bringing nature inside

Well 2009 is already more than half over! Time sure is flying by! I guess that is a sign of my old age... or I am having a lot of fun. Maybe both. ;)

Anyway, I did this おしょか (oshoka) a few weeks ago:

My 先生 (teacher) told me that I should remember to keep the flower high above the leaves because that's how it grows in the wild. Since I had never seen this flower (agapansus) before so I just followed her instructions. But I had no idea what it looked like naturally.

But today while I was walking around my neighborhood (in the hot, humid, beautiful weather) I saw this:

I don't know if you can tell but it's the same plant! I was really excited to see it growing naturally. Who knew the leaves were so crazy looking at the bottom! But now I understand about the flower being high above the leaves!

culture mash/clash?

Country line dancers wearing cowboy hats, boots, yukata, fishnet stockings, and feather boas. The women were also wearing crazy eye makeup and feather eyelashes.

new haircut!

Hope International helps build wells to provide clean water in countries like Ethiopia and Cambodia. They are having a "Hope at Hilton" week to help raise money. I participated in the charity cut by getting a haircut and donating 2000yen. You can participate by bidding in the online auction. http://www.hope-auction.com/auction/

Here's some fun photobooth pics of my new 'do:


...yes, I know I'm a dork. haha.

ikebana update

I did the following two arrangements on the same day. The first one is moribana, and the second one is freestyle... I forget what it's called in Japanese.


The next one has cherry blossom branches on the outer part of the arrangement. I had the most trouble with this one, and in the end I wasn't really happy with it.
But after taking it home and looking at it for a few days, I started to like it more. Then when the flowers started blooming it was really pretty to look at!

This last one I did this week. It took a long time to think of what to do with the flowers and how to cut them, but in the end I was happy with it. I think this was my favorite so far.
I wish you could see them in person though... it's hard to capture the 3D-ness in a picture.

vernal equinox

Friday was a holiday to celebrate the spring equinox. Kyoko was kind enough to invite me to her house (or maybe I invited myself?)... and we spent the day bowling, taking purikura, going to a sand dune, touching the pacific ocean, and looking for four-leaf clovers in a park. As you can see, we each found one!

picture by kyoko