4-H World Citizenship - Artist, dinner, wasabi, Ponyo

Garage room of father's artist friend (not him in the picture), they are sculpted from wood sections and painted. He is a "certified master craftsman of Japanese traditional arts and crafts" he's younger than my parents and has a child in fathers preschool. He owns his own company. He paints, lays gold leafing, sculpts, etc. He did the tiles on the ceiling of the new temple. He has a 6 story building for the sale of his work as well as the garage room at his house and a few large rooms inside the house.

We visited both places, got to make gold leafing sauce dishes and mom bought me one of the bracelets he sells, which is like a small version of their praying beads.





View from our restaurant on the the 19th floor while in Kyoto

















Metal dish with a point in the middle that sits over a gas burner(all in the midle of the table). They put water unit, bring it to a boil with one kelp leaf in it, can boil thin beef in it within seconds. Add mushrooms, cabage, rice cakes oudon, clear noodles, tofu, et. It's very healthy!

































Wasabi: The plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan (Izu peninsula). Wasabi is known as "Japanese horseradish", its root is used as a spice and has an extremely strong flavour. I buy the paste back in the U.S., which I use in making sushi, yum! Sushi chefs usually put the wasabi between the fish and the rice.




This is Hayao Miyazaki's newer movie, Ponyo, (of course this makes me think of my dad back at home, he bought me my first Japanese animated movie many years ago!)

"Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea" is a 2007 Japanese animated film by Studio Ghibli, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is Miyazaki's tenth film for Ghibli. The plot centers on a juvenile fish named Ponyo who wants to become a human girl. In pursuing her goal, she befriends a five-year-old human boy, Sōsuke.

Ponyo has won several awards. It was released in Japan on July 19, 2008 and will be released in theaters in the U.S. on August 14, 2009. (view the clip by clicking on the 1st link on the right hand column of my blog)