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Living in Germany for exactly one year…
Happy Birthday to us! Vanessa: Yup, exactly one year ago today, we set foot on the land of sausages and beer. We would like to say thank you to all of you for reading, whether you were there from the start or you have joined us during our journey. It’s been a fabulous year, full of cheesecake, finding a beer I actually enjoy drinking, making some amazing friends and doing a variety of jobs. We have moved into the most amazing apartment ever and Jason has amassed a huge collection of board games. I have dabbled into photography and gardening, whilst trying to get my craft on. It’s been so much…
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Purikura
Papa-papa-razzi… This is one of my most favourite inventions ever. It’s like the old passport photo booths you can find all over Berlin, but a million times better. When I first lived in Japan, I was 18 years old and attending a girl’s high school. My classmates were obsessed with Purikura (comes from shortening the words Print Club which are written as Purinto Kurabu in Japanese). We would spend all our money in these booths taking photos of ourselves smiling. Then we discovered making silly faces was also lots of fun. And as there were basically no other foreigners where I was based, random people constantly came up to me…
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Japanese toilets
Where is the smallest room in the house? Okay, so I know I’m meant to be an English lady and we don’t talk about toilets, the loo, the lavatory, the bog or the bathroom. In fact, I only go and powder my nose. But I am going to have to go there. My dad is a urologist, so I’ve heard every joke in the book and more. And if you are going to Japan, you need to be made aware of the smallest rooms in the house. I remember as a young teenager travelling to Malaysia with my father. We were in the car and we stopped off on our…
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Travelling cheaply by Train in Japan
Choo Choo Choo… During August we shall take you on our Japan trip with us. We spent two weeks eating and seeing friends whilst discovering new places in the Land of the Rising Sun. As so many of you have asked about our trip, we thought it would be best to share it all with you. Most of it will of course be food-related, but we might even recommend some sights and fun stuff to do for when you plan your trip! Read along and let us know if you have any questions or would like more information etc – we would love to hear from you 🙂 Our…
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Friday Links
Making a connection… This Friday we are once again giving you some links of fabulous things we have been reading about this week. As the title says ‘These clever inventions annoy you until you break your bad habits’ – it’s amazing! Tiny little ideas and items that will hopefully help the environment as well as your health. A genius idea that I hope really kicks off! http://www.fastcoexist.com/3031764/these-clever-designs-annoy-you-until-you-break-your-bad-habits I have such long hair and although in the summer I just let it go wild and curl all over the place, I really want to start plaiting (braiding) it and learning some new techniques on how to do this. This website shows you…
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Our first AirBnB guests!
I wanna go home… We only put our spare room on AirBnB two weeks ago and our first guests arrive tomorrow! I have to say we are a little nervous – will they like the place and review us well? Will we get on? Will we make some new friends in the process? It’s all very exciting too. We spent this evening cleaning and making everything absolutely perfect. I have to admit I have never ironed pillowcases before and our place is sparkling! If you haven’t heard of AirBnB before, you need to get involved. Staying at hotels is so last decade… now you can stay with people in their…
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World Cup fever strikes
Food, glorious food… The World Cup is everywhere. Flags adorn cars, windows, faces. On the way in and once again on the way out of shops, you can pick up leis, facepaint and special edition drinks. There is no way to oversee that this country loves football and loves their national team. Whenever Germany score a goal you can hear the cheers and fireworks go off in the distance. England is the same, but I haven’t seen supermarkets gettin involved like this: What a great idea! I was very amused when I saw these, but now I’m a little disappointed I didn’t buy any. Tomorrow’s match is Germany – v –…
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Justice Served for Lunch
Whenever Vanessa is working, I usually pop along during her break pop along to say hello and join her to share some food. Lunch breaks at work are usually pretty relaxing and uneventful until today that is… While we were eating some pasta in a park, we see a guy sprint up the steps and straight across to the other side. I didn’t think much of it at the time until around 30 seconds later when a group of young girls and an older man came up the same steps and asked us if they we had seen a person run by in a green jacket. Then it dawned on…
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Unimaginable years ago
I’d like to see, the world today, in perfect harmony… Yesterday was one of those amazing days that makes me proud to be a human being living in an amazing city, Berlin. On my way to work, I came across the PRIDE festival. I didn’t even know it was going on until I tried to get into work and the whole street had been closed and people dancing on buses and waving the rainbow flag came flowing passed. Later on, Germany played Ghana. Having lived in Ghana, it will always hold a special place in my heart. I may be half-German, but I was supporting Ghana of course! And we…
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Quoridor
Today I’d like to introduce you to a fun little board game that is incredibly easy to learn and plays in less than 5 minutes but still manages to offer immense depth and room for strategy. That game is Quoridor. Which I assume is how ducks would pronounce Corridor if they could speak. The game is for 2-4 players (best with 2) and played on a 9×9 grid. The aim is to be the first person to move your piece from one side of the board to the opposite. The moment you do so, you win! The rules of the game are so simple that they can be explained in just a couple…