Wandering around Tokyo

We are staying at our friend's apartment, which consists of 2 rooms, kitchen & bathroom and separate toilet. 

When we first arrived, the apprentice & I had to share a single very thin futon ( very Japanese) and I always ended up on the floor, freezing to death, as there were not enough blankets and/or doonas to share.  I used my fluffy heavy Lolita Lempika coat, affectionately called "the bear" as it weighs about 5kg and is like a furry bear (although it's artificial black fur). That certainly kept me warm but the bedding did nothing but disturb my osteoarthritic hip. Then we went to the snow for 3 days (the apprentice & I ). The snow was wonderful but the hotel we stayed in was far from it. The only thing that we looked forward to after frolicking in the snow (the apprentice went snowboarding) was to get a decent night's sleep as we hadn't slept well for 3 nights in our tiny Japanese bed. Sorry no pics available. 

Then when we got back there was our double camping blow up bed. It was in a box which was the larger of the two postal items that had arrived. 

We eagerly unpacked the large parcel, knowing that it would contain the double self inflating camping bed which our generous hostess kindly purchased, as I had pointed out that I am the mother of a teen and have arthritic hips and should not be sleeping on the carpet as I'm not a young backpacker anymore. 

So the bed was definitely well received. I slept 75% more and felt 75% better. 

We received delicious breakfasts such as these below:

Zooming around parts of Japan

It's been almost a week here in Japan and we have zoomed around a lot of Tokyo, eating in several Yummy restaurants.  

This particular dish is called Shabu Shabu, which means moving items back and forth (in broth). It was most delicious!

We had ordered a combination of beef, pork and chicken. All Japanese free range an cruelty free. And there were also a stack of vegetables. So delicious with 2 types of soups in the pot where we cook our meats & veggies. 

We had little meatballs, chicken , beef & pork. 

This was the beef. 

And the chicken above is sliced so thinly. 

What one does is gently 'swish' the meat around in the soup for a minute. The rest of the vegetables & mushrooms are gently simmering. The two soups we chose were dashi on one side and white miso on the other. 

Mad Rain

Wow what a day!!

Raining like mad but only for a short while. I wanted to do some work but thought I'd wait until the rain passed. 

Now I have decided to clean up the kitchen after lunch, so  the studio visit will happen later. 

A bunch of Stones

I used to blog as mettledesignstudio.blogspot.com but have been unable to access it. So now I have moved over here.

So, as these are my first musings, I wanted to show you the stones that I intend on making pieces with. Most likely they will all be rings.

So below are the cabochons:

 

Next are the large faceted stones which are my favourites. 

Then the smaller faceted stones:

Then there are the flat backs, most are rose cuts. 

All of these will end up in rings. 

I am going to carve a wax, since I haven't done one in ages. I will post images here also. I hope you will enjoy that.