Things Japanese

In November Laurent spent a few weeks on vacation in Japan - yes we do occasionally take separate vacations. He had been there about three years ago to visit our friend Colette but had restricted his activities to Tokyo. This time he did some serious touring around on their great train system - Kyoto,Nara,Osaka and Himeji. He can't stop talking about how efficient and user-friendly their service was, but keep in mind most of his recent experiences has been on TrenItalia.

One of our guests on Christmas Day was another Colette, a friend from Canada who teaches English in Japan. As well as some gelatin sweets adorned with good luck symbols she presented us with a length of obi silk. Well over 14 feet long, its lacquered silk which gives the pattern extra depth and makes it easier to tie the obi. The band of solid orange silk towards one end would be the part of the obi closest the body. It doesn't show and given the cost of patterned silk it is more economical to use the plain silk.

It is a lovely piece of material and Colette suggested cutting it up to make place mats, though I think I would find it difficult to cut into such a beautiful piece of material. We'll have to think of some way to use it.

And a click on the Chrysanthemum will lead you to the first of Laurent's Flickr photo sets of his trip. "Nara is a small town a former Capital of Japan prior to Kyoto. Lovely temples and sacred deers roaming around the parks of the city."

09 gennaio - San Marcellino

Jack's Beijing

Last July when Laurent left Beijing much of the city seemed to be under construction. In the year that he's been gone our friend Jack has been keeping us up to date with the incredible changes. And he's remarked more than once that the skyline of Beijing is not the one he remembers from his childhood - and he's only a baby! Its hard to imagine what his parents must make of it and the changes they have seen. He sent these pictures (from an unknown source on the Internet) of the new National Theatre designed by French architect Jean Andreu. I gather there has been some concern because you walk under the water feature to access the building and this is not good feng-shui. Not sure how true that is or if it is just one of those urban myths. Jack has sent me a correction on this: The bad fengshui is because the Opera House looks like a tomb. So people have to go down and into a tomb...
But Jack has also been busy with his camera in the past few weeks capturing the city and recording the changes. A click on Jack in this photo I took when he visited us in January will lead you to his great Flickr Slideshow. And he's promised there will be more to come.

19 agosto - San Giovanni Eudes

Further Valentino

When the video of the Valentino Exhibition finally processed and I played it this morning I realized that the picture was small and that many of the exquisite details of Valentino's designs were lost. So I've uploaded a sideshow at Fickr that can be browsed through at a desired speed. I haven't added much in the way of comments other than identifying the celebrity dresses.

Two things I did notice and several friends who accompanied me to the exhibition remarked on:

• You'd have to be pencil thin verging on anorexic to wear some - well actually almost all - of those dresses.
  
• Some of the more elaborate ones - bead work behinds, coq feathers at the wrists and neck - would be absolute hell to wear. How the hell would you sit in some of them?

14 novembre - San Giocondo