Chuo Shinrin Park

Have you ever lived somewhere and discovered a place that you couldn’t believe you’d never been to before? For me, this place is Chuo Shinrin Kouen, the park surrounding Hiroshima Airport. Just a thirty minute bus ride from Mihara Train Station separates me from one of my new favourite places. I’m going to get all “lonely planet” on you and tell you to head to the main office and ask for a map to the Sankeien Gardens. It’s the only part I managed to get to: Chuo Shinrin covers a maasssive area and it’s covered with bicycle routes and hiking trails if you’re keen to spend the whole day there. Entrance for the Sankeien Garden is just 300yen, definitely well worth it! I threw on another shortened granny dress and some unfashionably filthy slops/flip flops/ thongs for the day trip… here comes summer!!

Dear Mihara

Dear Mihara
I’m sorry we always put you down. But let’s be honest, your neighbours Onomichi and Fukuyama have always outshone you. Up until now all you’ve been famous for is octopus and the Shinkansen track! Now will you please open more restaurants like Pia Cere so we can finally start bragging about you.
Yours truly,
Trixie and Flo

Pattern Magic

Pattern magic is a book for anyone interested in dappling in sculptural Japanese fashion and pushing the boundaries of creative and advanced pattern drafting. I bought the first of the three volume series a few months ago and have managed to finish the pattern of one of the garments, but am yet to attempt the daunting task of stitching it together (I’ll have to show you when it’s done). The book is by Tomoko Nakamichi, and it didn’t surprise me to find out that she was a long time professor at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, one of the world’s leading fashion study institutions.
The book is printed in Japanese, but is easy enough to follow if you have a background in flat pattern drafting and dart manipulation. As far as I know there is also an English version of the book available at Amazon. Hope you’re all as inspired as I am.

Hiroshima City

Hiroshima city was pure bustle this past weekend with the baseball game and Toukasan festival drawing people in from all over the prefecture.  City buzz is always fun, but it meant too few street fashion pictures for me.  Crowds of red and white clad supporters and pretty girls (and boys) wearing their traditional yukatas hid most of the the trendy and the crazy. We did however enjoy a copious amount of food (again!). We started with Okonomiyake (Hiroshima’s famous dish) and moved on to Molly’s med for shwarmas and falafels. We also managed to escape to Chanoma, a restaurant layed completely with mattresses! It has a fabulously relaxed atmosphere, great loungy music and cute cocktails to boot. Does it sound strange that places like this make me really glad I’m staying in Japan for another year? On Sunday we enjoyed a light snack at Zucchini and a bit of browsing at Zara, before getting on the reality train that very abruptly sent me back into a new work week…

Thanks to Marty for the first pic, and Emily for the second and third xox

Japan diaries: Cupcakes and Evening Scapes

I hope these pictures make you feel as dreamy as they make me feel! And who doesn’t want to dream of cupcakes?! I baked those up about two weeks ago for the “Let’s Film Festival”, a film festival held annually in the little magical town of Onomichi.  This past film fest managed to raise about 60 000 yen which was donated to the Japanese Red Cross to help the earthquake and tsunami victims up North.
The other pictures were taken this evening actually. I’ve valued evening bike rides and walks as a time to explore my town and enjoy good weather. Hope you all have a great weekend, I’ll be in the city for this one, so hopefully that means good fun and good fashion!