Anyone who can make Bergen look this cute deserves a cookie and a hug. It almost made me excited about going there!

… and this is what I have so far. I am just not used to drawing such big things anymore (each panel is about 50×70 cm, so the finished pictures will be about 1.5 meters long!), I haven’t made pictures this big since before I moved to Tokyo, about two years ago. It is a lot of fun, but I think I have totally underestimated the amount of time that goes into big pictures like this. It will probably take me several days to fill in all the details, I am not even done with all of the outlines yet. I always find the outlines the hardest on big pieces like this, getting the proportions right – a pain in the ass. However, it _is_ a lot of fun, and really good practice! Here is the sketch for it I have posted previously. I will change some of the background elements (too much fish, too little sea-creatures), but the main part of the picture will be the same.

I made some business cards, I think they turned out cute 🙂 Everyone here is giving out business cards left and right, so sometimes I have been in situations where I have felt a bit silly not having one. Now that’s fixed 🙂

I tried to make another pattern today, a little softer in the seams than the previous one. I think I am slowly learning how to tile them up without making it so obvious. I am wondering if it would be easier to make them by hand instead of tiling them on the computer, maybe the seams would seem more natural?

I just wanted to write down some cute quotes I like and make a daily post out of them as well.

I made another Frittata! This one had olives, tomatos, cheese, broccoli, peppers and a pesto sauce. If you are looking for the recipe I have written it down in an earlier post here.

We had a really wonderful dinner when we were in Shimoda last weekend, and here are the pictures to follow.

Beautiful starter with various little dishes, plus umeshu (plum wine) to drink as an aperitif. I actually thought that was quite interesting, because in Europe and US we usually don’t drink that much sweet drinks for aperitifs, no? I am more used to dry Champagne or a dry/bitter cocktail to make the mouth water and your stomach happy and ready for the meal. That being said, the umeshu really worked well with the various starters.

After the starters, incredibly fresh sashimi followed. The fish was almost crunchy because it was so fresh. I normally do not care for fish with silver skin (like saba), but it was just amazingly good here.

After that it was organic, local grown vegetables and dip.

There was one part of the meal that made me think and wonder a little bit. Not about the food itself, I will eat almost anything, but the fact that they put these abalone on the grill, and they were still moving. I tried to remind myself that they are not people and can not feel pain in the same way as humans, but I still have some issues seeing things being grilled/eaten alive. It is quite silly, I mean that if I am eating the food – I should also deal with and handle to see how these creatures cease to be. I think I, like most other people, prefer to not know and not think about it, and go on with my life without considering where the food came from. It was quite interesting to observe my own reaction, and to measure if maybe, just maybe I enjoyed this part of the meal less because I could see where it came from originally. The dish was good. I suspect I think I would have thought it was even better if it had come already grilled and ready on my plate. I don’t want to make this into an ethical discussion or debate, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I know quite a few people who are reading here are vegetarians or vegans (and I absolutely respect that) and have very strong feelings about what food to eat and what food not to eat. I’ve had my own fair share of experience with vegetarianism and veganism, but at this point in my life I am not vegetarian nor vegan. (That being said, I do not consume a lot of meat on a daily basis.)

And this little guy was bitter! It was quite good, but getting used to the bitterness took a bite or two.

So when the palette cleanser came along it was perfect to clear the mouth of the previous course, and get ready for… even more food(!)

We had a delicious nabe with cooked fish and vegetables.

After the fish was cooked in the nabe and served to us, rice was put into the same nabe with the broth from the fish and cooked, it made a delicious rice soup.

Finally, it was all-you-could-eat-dessert-buffet. However, I do not especially like sweet things (I gave up on eating desserts and chocolate and most sweet things two years ago), and after a couple of weeks away from that and daily coke, and no longer crave sweets and I actually do not like the taste of most cakes and candy. That being said, I picked three little dessert things, and the one with the red top was actually really nice, it was almost acidic and tasted like a fresh cheese cake. The other two were really nice as well, but to sweet for my taste. I am sure that if you are into cake and sweets you would have loved them though, wonderful nuttyness from the yellow cake and a sweet (real) strawberry taste from the pink blob in the back.

I am still really into patterns, so I made a cup-cake pattern the other day. I was thinking about coloring it in, but I kind of like like it is. I am still not completely comfortable making patterns, but I am learning as I go along. This one turned out a little bit to square in the shape for my liking, but I will try with different shapes to make the seams seem more seamless. (Ha, funny sentence!)

I attended a Hello Sandwich workshop, and it was so nice to make something with my hands again, and it was a nice ending to a super-stressful day! I had been running all day, so in the end it was wonderful to sit down and just make something. One thing I miss about my friends in Norway was all the creative evenings, sitting down with a glass of wine or a coffee and just draw and make stuff together, so I hope I can do that again once I am back in Norway for a while.

If you find yourself in Tokyo, you should absolutely sign up for the little Hello Sandwich workshops, she is super-talented and it is always great to make time in a busy schedule to create something.

Finally, I got around to posting these! They are from a beach in Shimoda. What I loved the most about this beach was the lack of kids, and the fact that it was actually spacious. I am so used to having people everywhere around me in Japan, getting this luxury of space for once was really nice.