The Market from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

“Bangkok’s Maeklong Market has been in existence for decades. It remained relatively undisturbed until the later creation of the Maeklong Railway and, contrary to what you might see in the United States and in other parts of the world, there was no eminent domain law forcing market vendors to move.

The result? Every single day the Maeklong Railway line passes through Maeklong – 8 times a day, 7 days per week. The train literally runs directly through the middle of the market, forcing vendors to pull back their awnings and wares while shoppers find a place to step off of the track that serves as their only walkway.”

I know I just posted another video made by Terje Sorgjerd, but I am just so impressed with all of his videos. He makes me want to learn how to edit video… I have no idea where to start though.

Denne hilsenen er et par dager for sen, rett og slett fordi jeg måtte grave meg dypt gjennom arkivet for å finne disse bildene. Men, bedre sent enn aldri;  gratulerer så hjertelig med overstått verdens beste mamma! ♥

I have been saying for months that I was going to fix up Marte’s blog a little bit, and I finally got around to it. The bottom half of the web page is obviously based on the same theme that my blog is, and the top part was illustrated this weekend with the help of quite a few cups of coffee. Inspiration was Japanese style and tattoos. Go visit!

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

This must be one of the most stunning videos I have ever seen of aurora. Pure magic.

While drawing up Marte’s webpage (hopefully the new design will be up shortly if I can get around to it), I decided to make an illustration from the various graphic parts. It was kind of quickie tossed together in photoshop, but it just feels great to have a day where I was half-creative again.

Here is a ton of pictures of Shanghai’s skyline at night. I realize there is a lot of pictures here, but I thought they were all so pretty I had a hard time choosing between the different ones. It felt like something taken directly out of a scifi.

If you ever find yourself in Shin-Okubo, you have to try out one of my favorite fish restaurants. There is no English menu, and I don’t think the staff speaks any English either, but the fish is really fresh and delicious, and there are a couple of pictures of some of the dishes on the menu as well. We just went there the other day, and as always the food was really nice and the prices are reasonable. The picture above is maguro-sashimi and sake.

Senriki is not a sushi shop, so you will not find sushi here, but you will find plenty of fresh sashimi, and a lot of cooked and grilled fish dishes as well. In this picture the place looks kind of empty, but it is usually pretty packed. It was completely packed when we arrived, I just didn’t dare to pick up my camera and take pictures of the place with people sitting everywhere.

This is fresh hamachi-sashimi, it was really tasty.

And crispy buri (yellowtail in English). It was really tender and juicy on the inside, but perfectly crispy on the outside.

And of course some uni (sea urchin – kråkebolle).  Super creamy and extremely fresh. And to go with it through the whole meal, I had some chilled sake. They also have the heated sake with the fish-fin in it for those who like that. This place isn’t pretentious at all, it is just regular small bottles of sake and nothing fancy, but the selection of seafood is still excellent. The restaurant is right up the street from Shin-Okubo station, so if you are ever in the neighborhood, go visit!

Nothing like starting the day with my favorite breakfast. I think that tobiko is one of my absolute favorite things to eat in this world.

I have been saying for months that I was going to help Marte fix up her webpage a little bit (just because she is awesome), but since things have been crazy busy I haven’t gotten around to it, but today I sat down and started drawing some of the various parts for the graphics. This is just a small preview, I have to draw a couple of more fishes and flowers and put it all together. I think it is going to look cute, it is really fun to draw Japanese-inspired tattoo illustrations.

In Shanghai, Hello Kitty is made of gold.

And our hotel was so luxurious and nice. This was right in front of the elevator on our floor.

And then, after eating only Chinese food, we spotted a Pizza Hut and actually ate lunch there. I like to try to avoid eating at places like McDonalds and such when you are travelling to all kinds of amazing places with amazing local foods, but we were hungry and it was conveniently located. I don’t think I have been to a Pizza hut in maybe 8 years, but it was actually really good. Much better than I remember it being.

In China Hello Kitty wears communist gear.

Super-duper nice dumplings. We walked for 45 minutes to find this dumpling place, but they were extremely good and they tasted unlike all other kinds of dumplings I have eaten. I was still pretty full from lunch, so I could only eat one of them, but it was still worth the walk.

I don’t think the picture truly captures how big the Cartier sign was. Across the road there was an Apple store with an equally big sign.

Our holiday in Shanghai was quite jazzy. We spent the evenings in jazz bars listening to talented people. I am still in awe over how good these people were. I knew it was going to be decent, but they were really talented.