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New Life – Sprouting Spring

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After I introduced my Matcha Swirl Mochi in my previous post with a hope that the arrival of warm sunny spring is nearer we had another snow in London, but yesterday turned out to be a very sunny day. In Japan we say that it is ‘San-kan-shi-on’ (三寒四温/ 3 cold and 4 warm) which means “the weather moves onto Spring by having three cold days and four warm days”. It is describing the weather condition particularly in East Asian countries, however, I feel it is the same here in London.

The sunshine outside looked so welcoming yesterday and I could not resist stepping out into the garden. My garden has been messy during winter time and I did the first gardening of this year. I hope good weather stays so I can do some tidying up bit by bit before the real spring arrives here.

New Life

Spring is a season of new life. I created some sweets in this ‘New Life’ theme which is also the theory of Easter that comes next week. I wonder whether you can see what it is supposed to be?

New Life1

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Lumiere London 2

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Lumiere London was a big lighting festival that was held in January. I visited several areas in central London and my journey continued from the venues I took viewing the installations at Westminster Abbey, Soth Bank, Oxford Cirus to Piccadilly through Regent Street in my previous post.

Leicester Square

One of the main exhibition areas of this year’s Lumiere London was Leicester Square. Inside the square there were giant rabbits, fox, frogs as well as a huge Foxglove plant and many Butterflies glowed in the darkness, creating a magical fairy tale world.

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It was really the Night Garden

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Lumiere London 1

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

There was a wonderful event in London about two weeks ago (the 18th – 21st January) called ‘Lumiere London’. This was a festival of Lighting displayed in the public space in central London. I went into town and took lots of photos so I would be able to share the experience with you all. However, straight after that event, Bang!! I got the flu… I don’t catch a cold very often so this flu germ must have been a super strong one. Somebody in the audience gave it to me. I gargled to spit out the germs and washed hand as soon as I got back home but two day after the day I became ill with a high temperature with aching muscles and stuck in bed for a week.

I apologise for the delay of posting these photos but because it was a very interesting event I would like to share the photos with you here.

Lumiere London

The event ‘Lumiere London’ was the open viewing art works of 50 lighting works by different artists in public space. The venues were spread out in several areas in Central London. The area I went to see first was in Westminster.

Westminster Abbey

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This was one of the major art works for this year’s event. The lighting was done in two entrances. The light of the main entrance changed from time to time. There seemed lighting from inside as well so the stained glass rose up clearly to emarge with the outside lighting. The unusual colour choice of lighting for a cathedral was great too.

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‘Sensu’ Folding Fan

/ Mutsumi

I say here once again ‘Happy New Year!’. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. In Japan New Year is such a big deal so the first three days of January are national holidays. Traditionally we celebrate those days in very Japanese style visually, musically and spiritually. So naturally I would like to make a very Japanese looking sweet for this New Year month.

‘Sensu’ Folding Fan 

I wondered what was very Japanese in design. I thought something that relates to Japanese clothing ‘Kimono’ must be surely very Japanese. The pattern and the texture of the silk print and embroidery work are unmistakably Japanese. So I had been thinking what was suitable as the design for my sweet making and decided to create a sweet in a shape of one of the important props when you wear Kimono. It is a folding fan called ‘Sensu’ that is made of Japanese paper ‘Washi’.

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