Went through the endless archives, and found more pictures from 2008. This garden is actually not in Japan, but in Norway, and you can visit it straight outside of Bergen. They have cute little Japanese statues and buildings, and it is quite funny to see it all with the Norwegian nature as a back-drop.

Ze Frank has a lot of little interactive toys you can play with, one of them is to make your own flowers, like the ones above. Try it!

I have no idea why, but October looked a lot more colorful three years ago. If I recall correctly, there were several days involving both sun and a camera. Sigh.

Just had to show of these pretty Japanese ukiyo-e (woodblock prints). These gorgeous prints (and many more) are available to download and distribute in big sizes from this nice webpage.

I had my final exam in philosophy history and I got 100%, which means that I had to celebrate by buying the biggest sushi-tray I could find. (I am not really celebrating the 100%, I am celebrating never having to touch philosophy history again in my life.) I haven’t been eating much sushi after I came here, because I figured I can eat it a lot more once I am back in Japan, but today I caved, and I just had to have some. It was really delicious and we have a great evening with bad crime shows and good sushi. Ready to get on with my week now 🙂 (Oh, the sushi is from ichiban.)

1. If you are in Norway and have a Nintendo DS, this webshop had great service for R4 cartridges. It took me 4 day in total from I placed the order until I got the package in the mail. (And for being Norway, that is really fast service!)
2. Reaching the stage of Conscious Competence in Japanese. A nice article about different stages of learning. (I will start writing articles about learning Japanese myself, I just have to get around to it. Until then, the above website is a super resource!)
3. A fun little article for the top 10 reasons to make gay marriage illegal 😉
4. This might not be funny unless you know anybody from Bergen, Norway, but basically the county has put out a long list of words and expressions used in Bergen. I had not heard about half of them, but it was a fun to see anyhow!
5. Spoonflower is a website where you can make your own fabrics! A dream come true, I have been wanting to put designs on textile for a long time, and finally a website that seems really promising.
6. And I am absolutely in love with these Jeffrey Cambell shoes. If anybody knows where to buy them offline, please let me know! I don’t mind buying shoes online, but this design is kind of special and I am not sure how the shoe would actually look in real life, so trying them on would be great.
7. And again, if you are in Bergen, these guys at Ichiban make fun sushi! It reminds me a lot more of American/Canadian style of sushi than traditional Japanese sushi, but still, a lot of fun rolls and combos!
8. This website is all about simplifying your life by getting rid of possessions and create smarter and smaller living spaces, both to improve the quality of your life, and to leave less of a footprint. A lot of neat solutions here! When I grow up, I want to live in a space with movable walls.
9. My friend sortenke has a nice little interview up (in Norwegian) about what type of tools she uses in her design process.
10. How much do genes matter? A very nice article about how talent only takes you so far from Scott H. Young, who is all about learning faster and achieving more. (Check out his archive as well, lots of goodies in there about learning techniques.)

Things that made me smile:

Fat bird balls resting up on the lawn enjoying the last streaks of heat from the sun // Norwegian creamy fish soup // Crossing out all the items I had planned for the day in teuxdeux // Rediscovering twitter all of a sudden // THIS // Have empty space in my bookshelves and closets, empty white space on the walls // Small rooms which can be heated up to livable temperatures within 30 min // Sparkling water (elixir of life!) // Some beautiful people who have uploaded a lot of documentaries to youtube lately, thank you ♥ // Norwegian, black coffee // The very big moon a couple of days ago

Why have I never heard about ferrofluid before? I’m in love and now I want one of these sculptures. “A magnetic liquid or ferrofluid is a colloidal mixture of magnetic particles (~10 nm in diameter) in a liquid carrier. Ferrofluids can be suspended in water or in an organic fluid. When no external magnetic field is present the fluid is not magnetic and the orientation of the magnetite particles is random. However, when an external magnetic field is applied, the magnetic moments of the particles align with the magnetic field lines. When the magnetic field is removed, the particles return to random alignment. These properties can be used to make a liquid that changes its density depending on the strength of the magnetic field and that can form fantastic shapes.”

I know I should have gone to bed when I either go on random Wikipedia-binges or find very amusing, but somewhat pointless home-science-experiment-videos on youtube. I don’t have milk nor food coloring in my house, but if I did, I would probably ruin a gallon of milk in pure excitement. Maybe it would be possible to photograph everything from above and create some nice textures for backgrounds.

I’ll be honest, I need to learn a thing or two from you I-love-autumn kind of girls. I read all about your fancy hot cocoa and diving into gorgeous literature in front of grand fireplaces, but I can’t seem to find the rhythm myself. (Also, the cocoa is obtainable, but I am all out of gorgeous literature and grand fireplaces.) I want sushi, sake and sunlight, and I will keep on dreaming about that until I can get out of here in 2 months exactly. Hope you are having a wonderful week, I’ll keep on cramming away until I fall asleep tonight. xo

You guys have to see this amazing water clock at Osaka station! It is absolutely gorgeous. I want to go there and see it myself after new years, absolutely wonderful!

Just a mindless post about my new hair! Or actually, it is not entirely new, I bought it in Japan a couple of months ago, but I put it in a box when I was going back to uni now, and it finally arrived by sea mail last week! Compared to how cheap it is, it works pretty ok, especially under a hat. Homepage for brand is here: http://www.prisila.jp/. They have quite a few cute styles available, but a few of them are a bit too over the top for my taste, but I am sure other people can pull of some of these better than I.