My matrioshka

I went to Matrioshka painting workshop today.

Matrioshka is Russian traditional doll. The biggest doll to the second smallest are made as containers. You can put the smallest into the second smallest, and do the same to the biggest. So, if you put all, it looks like just one big doll.

At the beginning of the class, I was give a set of 3 plain Matrioshka dolls. First, do rough sketch on a paper. Then, copy to the plain Matrioshka by hand writing. Finally, you paint with poster paint pens. It sounds very simple, but it took me 4 years without any break! Phew, such a concentration!!!

And... this is it! How do you find them? As you guess, these two cats are my sweeties. The smallest is a mouse represents me because my birth year is rat in Chinese year (there are twelve of them, and this year is Ox and the next year is Tiger). I am very happy with the outcomes. Creative activities always gave me a great feeling and energy!

Ponta and Uku

Ponta and Uku are my adorable cats. Ponta came to my place on Oct 11th, 2004. Uku came here on Mar 24th, 2007. I found both via internet website called "Itsudemo Satooya Boshuchu". It means "Always looking for foster family".

This is sad to say that Japan's pet situation is very bad compared to UK and/or Germany as far as I know. When stray animals (cats and dogs) are found on a street, they are captured and sent to public offices called Animal Protection Center, where they kept these animals about 2 weeks and if nobody showed up to reliese them from the center, all animals were put them to sleep. The center does not give any re-homing training to these animals. Therefore, the name should be "Animal Slaughter center", to be honest... What a shame........

Some people cannot stand with these system and adopt animals voluntarily from these offices to rehome. Uku's owner belongs to one of these real animal protection group and found Uku wandering along a busy street. When I visited them, there were 7-8 cats. 3-4 were theirs, but the rest were waiting for a new owner. On the other hand, Ponta's owner was individual who found Ponta's mom, syster and himself. Their son had a strong allegy to cats and cannot live with Ponta who loves cuddling. Actually, they had one cat but the cat loves to be alone, so the son was OK. Ponta was the last cat who found a new house. He experiences a couple of new owners before me, but none of them were his favorites. I'm sure he was waiting for me.

Good thing is that the situation is (slowly) getting better and Japanese government are trying to improve the system by decreasing the number of animals to kill and increasing rehomed animals. I know things will change step by step... but I do really hope, one day, people's first choice to meet a new animal is to visit Animal Protection center or these groups.

Uku's photo is the one on the web site where I met her. Ponta's pic was taken 4 days after he came to my house. He was sleeping hold by me.

Luxury pillow

Guess what is her pillow! It seems V. comfortable, soft and warm...

Halloween Night Cruise!

I went to a Halloween party yesterday. The venue is a water front restaurant (posh!) and surprising program was "Night Cruising" directly from the restaurant. I really regret not to take my boyfriend with me... Anyway, it was clear day, not that chilly with rather a fat moon (the next full moon is Nov 3rd) in the sky. The cruise itself was only 15 - 20 minutes, but it was utterly fun and had a big impact! If possible, I would like to do the same thing again but by a Canadian canoe... that would be perfectly romantic!!!