いらっしゃいませ! 日本円での買い物を 日本語でどうぞ

This is Bergen (Norway) in June 2010.  A wonderful place.  At the fisher market they have special locations for Japanese tourists where they can buy fish with Japanese yens and where the personnel speaks Japanese!  Tons of Japanese tourists are roaming the place and the prices are all in NorKr, Eur, USD and Yen!

One of the things that everyone leaning Japanese knows almost before anything else is that "koi" means "love" and "carp" depending on the kanji

• 鯉 --こい-- common carp; koi carp
• 恋 --こい-- (n) love; tender passion

I bet there are tons of the jokes in misinterpreting and interchanging the meanings.  Not that I have any particular examples.   Anyway, these particular "koi" are from the München Zoo - a very nice place to spend a weekend ))))

猫 【ねこ】 (n) (1) cat;

I saw this cutest thing in a little shop Ulm and just could not help myself.  It says "Cats are stupid."   I really want to make one like this for my little garden )))))  With my little knowledge of Japanese it comes up with: 猫がバカですよ。 but I'm not totally sure if it makes sense to anyone exept me.  Good thing my neightbours do not know Japanese and I have little chance of embarassing myself.  And the cats - they will not see the difference between German, English or Japanese )))

白鳥 --はくちょう-- (n) (1) swan

A random photo of the swans, because they are just so beautiful.   And in the connection I cannot miss the all-time classical shoujo manga スワン-白鳥 by 有吉京子 (Ariyoshi Kyouko).  I believe SWAN 白鳥 vol.12 was the final volume of the re-print of this epic ballet manga.

I love München Zoo!

• 動物園 --どうぶつえん-- (n) zoo; zoological gardens;

The cutest thing that lives there is red panda. There are actually two of them and most of the time they either sleep or eat.  The Japanese name of the red panda is romaji of "lesser panda"  ))) cute and easy to remember.

• レッサーパンダ (n) red panda (Ailurus fulgens); lesser panda

I saw it on a friend's blog - her collection of ties and though mine is very meager in comparison, I could not help, but wanted to show it ))

ネクタイ - tie; necktie;

クラバット-cravat

Then I started reading wiki page and got lost in the types of ties and techniques to make a knot. I just traditionally go for Half-Windsor knot (ハーフウィンザーノット or  セミウインザーノット), and the idea that there are 85 ways to knot your tie, honestly, scares me ))))

I love knitting and I LOVE knitting using Japanese craftsbooks.  Here is my collection of the things I've made using Japanese patterns.

Crochet from Ondori 2004.

This was the pattern:

マフラー (n) muffler (garment, vehicle); scarf;

And this was my result:

森ガール fashion & style BOOK

This is the fashion book for the Mori Girl type of style. The type of a girl who loves nature and being close to the nature, who wears comfortable clothes made of natural textures and who choose to be away from the civilization's beat in order to enjoy quite peace of little towns and forests.

What does this fashion book include:

• 森ガールのこと - what does "Mori Girl" stand for?

森 -- もり-- forest

• 季節のワードローブ - Wardrobe by season

ワードローブ--(n) wardrobe
季節 【きせつ】 (n,adj-no) season

• ときどき, ちくちくお裁縫 - Sometimes hand-made

ちくちく (n,vs) (on-mim) type of prickling pain; prick; prickle
裁縫 --さいほう-- (n,vs) sewing;
Google seems to provide the meaning for  ちくちくお裁縫 as "hand-made".