A Very Japanese Garden

My husband and I went back to the Japanese garden in Washington Park Arboretum. The last time we were in January the surrounding area was dead and sad looking. Today the sense of spring has brighten up the area in the warm gentle air. The garden designed by a Japanese is authentic with tranquility and landscape modeled on nature and it makes you feel as if in Japan. There are many familiar plants including mosses. Later I learned it was part of the designers' effort to represent scenes found in Japan.

Magnolias - still blooming after cherry blossoms.

It seems like a wild type of azalea. I've seen similar ones in mountains.

Here are interesting animal activities taking place in a peaceful Sunday afternoon. Synchronized swimming performance by ducks. 

Sun bathing turtles!

Some ferns sprouting. The swirls fascinates me.

A gnarled tree with branches looking like delicate fireworks. It turned out it was planted by then crown princess Michiko. It's still small after some fifty years.

Moss Blog

A friend of mine Naoko is a great cook and food lover. She is always exploring new flavours and parings and has also taken food coordination classes. I'm one of her fans and love her creative cooking with unexpected combinations which pleasantly surprise me. The wedding gift from her and her husband was a bag of le sel de Guérande and a bottle of Mancino olive oil along with her original recipes. It was really like her and has her personal touch. And of course I tried the recipes too. Here is her blog on her life around food: http://ameblo.jp/sanonao/


I cooked roast beef using this delicate salt. You can even see square crystallization in it. It brought out the full flavour of beef and the vegetable giving the depth and made the dish a success. I could serve it when we have the family or friends over. Salt is essential to food obviously. I couldn't agree more with the princess from a fairy tale I used to read as a child. I often recall this even now especially with a piece of salted butter in my mouth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_and_Salt

Olympic Sculpture Park

Another sunny afternoon was spent in Olympic Sculpture Park. It's a park looking down the waterfront. Seattle is not a big city but has many parks and the surrounding area has a few beautiful parks as well. It's a good balance between nature and city, which makes living here pleasant. I like the idea of parks - it's just public space outdoors and you. And this one comes with sculptures by modern artists and it adds some industrial touch. 
Here is a sculpture by Alexander Calder, one of my foavourite artists. You can also see a futuristic tower, Space Needle. 

Yet again something red. The mountain range across the sea is part of Olympic National Park. I hope to go there before I leave Seattle.

Catch up

It's been a long while since my last update!
I feel bad about taking so long to come back but I'm lucky enough to have some of my friends who have checked out my blog during the break. Now it's the time to catch up.


About a month ago was the best time for cherry blossoms in Seattle. I had never imagined I would see such big clusters of them outside Japan except for D.C.. University of Washington seemed to be a local (and possibly even tourists) destination for the weekend. We rented a Zipcar(a car sharing service) for the trip, a Mini cooper for fun. Actually it's not as cool since the car has a big logo of Zipcar on the other side ...

When we got there the lawn  was full of people enjoying the flowers and the sun, and taking pictures.
It seems taking photos is becoming less stereotypical of Japanese recently. I see lots of people doing that with not just touristic attractions but seemingly ordinary things. My guess is that the popularity of Facebook which helps and encourages picture sharing, is one of the reasons. The guy with a SLR like a telescope must be Japanese.
We found some space and sat down for a while just like hundreds of other people there. This is how we experienced cherry blossoms viewing a month earlier than in Japan.