miura hanto

don't know about you, but I filled my international internet-free sunday with a walk along the coast of the miura peninsula with tomo, pieter and kana, lots of birds of prey and kitesurfers.

for a late lunch, we walked up to a small port, where waving hands invited us inside the clubhouse of what looked like the local guild of independent fishermen's women. for the hawaii style new year's party, with live music and well prepared flower dances.




intriguing how in the end those really local habits are the same all over the world. the faces of the women, the group dynamics, the way everyone is prepared and bound to have a good time ("there's only one new year's party a year" said one of the ladies to kana, while adjusting her make-up in the bathroom mirror) - we could perfectly picture similar scenes in a random parochial center in flanders.




kana and pieter, a little mashed after classic onsen at the end of the day. in a hotel this time, close to the southern tip of the peninsula, with a well designed outdoor bath, overlooking sagami bay under darkening skies.

water no get enemy

two years ago, the columbia urban design squad passed through kao lak, on a bike trip from chumphon to krabi in southern thailand. I was flipping through some pictures the other day, wondering what has become of the places and people we met along the road. kao lak is one of the towns on thailand's andaman coast that suffered a lot under the tsunami.



while I had been on the road for two weeks (on the east coast), this was just day two for the buddies, on their first ever bike trekking... most of the day we stayed close to the ocean, for a relaxing ride on relatively flat coastal plains, scenery of chunky limestone outcrops in the distance.



jan and rennie during a shady break on the road, john and tomo on the beach at the end of the day, and marc with a mysteriously agressive itch-attack in the hut at night...



we rented two huts at one of the many resorts in kao lak - and more under construction as we noticed along the road - catering more specifically to the diving crowd, still less crowded and less concrete than nearby phuket.



the next morning, before heading down south to phangnga, we followed a rough guide suggestion and biked through several miles of rubber plantations for a superb breakfast. in a superbly peaceful place, on the edge of the water.
water no get enemy sings fela kuti...

silk route

the life of a sweater... from the musty sports bag of an early eighties after hours soccer player of fc izegem, to the shelves of a vintage shop in tokyo today, waiting to be bought by a hipster for 9,000 yen.
the in betweens are left to your imagination...



you can find the vintage shop on a second floor gallery in a side street in nakameguro... the red building on the other side of the street is redbook, for those of you who need a point of reference.
izegem on the other hand, twenty kilometers north from where I was born, is known as the town of brooms and shoes ("stad van bustels en skoen"), and famous for its juicy dialect.

[elders]

risotto

so great to find out that the magnetic table at the faramarz/margery mansion still works... ingredients are simple yet success guaranteed.



same goes for the risotto. let me pass you the recipe here - with the risk of no one showing up next time...

whirlwind

a late xmas break takes me to new york for the weekend... stay tuned for some moblogging straight from my new hi tech cellphone! east west whirlwind symmetry - exactly the same days I exchanged new york for istanbul last year, I’ll fill in this year.

here I found a useful disclaimer. please read it before I give you a state of the art on my japanese… dutch and japanese are so far apart “in use of words, rhythm and structure” even rats can tell the difference!

and snow at mekkah is one of the search words combinations that leads to this chronofile, apparently… welcome beautiful stranger! talking about mekkah - this is my first hit from saudi arabia.

and talking about snow - there's this Japan Snow Project ad on the small screens inside JR trains for a while now. three ostriches skiing, nothing unusual, been seeing them go down the hill over and over. still they keep puzzling me... japanese hi tech 3d max animation? details too perfectly random, shadows too realistic, ostrich movements and body parts too natural. old school disguise tricks? human knees don't bend that way... to me, even with my nose to the screen, more than anything else it looks like three ostriches skiing. in the summer, I saw a monkey doing pretty amazing tricks on the boardwalk in odaiba, so why not? here you can see for yourself - go for the 'triple jump' version...

toyo & celle

today, after the weekly yakitori tower meeting, we bumped into toyo ito. close to his brand new tod's building, on omotesando, the hall of fame of japanese architects - buildings of sejima, ito, ando, isozaki, kuma rubbing shoulders (like in the magazines). kobayashi and ito seem to know each other, so jansan (berugijin) got introduced… scroll down here to find out how many pets ito has.




en kan me iemand vertellen wat er met ledegem aan de hand is? nogal moeilijk op te maken van hieruit...

„De laatste brief aan Remmery van vorige woensdag was een handgeschreven enveloppe met een kogel erin. Twee dagen na de laatste brief pakte de Kortrijkse federale politie Marcel W op. W werd plaatselijk beroemd nadat hij voor het goede doel het wereldrecord koprollen brak." (de Standaard)

celle is onschuldig. wat van johan "rund van vlaanderen" museeuw en bijhorende vetmester niet kan gezegd worden.

> the ledegem story finally on BBC world (celle didn't make it though)

omedeto

Great Japan -
a foreigner also attends
the new year's service!

haiku by Issa, 1793

while new year's eve passes almost unnoticed, in japan the first day of the year is at the same time the first event of the year, centered around family and fortune.
with pieter I share a colorful list of new year's celebrations abroad, but little did we know, on a couch in brooklyn exactly one year ago, about the forces of fortune that would bring us together again this year, on this side of the globe... in yokohama, with kana, and her family.



a festive day stuffed with shinto rituals, too many to even start explaining...
just remember
>> whatever you do on new year's day sets the mood for the rest of the year (that's why for example the food is preprepared on the 31st - who wants to cook the whole year?) >> every vegetable on the new year's table has a meaning >> the special new year's sake is so sweet you only need to wet your lips >> to make black beans more shiny, boil them for ten hours in a broth of iron nails >> still more fatal than beans with nails is mochi, the typical new year sticky rice cakes >> through the hole in a coin you can see the future >> it takes hours and a license to help a girl into a kimono



>> bad luck for shinto men turning 25, 42, and 61 in 2005, and for shinto women turning 19, 33 (povera kana), and 37



>> good luck for those who see fujisan on new year's day (even better luck for those who climb it to see the first sunrise of the year from the country's highest spot) >> 'omedeto' means happy new year


click on thumbnails for some yokohama classics

after lunch and temple visits (sake at both) we strolled along yokohama's waterfront, the cruiseship terminal, all the way to the old city and chinatown. walking, talking (italian), laughing, drinking coffee - a comforting idea this is waiting for me in the rest of 2005...