Summertime in the City - Flowers!

"Oh," sighed my husband, "there are so many flowers these days that I have never seen before."

Poor chap. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, times are always a-changin'. In the case of flower variety, I would argue that it is for the better because I just love pretty things.

I actually don't have many pictures of flowers at the moment, but I am sure they will proliferate over the coming months, so just hold tight if you're aching to look at pictures of flowers. But, for starters, here are a few.

Morning glories are called "asagao" in Japanese, which translates as "morning face". They are all over the place. These are from a house in our neighbourhood. 

If you're interested, find a video here to learn how to make an origami morning glory. It's in Japanese, but you really only have to watch the lady's fingers to get the gist of things. A few of these, plus leaves (also shown) made with some delicate washi (Japanese paper) and glued onto some cardstock, make a really cute greeting card.   

Did you know that the seeds of the morning glory are hallucinogenic? According to the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility, a Government of Canada webpage, the Ipomoea tricolor variety was long used in southern Mexico as a hallucinogen, prepared into a drink. But I'd stay away from the seeds in the "Bon Appetit" way if I were you - if you scroll down to the bottom of the linked webpage, there's a story of one attempted trip that went badly wrong... Actually, there are two stories. One about a cat (accidental, one would think) and one about a girl (250 seeds consumed, eh? Nothing accidental about that).                     

I believe these to be rhododendrons, although I may be mistaken. I'm always forgetting. In Japanese (if I'm right...) they are called either "shakunage" or "tsutsuji" (which is also one of the words for azaleas, my other guess, but as they're from the same genus, this isn't surprising). According to eHow, rhododendrons have ten stamens, while azaleas have only five or six. I counted the stamens in the picture of the white flowers, and there appear to be ten, hence my guess.

There is a hotel in Hakone (the Odakyu Group's Hotel de Yama, named with a delightful blend of French and Japanese) that is famous for its azaleas and rhododendrons (apparently, it has 3000 azaleas). Each year Japanese descend on the grounds in droves to get some sweet pictures with Fuji san and Ashinoko (Lake Ashi) in the background. When we went, alas, they had barely started blooming and the whole flower-seeing 
adventure was a bit of a bust. *sigh*

Poppies, poppies, poppies - how I love poppies! These poppies were part of a group of multi-coloured poppies in one of the parks near my house, Musashino-Koen. They are so pretty! 

It's Craft-astic!

Can you hear that? Is that...the sound of sleigh bells? 


Christmas: it seems to start earlier every year (and yup, Japan is no different - take down the Hallowe'en stuff, only to replace it with stuff for Noël). Now, I try to keep my wits about me until at least the end of November - even shooting down an excited H when he wanted to put up the tree the second October became November. But hark! Only a month and two days left - time to get decorating! 

This year, I decided to make my own Christmas cards. It's not that I can't get Christmas cards in Japan - quite the opposite, actually. The problem is you can't buy them in nice, $10 or $20 sets for multiple cards. Nope - each has to be bought individually for anywhere from 200-600+Yen, depending on how fancy a card you want. That's just too rich for me, especially when I plan on sending out 20+ cards. When you get right down to it, making my own cards probably won't save me much money, but I at least get the joy of crafting out of the expense, as well as a unique Christmas card. 

Here's what I got made today. They're not beautiful, but they're a start.

And just thought I'd post some paper crane decorations I made last year. They give the ol' tree a little bit of a Japanese edge. Eeeee! Christmas!!!