Friday, January 11, 2008

おひさしぶり

I did not realize I took a longer vacation from the blog than expected. I was sooo on vacation that I forgot to take a picture of pair #38 for the year... my third pair of banana socks made in the Eleanor pattern for my music friend. I guess you will all be in the dark on this pair. If I catch my friend wearing the socks I will try to sneak a picture.

The first picture is of the mono colored Christmas lights around here and the famous tower in featured in most dramas. These people do not know how to do Christmas lights likes we Americans, variety of colors with various shapes. Kind of missed those this year.... but in exchange I tried to show my patriotism by attending this next event:

I got up early and fought the winds and rain to see this guy wave to the crowd. He only does this twice a year at specific times. In order to see this we had special security checks and polite body searches, the women police patted-down the women. We were handed flags to show our spirit. It turned out to be a very cooler event than I expected.

Then I went to mom and dad's where it is suppose to be warmer than where I live. But as you can see I ran into some of this white stuff around New years. Crazy!! Here is a picture of our outside activities we planned for this cold snowy day:

We are making pounding rice for the New years, it only took about 5 hours. Just think I could have made a sock in that time instead of 12 trays of rice cakes... outside in the cold! Really it was fun because I got to eat rice cakes for the next week as well as being with friends and family. (Dad is in the left back corner.)
Then the big New years Eve came and mom, dad and I had this great idea to run down to the local shrine at midnight. We thought it was an original idea...

Well... we knew would not be along at the shrine, but we did not expect the lines in the country side.

Then the next day we climbed a mountain to this temple to make more wishes for the new year. We even fought the crowds to buy a charm for my little niece's health... and it fell out of our bag somewhere on the mountain. I hope that is not bad luck! (well really we were suppose to buy this charm at the shrine, but forgot as we went for the free soup and hot ginger drink!)

After all that fun at with the family... I had to return via a 14 hour train. AND that is when I had time to knit this scarf, the branching out scarf, made from mohair. Fortunately, this pattern is rather fool proof because you can not rip back mohair.

Oh, and finally here is the Sockamania New Years Pattern I have one sock done... this pair is for my little sister :)

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