Christmas in Japan and Korea

We went to Japan and Korea at Christmas time. It was interesting seeing the decorations in the stores and the hotels. Japan does not celebrate Christmas but that doesn't stop stores from trying to convince people to buy gifts. We spent very little time in the stores. One interesting store was the Japanese stationary company Itoya. There were some fascinating envelopes for giving people cash or checks as gifts. They appeared to be decorated with quilling and other paper crafting.
Our hotel was near the intersection where Cartier and Bulgari battled for glitz and glitter.

 

Bulgari building by day

 

Bulgari building by night

Street decorations in the Main Street of Ginza

 

A live cello player in a store window in Ginza.

 

Tree in the lobby of the hotel where we had lunch on our Mt. Fuji trip.

 

We went to Mt. Fuji on Christmas Day and were treated to Christmas carols by a group of hand bell ringers

Korea has a lot of Christians. I think it is the majority religion in Korea although I am not sure if there are more Buddhists or more Christians. We also got to Korea around New Year's Eve so some of the Christmas decorations were being taken down.

 

Tree in the plaza at N Seoul tower

 

Tree being taken down in the plaza of N Seoul Tower

 

A very unusual tree in the plaza of N Seoul tower. This is a close-up of one of the set below. I'll tell you more about it when I discuss that part of the trip.

I am going to try and do this with themes rather than a diary because it is too overwhelming to try and capture all the information I want to share in a day-by-day account. So there will be some text only posts where I try to share some interesting tidbits and some photo heavy posts on the things we saw. Let's see how this works out. I am hoping to get some shorter, more frequent posts out to cover the information more quickly than in the past.

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Season's Greetings to all!

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year to all my readers. I am traveling a bit right now so no posts but I hope to have lots of material to kick off the New Year right!

Christmas in China

I thought it would be good to show you some of the Christmas decorations that I am encountering. The sample is very small as I haven't been going out very much. It has mostly been work that is getting in the way. Last weekend we went to Xi'an but that deserves its own post and I have to do justice to it.

We live near a very high end mall with very expensive brand name stores. They have done a great job decorating for Christmas with a house, nut crackers, Christmas trees, all lit up with lights. The railings on the various floors have garlands on them.

There are also decorations in the lobby of my office building.

And there were some in the lobby of our hotel in Xi'an. A gorgeous purple tree...

The bake counter in the restaurant in the lobby was decorated like a gingerbread house.

In contrast to all this light and festivity, we have also had a very high level of pollution this week. It is not common in Shanghai but our levels were higher than those in Beijing this week.
This is the sun at around 10-11 am

Through the trees...

If you remember the photos from my balcony last winter, here is the same view yesterday. The pollution level has dropped a lot today.

Air purifiers and masks are sold out at most retailers. Our apt doesn't seem to admit the pollution as I could smell the difference as soon as I stepped out into the balcony to take that photo. I did wear a mask on the way to work and back and when I went to the bank.

Lastly, I whipped out this pair of mittens for DH last weekend.

The yarn is the hand-dyed merino I bought in Melbourne. I knitted it at a fairly tight gauge. I hope it holds up. Merino is nice and soft and the mittens can handle some felting but I hope they don't pill too much.

I also did some finishing of handspun. I had some sample yarn spun on the various Jenkins spindles I've acquired over the last year. I had not finished any of them. So I wound them off and finished them. 

Today I finished the yarn that was endlessly plied on the Jenkins Swan. Here is the very beginning of the story. Here is the end... more than 1000 yds of 2 ply yarn - spindle spun and spindle plied. It was made from one 4 oz braid less the singles that I lost when I messed up one of the bobbins along the way. You can see that disaster here. If you want to read the whole story, just look at posts with the label 'gradient'. But all's well that end's well.

That last photo shows the gradient. It goes from a brownish red to a pinky red to a purple.

It is still damp so I won't wind it up into a twisted hank yet to take the shot with the quarter. That is reserved for next time.

I am also spinning away on the Briar Rose Cormo. Progress to date on the first single.

I hope the color counteracts the dreary pollution pictures.

Travel home

I was met at the airport by another Christmas tree. This one looked very African to me.

I also was able to get some nice photos of South Africa from the air.

I connected through Dubai and I probably should have taken some Dubai at night photos from the air but I was sleepy. To stay awake during the 3 hour layover, I walked the entire length of the airport twice and then I sat down and spun a little on my Kuchulu. I had started a new cop in the hotel after finishing up the sample on the Aegean. This is the same Briar Rose Cormo I am spinning on the Hansen. That is the other single.

I had seat 55A on the way from Dubai home and thought I'd be right in the back of the plane. WRONG! I was on a A-380 double decker plane and 55A was right in the front of the lower level. This thing holds 500-odd people! It has a lovely tail camera in addition to the usual front and bottom cameras.

There it is, at Shanghai airport. There were 3 jet bridges that came out to meet it. One for the upper level, one for first/business class and one for the lower level.

Or maybe the entire upper level was first/business class. I am surprised the large plane can fly!

Back home I pulled the Kuchulu out again. It is such a pleasure to spin on a fast little spindle.

There she is, on my ipod touch to show her size. I adore her. She travels with me a lot though I don't always spin on her.

And that is all f-f-f-folks! It is good to be back home!

Early Christmas and other tales

It is already time for Christmas in South Africa. My hotel lobby has this lovely tree with sheepies and a gingerbread house.

I also ran into Christmas at the Nelson Mandela Square.

There is a giant statue of Nelson Mandela there - surprise! I am just kidding. It is a lovely square with restaurants all around and places to sit and people-watch. My only regret was not bringing some spinning or knitting with me.

Speaking of spinning, I pulled out my new Jenkins Aegean and spun up the sample fiber that came with it. I spun a single and then chain plied it on the Aegean but not via the ply-on-the-fly technique. I did it in two separate steps. I like this better but I still don't like plying on the spindle. It took 2 evenings to spin the single and 1 to ply. It is a sweet spindle.
Partial spun single:

Completed single:

Plied yarn:

I chain plied it because the color changes are quite dramatic in such a small amount of yarn. It goes from the green to the purple.


I brought more knitting and spinning and may do some more tomorrow. I want to cast on for some mittens and then I think I will spin on the trindle trying to complete my TdF project. There is a long way to go but if I don't do a bit every now and then, I won't ever finish it.

I've also learned something about myself. I am happy to spend the evening in my pajamas, holed up in my room with my spinning or knitting, eating a light room service meal. It is relaxing and I enjoy it more than going out to dinner and sitting around endlessly waiting for food to be delivered and people to finish eating.  In my younger days, this would have been just the opposite. I guess I'm turning into a grumpy old woman.