during the trip. I hope they are back on the track of their life now.

Jet Star is keep doing Japan sale which is very tempting.  As I mentioned above, I just went to Japan in April so I'm trying not to go back until next year to save some money.

Going to Kyoto in autumn is great. My town is very famous for nice autumn food and leaves! To see beautiful autumn leaves in Kyoto, it's best to go closer to the end of autumn. I would suggest mid to end of November.

If you are heading to north end of Japan for that, you can go from late September to mid October. 

(Photo: Autumn in Kiyomizu temple)

Okaki

Okaki is Japanese style rice cracker.


No, it's not same as Sakata from a supermarket.

It is normally flavoured with bit of soy sauce which some people may find it plain. However these days, they come in many more flavoures and shapes.

There is also Senbei which is basically the same but come in round shape. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senbei  for information.

When I was back in Kyoto, a friend gave me assorted Okaki in a bag. There were ordinarily soy flavour, curry flavour (!), sugary one and I liked Mattcha(Japanese green tea) flavoured at the most!

You can buy some Okaki and Senbei from Japanese groceries in Australia. I've seen soy, prawn, black sugar and black sesame flavour so far.

There are 2  popular Japanese style supermarkets in the city of Sydney. There are more in suburban areas.

Convini 8

Maru yu

(photo: Mattcha flavoured Okaki with a red bean)