Japan

This summer Douwe went to Japan for a very special occasion; he went to celebrate his Obachan's 100th birthday. I have heard many accounts of how she is lively and engaging, sagely and determined.

Lotus Flower blossoming in the summer. A beautiful icon of the tropical weather.

Textures and patterns. Love the Japanese textiles. In the middle picture are cousins at Obachan's birthday.

Kobe: Akemi's home town. A port city nestled into the foot of mountains.

Kobe by night.

Kyoto & surrounds

Obachan's 100th Birthday party. She made origami cranes as a present for everyone and enjoyed the cake and company! What present is suitable to give to some of such a grand age? It seemed chocolate bon bons (preferably Belgian) were the order of the day. Obachan takes a few a day as daily medicine!

Ready for the food pictures? I think I Douwe has caught the taking pictures of food bug. But when the food is this good, who wouldn't take pictures, I ask you?!
Food set #1 Lots of sashimi and bento.

Food set #2 More sashimi and unagi

Food set #3 ...Sashimi and okonomiyaki. The top right sashimi set almost brings a tear to my eye with its lyrical presentation. Yes! Food can sing.

Quintessential Japanese images. The photos of paintings are painted by family members who were famous artists

I ♥ NY

Douwe and I jetted across the Atlantic to discover NY city.

We walked and walked and walked and when my feet felt broken, we took a cab. I ♥ NY. The typical NY scenes:

Then the NY that we discovered:

We only had 6 meals and planned snacking times (not including breakfasts) to spend in NY, so we had to make wise decisions. With some good advice in hand and some shrewd thinking, we did well. We had classic elegant American cuisine: O.m.g. how some chefs can produce a dish with meat and veggies so amazingly tasty it seems magical. We stayed in little Korea and discovered the wonderland that is Korean food. From left to right:

• Battered oysters & cold cucumber soup, Fig pudding with pear sorbet, D&K on top of the empire;
• Kim chee hot pot, barley risotto with mushroom and autumn vegetables (so out of the ordinary), gorgeous platters for serving sausages;
• The numerous dishes of various pickles and other suprises that magically appear before each (korean restaurant) meal, udon soup, doggy dresses, steak and beans with style

I ♥ NY!

Next stop: Boston: home of historical things but here's the food tour: We had Italian, mexican, and traditional New England delicacies; all with the specialties of the region: shellfish and seafood. So little time, but we made the most of it. If you ever had to sacrifice home and other belongings for a dipping sauce, the innocent-looking green one at the bottom-left of the picture would be it. Searching for a recipe as we speak.

In Rockport, a picturesque fishing village where my heart was content...

My cousin Gerald, I'm not sure if I love him because he's family or because he brought me to lobster. Oh lobster how I adore thee. Hence the pictures of lobster in various poses. Aren't they gorgeous, nursing their bath of melted butter belly-up, a definitely provocative pose screaming, 'rip my tail off and eat my juicy flesh'. I did. FYI twist the tail off, don't bend.Clam chowda, and whole-belly clams: little juicy and plump morsels in a KFC syle batter. Mmm om nom nom. Be still my cholesterol-laden heart!

My Best Friend's Wedding

And then, the real reason for the trip: Rachael & Shane's Wedding. It was a 4-day event, generating enough stress to be measured on a pressure scale!
The first day: The bride and groom look relatively carefree. A duck boat tour of boston where we caught up with the family and wedding party. The highlight of the tour was Marshalls, a store where you can get last season's designer everything (perfume, clothes, shoes, bags) at a snippet of the original price. The squeals could be heard a block away as Marshalls was spotted from the tour vehicle.

And there they are: Mr & Mrs/Dr Shane & Rachael Allen! Rachy already had so much poise, grace and warmth- combined with Shane, they are a supremely handsome couple with an unfairly excellent gene pool :) Seriously, Rachael was SO gorgeous, she had a 'famous-person-aura' about her. I've done 4 stints as flower girl and this is the 3rd as bridesmaid. Apart from my own wedding, I've never walked down the aisle grinning like an idiot before.

One of 5 bridesmaids, it was a fantastic experience being one of the girls again!! It was a revisit to the early years when I actually had time/attention for makeup hair and nails and that sort of thing.

The reception highlight: dancing the forbidden dance led by a 7 year old: not the lambada, it was the macarena...you can't stop the music!

Hola!

Last minute trip to Barcelona to visit Tita Loli and Primito Noah who were on a visit to family there. To say we enjoyed it would be an understatement. 4 days of partying (toddler style, not rock star). 4 days of eating everything that passed our noses. 4 days of being with family. I was kind of hungover from too much of a good time...

Kaemon and Noah thankfully played peacefully most of the time...Kaemon picked up some Spanish, and also some Spanish style

A sample of the fare. Dolores (mama) worked miracles in the kitchen with tomatoes, celery, onion, bay leaves and wine. It must have been a miracle as I tried the recipes, but tasted nothing like hers. My only mission in Barcelona was to revisit the Navajas at the Boqueria.

We hung out with la familia. We siesta'd and partied till laaaate

Muchas Gracias! It's great to have family everywhere!

Holiday week...episode 1

We had a week off work, and crammed in as many things as possible, and I had THREE days with no kids! But a discussion of the holidays cannot begin without reference to that bleary week in March, where our holidays were magnificently and decisively cancelled due to a gastrointestinal bug. A few months later, we're ripe as a rotting tomato for a long awaited week off.

Back to the THREE days with no kids. A little last minute shimmying of plans, bribery and begging...and three kid-free days materialised like a mirage on the horizon. I dared not to dream too much, or fantasize too much lest fate should decide to strike again. But, it came, and I had THREE days with NO kids!!! First stop: Ingrid's Bachelorette's Party in Antwerp. Not even a 2.5 hour train delay in the hot sun could dampen my spirits, I was almost giddy with the relief that I didn't have grumpy kids to look after in the smelly train. Anyways, Ingrid's party was fantastico! Ingrid's an old friend from violin/band camp days and it's my good fortune that she ended up a 1.5 hours drive from us.

The party was hilariously fun, a bit too much sangria and schnapps at 3 in the afternoon will do that. My highlight, was eating dinner with only one mouth to put food into. My hands, clothes, hair stayed clean. The menu was Thai fish ball curry with a lime cucumber salad. I'm so obsessed by this dish, I have to make it soon. The sour lime, the almost bouncy fish balls, creamy curry sauce, soft aubergine, I can't stop thinking about it. Thai food ROCKS. I'm wasn't the only one fighting (but pretending not to) to lick the bowls clean.

The next day, Douwe joined us and we wandered round Antwerp with Ingrid and Tom. When you're on holiday, everything's charming, romantic and intriguing, especially if you have the freedom to wander without toddlers. But I think that Antwerp really was all that. And I'm quite sure that Ingrid and Tom were fantastic hosts (although they could have housed us in a shed and we'd have been quite content, sleeping through the night without babies waking us).

Lounging at a park festival (no kids!)

Dinner on the last night was DIVINE. Thai, again. The piece de resistance was a Beef salad, that's always good, but this one had toasted rice powder through it which was a surprise which lifted it beyond 'good' to 'so-happy-I-want-to-cry'.

Finally a big THANKS to the babysitters, Hylke, Akemi, Dirk & Lilian, without whom this weekend would not have been possible!

FINALLY!

The 12 hour journey was not the nightmare expected,we survived relatively unscathed, unwounded and untraumatised. Pretty good considering we had 2 seats for 4 bums.
 
Malaysia is always: warm and food and family (and shopping- we tag-teamed: me first 6 hours intensive credit card action in the Twin Towers KLCC, took a taxi back home, and handed the cab to douwe who promptly jumped in and returned to the point of origin...). Our welcome was complete with sinful chocolate mousse cake. Even though there were 12 kids under the age of 10 present, it was pretty calm and quiet in the house!
 
This year saw a baby boom: here showing 5 of the 6 babies born in the past year: clockwise Zach, Alex, Ethan ([bottom right]eten by whom??!), Nelson and Ryan.
 
And yes................the food photos. Why are there not that many? Not that we didn't eat that much, surely not (the first day we had 4 meals). I ate too fast to take photos. Seriously. Check out kaemon's Giant Paper Dhose (bottom right) at our airport food court breakfast (one cannot waste any meal opportunity in malaysia)
 

February

brought us: Sufern, food, sightseeing


Exploring the surrounding area where we live

Master Kaemon's First birthday

A visit with the Whitesides!

What a good month.

Dusseldorf

Thanks to some lovely friends, we scored a 5* hotel stay in Dusseldorf on "germany's most stylish shopping street". They nearly rejected my pink daihatsu applause from valet parking, it was that posh.

The travel crew:

We mainly wallowed in the luxury of the hotel room, ate delicious food at various places, visited family and generally just hung out...

we went to Chicksands to visit the Whitesides and dropped in on our family in London. Kaemon cried between 3-6 am and after a week, there was a little pearly white to show for it. A little toot. This week he's made up for it by sleeping in.....
ANyway, the visit, was great, eliza had her wild cocktails and karaoke birthday party, which I've not seen the likes of for a long time!
We also met Evan, the newest expansion to the family, and Andrew and John, all kaemon's cousins (and Meg who has adopted Kaemon as an honourary cousin!) So many babies....
Thanks eliza, dave and kids for the delicious food, and company!!