I took a long weekend in Bergen,was very lucky with the weather because apparently it rains 280 days a year there. The trip there was the long one via train, mountain train, and a fjord boat (lots more here):
Bergen was great, very historic city, having been a major Hanseatic center since 1360, and a lot preserved due to relative lack of importance later. I took many photos. I also visited Grieg's home, which is on a lovely promontory overlooking a fjord and has a concert hall with a grass roof!
Here are some pictures of the new furniture in the living and dining rooms, finally! I just completely rearranged the furniture in the living room so was motivated to take pictures.
First, the dining table, complete with naughty kitty taking a nap on top
Here's a closeup of the buffet:
Now the living room. I moved the couch to create kind of a boundary between the dining area and living area. Now it faces the piano. This is now the view when you enter the room:
Here's the couch from the other side:
Fortuitously, the new Oslo Opera House, which is right on the fjord, opened a day before I arrived in Oslo! I went to see it today - there were lots of locals having a look too, even though there was no performance. I bought a ticket to the opening concert, which is being performed several times between now and mid-May, but is mostly sold out - I was lucky to get a return. Here is a photo, taken from the bridge that leads there from the railway station (more photos here):
Chris and I went to Kyoto for the weekend, a great trip, Here are the photos (a lot, especially because the cherry trees were beginning to bloom):
We even saw some geishas in a back street:
Chris and I went to the Red Sox - Oakland As opener to the 2008 season at the Tokyo Dome last night! As I was sitting there, I realized that it was the 50th anniversary (!) of when I became a baseball fan in 1958, when the then NY Giants moved to San Francisco. So it was an appropriate way to celebrate the anniversary, watching my other two favorite teams. Here is the Dome:
We were surrounded by Red Sox fans (two girls behind us had flown out from Boston just for the game, plus a fair number of US military from nearby bases), but Chris and I tried to root for the As, along with another nearby woman.
Before the game they presented flowers to the managers (only in Japan!) and an opera singer sang the Japanese national anthem. The last photo is Okajima throwing a fastball.
My mainline train, the JR Chuo line, goes out west towards the mountains, and one of the stops is Takao, where you can change to the Keio line and go one stop to the terminus at Takaosanguchi, the gateway to a lovely National Park area with good day hikes up Mt Takao. I could not resist that and went off there on Sunday for the day - needless to say, it was very crowded (as all the guidebooks say) with Tokyoites taking a day out, especially since it was the first warmish weekend, but it was still nice and peaceful on some of the trails.
A lot of the walk is along a ridge after you climb up (there is a rack railway, Ouchy-style, but I skipped it). Although in principle, one can see both Fuji and Tokyo from there, it was a bit hazy, as you can see, so I had to be content with hills and trees (not bad!).
Almost at the top, there is an elaborate temple complex, Yakuo-In, with lovely carvings as at Nikko. Many shops selling small good luck papers to offer or tie on the shrine, snacks, incense, etc.
Also (of course) the requisite statues with tiny red berets and bibs:
You can see more at my picasa site.
Ten days ago, literally at the moment at which I was coming down with the flu, Crate and Barrel delivered a new, non-defective hallway cabinet. I didn't have a chance to take a picture of it until tonight, when I saw Ulysses adopting it as a new place to sleep. (One problem with not having much furniture is that the kitties kind of have a shortage of sleeping places right now, so they find them where they can.)
I haven't figured out yet what I should put in the drawers, though.
One drawback of Ulysses sleeping on it is now there is cat hair all over the top...
This week a friend and I went to a Zen Buddhist Nunnery for lunch, although we did not see any nuns - in the middle of the week in winter they apparently do not do much business. It is called the Sanko In, and is in western Tokyo. They serve shojin cuisine, which is very refined vegetarian Buddhist cuisine, from which kaiseki is derived, although kaiseki has fish and sometimes meat. The restaurant was founded by the former abbess Soei Yoneda, who also published a cookbook in English that is now out of print, although Amazon carries used copies - there is more information on her at this website.
Here is one course (bad photo taken by my motorola phone, on loan). The rolls are seaweed wrapped around a kind of yam, the orange thing is what they call pumpkin (like accorn squash), and then there is a kind of tofu and some mushroom. Yummy!
Some friends took me to the Hakone region yesterday for my birthday - about two hours outside of Tokyo, where you can see Mt Fuji and there is a lot to do - hiking, onsens, museums, etc. It was a great trip, we had a drive to see the view, visited a Shinto shrine (where there was a wedding going on), had a delicious 6 course gourmet French meal with a view, went for a 3 hour hike up a mountain and visited a beautiful indoor-outdoor Onsen (hot spring bath) for a soak on the way home. Definitely what to do after hiking. Here are some pix, there are more at picasa:
