Autumn Accessories

Good Day Everyone,

It is so wonderful to be experiencing seasons once again. Not only that, but it is also great to be able to wear something other than a summer wardrobe after almost four years. Most of my winter clothes are stored at home in England but I did have a few pieces with me that I've been enjoying recently in Japan. Plus, as I'm currently back home (it was a last minute thing), I may pick up a few of my winter clothes to take back to Japan, in preparation for the wintery months ahead.

Today I want to share with you a few of my favourite autumn accessories. Even though it is December, the weather where we are in Japan is still very much autumnal rather than wintery. Originally, I had planned to photograph the accessories I wanted to share with you, even though personally, I like to see accessories modeled on people. That way I can get some inspiration on how I might incorporate something similar into an outfit. But I'm no model and not particularly comfortable in front of the camera... perhaps it's because I'm not from, what my hubby calls, the 'selfie' generation i.e. I'm old ;o) But after some coaxing from my hubby and bearing in mind that it's mainly my friends around the world that read my blog rather than strangers (I think), I decided to be brave and give it a go... so here goes :o)

I'm loving my burgundy sunglasses. Now sunglasses are not particularly autumnal per se but the colour definitely is. I find black sunglasses a bit too harsh given my dark features and loved my tortoise shell ones as a good alternative. However, I lost those on a shopping trip whilst trying on hats and scarves...don't you just hate it when that happens?! I spent two days shopping for a new pair but I struggle with glasses! Having a relatively large face (and an even larger nose... I can't help it, it's a family trait lol), means that most styles do not suit me with the exception of these larger ones. These balance out my face ;o) So when I couldn't find tortoise shell in this style, I opted for burgundy and I absolutely love the colour.

 

I am really enjoying being able to wear scarves again. I picked this red and green one up from Singapore last year. I fell in love with the colours and pattern and knew that one day, when I moved to cooler climates, I would get a lot of wear out of it. Plus it goes so well with these maroony-red trousers, and the fact that it was the last one in the store was clearly a sign that I should get it ;o)

This very long, bright red scarf was a gift all the way from New Zealand, and this is the first year that I've actually started to get some decent wear out of it. I love that it's a bright shade of red, which may not be all that autumnal, but it's great on those days when its a really sunny bright blue sky but very cold. It is sooo warm and soft to the touch that I can't help but feel all cosy and snuggly in it :o)

For many years, I've never had the confidence to wear hats but a lot of people wear hats in Japan, and recently I've joined in. I only have a collection of three at the moment, but they come in sooo handy when I'm having a bad hair day, (which tends to be quite often as my ghds don't work in Japan due to voltage differences), that I know I'll be buying more in the future. Plus they are good for keeping my head warm in the cold!

What autumn/fall accessories have you been enjoying over the last couple of months?
Love Sheen xxx

P.S. A special thanks goes to my hubby who took these photos for me x

Konnichiwa! Greetings From Japan

Good Day Everyone,

My oh my, it has been a while hasn't it?! Typing this does feel a little strange, I'll admit. I am very sorry for the long absence. Life can be pretty unpredictable and our lives have changed a lot recently, plus I've not been in the best of health. Even though I've been absent from my blog, I do tend to be active on Instagram and Facebook on almost a daily basis so that's the place to find me when I'm not on here :o)

Bay Bridge (Yokohama) in the distant

If you follow me on Instagram and/or the Glistening Sheen Facebook page then you will know this already but if not, here goes.... We've left Singapore and we moved to Japan! O.M.G! Never in a million years did I imagine that I would end up living in Japan. In fact, when my hubby and I visited earlier this year, we had no idea that in just a few months we'd end up moving here. It all happened rather quickly. The move itself has been driven by my husband's job and to be honest we've no idea how long we will be here for.

Love British summers

As you may know, I've been very sick this summer and was diagnosed as being dangerously anaemic. After a couple of stays in hospital, some surgery and a blood transfusion later, I finally started to get better. Towards the end of July, as my haemoglobin levels started to rise, the doctors gave me the all clear to travel and that's when all the wheels were put into motion for our move. End of July we went back to England to visit our families and friends before our move to Japan.

Onions from my parent's garden

Love picking blueberries from my parent's garden

As usual, it was a whirlwind of a trip but it was wonderful to be back home when there was actually some sun. I loved spending time with my mum in my parent's garden as they're big advocates of growing their own food, and had planted some fruit trees since I was last there. Sadly the cherries were all gone and the apples weren't ripe enough, but I did get to pick fresh blueberries, green beans, onions and herbs from the garden. My hubby and I also had a great time catching up with friends over afternoon tea (our favourite meal of the day), as well as indulging in some good old fashioned British fish 'n' chips ;o)

Afternoon Tea at Tea 42 in Manchester

Piano garden in Manchester city centre

I'd started to sell our Singapore furniture before we went home and upon our return we spent a good few weeks packing up our belongings and lives. We moved out of our apartment a couple of weeks before we left Singapore, and then stayed at a friend's place whilst they were back in England, before moving into a hotel for our last few nights. We left Singapore with mixed feelings. Singapore is a great country and an easy stepping stone into Asia. It has been our home for 3.5 years and we've made some good friends there so we left with a bit of a heavy heart. However, at the same time we were super excited about Japan. After sweating constantly for over three years (I'm referring to myself only as my hubby copes with heat and humidity freakishly well, better than most Singaporeans!), I was looking forward to experiencing seasons again, and being able to wear makeup without it melting off my face ;o)

We arrived in Japan early September and stayed in a serviced apartment for the first few weeks whilst we looked for our own place. Within our first month, we experienced an earthquake and two typhoons! There's actually been more than one earthquake but I've only physically felt one and it was noticeable. It was around lunchtime, when all of a sudden it felt like the sofa I was sat on was swaying. I looked up and saw that the balcony doors were starting to rattle and the whole room was swaying side to side. Even though it felt like it lasted a really long time, in reality it was only about 10 seconds. Things didn't fall of shelves/tables, the tea on the coffee table didn't spill and neither my hubby nor I ran to get under a desk or something equivalent. We just stared at each other with a, "Is this really happening?" kind of expression on our faces. Luckily the typhoons were not full on, we just caught the fringes of them but the rain and wind was so severe that we couldn't go outside. Umbrellas offer no protection against the rain whatsoever, so we were stuck indoors for two days!

Shinjuku (Tokyo) at night

We are living in Yokohama, which is Japan's second largest city after Tokyo. Its just south of Tokyo, 30mins on the train. When we first moved here we did contemplate living in Tokyo and my hubby commuting into Yokohama for work, but we quickly realised that that was not going to work. The trains here are really expensive (as is everything) plus they're very crowded too and with colder weather just round the corner, we knew it wasn't going to be practical. Whilst there is a significant expat community in Tokyo, the expat community is much smaller in Yokohama. Now, in Singapore I wasn't too bothered about living near an expat community because everyone speaks English (in fact it's one of the four national languages), but Japan is not like that. Whilst the Japanese are incredibly friendly and polite, English is not commonly spoken so day to day life can be somewhat challenging with the language barrier. I've learnt a fair few basic words and phrases so far and with a bit of hand gesturing I can get by ;o), but it is nice to have met a couple of fellow expats where conversing is just that bit easier. Plus its always nice to share any learnings or tips from each others experiences.

Landmark tower, the tallest building in Yokohama

We were lucky enough to arrive towards the end of summer and have had some beautiful weather. Now we are in the middle of autumn and the weather is still reasonably warm most days but the nights are starting to get cold. I'm really excited about spending our first Christmas since 2010, in the cold. Even though the Christmas decorations were incredibly amazing in Singapore, it just never felt Christmas-sy in the heat. I'm also looking forward to staying put for a while. The last few months of our lives have been so hectic that I just do not want to pack another suitcase for at least six months! I calculated that over the last few months I've actually gone to bed in at least seven different places, from hospital beds, to my parent's house to a friend's place and hotels and serviced apartments. Now, I just want to stay at home.

Loving our new home in the land of the rising sun

On the health front, my arthritis has been flaring up and even my psoriasis has started to get active again over the past few months. I feel like my body and mind are craving routine, just the normality of everyday life. Packing up lives and moving countries is not easy, and when you suffer from chronic illness, all that stress and change can really take a toll.

I still have sooo much more that I want to share with you from our first few months but I fear that this blog post is going to become ridiculously long! So I will break it down over the next few weeks, from the twinkly train station music, to interesting shopping trips and not to mention all the colourful things I've seen :o)

I still intend on completing my Japan Journals blog posts as I have Kyoto and Tokyo to write about. However, I'm going to start mixing things up a bit on here. My arthritis has spread to my right wrist and most of my fingers so typing is proving to be extremely challenging (and very painful). Plus I'll be the first to admit that I am not a concise writer by any means. Consequently, I am going to have intermittent posts that are more photos and less words. They say a picture paints a thousand words and so I'll just let my photos do the talking (aka writing).

I hope life has treated all of you Gorgeous Glisteners well over the past few months. Hopefully, we can now pick up where we left off and I look forward to interacting with you all, once again :o)

Have a great weekend all!

Love Sheen xxx

P.S. As I completed writing this I ended up having to fly back home to England for a few weeks... So much for staying put?! Life never really goes as planned ;o)

Japan Journals: Kobe

Good Day Everyone,

The day after we arrived in Japan we went to spend the day in Kobe with some Japanese friends. This day in Kobe was one of my favourite days of the trip. The sun was shining, there was no complex and frustrating train system to master (as the night before in Osaka... You can read about our time in Osaka here), no language challenges and despite cramming a lot of sights into one day, it was a very relaxed day.

Kobe is just a short train ride from Osaka and is accessible by both the bullet train and regular trains from Osaka. It is Japan’s sixth largest city and is very much a cosmopolitan port city, much of which has been rebuilt after the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake. 

In the morning my hubby and I went our separate ways as we were doing different things. I visited my first Japanese shrine, the Minatogawa shrine which is on the site of the battle of Minatogawa and in it, is the enshrined spirit of a military commander. The shrine was in beautiful grounds and before we went up to the main building we had to wash our hands taking water using bamboo ladels. At the shrine there was a ceremony taking place and my Japanese friends explained that it was a bit like a christening which was really interesting to watch. 

From the shrine, we went to the Kobe Port Tower where we got the most amazing views of Kobe. The Port Tower is a 108 meter high lattice tower with a 360° observation deck. With its red steel framework it is an iconic building and a definite must for any tourist for great views over the bay and beyond. 

 

From the top of the tower, you really get to appreciate the architectural design of the Maritime museum next door with its rooftop structure resembling a sailing ship. The museum focuses on the history of Japanese shipping and Kobe harbour.

 

We stopped off for a pancake lunch at one of the most popular pancake places at the Mosaic mall where queuing began before the place even opened, and reconvened with the boys. Then we made our way to the sight that I was most excited about visiting, The Kobe Nunobiki Herb Gardens and Ropeway.

 

The Herb Gardens are Japan’s largest herb gardens with around 75,000 herbs and hundreds of different types of flowers including cherry blossoms. If you’re ever in Kobe then a visit to The Herb Gardens is a definite must. You can easily spend the best part of a day gently strolling around the 14 gardens as there is so much to see. 

We took the cable car (Ropeway) up to the top of the mountain, taking in panoramic views of Kobe and beyond along the way. I even managed to snap a shot of the Nunobiki No Taki waterfall as we rode the cable car to the top station. 

Once at the top, we visited the Fragrance Museum where there was an interesting display of old perfume bottles, including a few which house some very famous scents. 

The Herbal Market shop is a great place to purchase gifts and we bought a solid lavender perfume for my mum, as well as picking up some lavender honey for ourselves which was totally delicious :o) 

After wandering around the rose garden, we decided to walk down the mountain towards the cable car mid-station. The winding walk down the mountain took us past the herb museum garden, the kitchen garden, the lavender garden, and it was only when we reached the waterfall patio that we realised that there was no path across to the big glass houses. As it was such a hot sunny day, most of us couldn’t face the steep walk back up the mountain, back to where the path forks leading to the glass houses so sadly I didn’t get to go inside… maybe next time! 

We carried on down the mountain stopping off for some lavender ice cream and lavender flavoured soda water… a much needed refreshment before getting on the cable car back to the bottom of the mountain. We could easily have spent twice as long at the Herb Garden than we did, and I would have loved to have stayed until it got nightfall and seen Kobe all lit up.

 

We ended our day at a tofu restaurant by Sannomiya train station where we were served tofu in more ways than you could imagine, with more courses than we could ever manage to eat, but it was a great experience. 

A couple of days later we came back to Kobe to meet some different Japanese friends. On that particular day we went to the Sawanotsuru Sake museum. Kobe’s Nada district is Japan’s best sake (rice wine) producing region with it’s high quality rice, suitable water and favourable weather conditions. Being close to Kobe and Osaka enabled the distribution of the sake in the olden days. This particular sake museum we visited was built in the 1970s but was destroyed in the 1995 earthquake and subsequently rebuilt in 1999. Inside the museum we learnt about the traditional brewing methods and saw the different types of tools and apparatus used in the production of this specialty wine.

After the sake museum our friends took us to see the Akashi Kaikyo bridge (my hubby is an engineering geek ;o)), the world’s longest suspension bridge at 4km long. Akashi Bridge connects Kobe on the mainland of Honshu to Awaji Island and crosses the busy Akashi Strait. The bridge was completed three years after the 1995 Kobe earthquake and is designed to withstand earthquakes measuring a magnitude of up to 8.5. There are tours which take you up onto the bridge but these are in Japanese and as it was raining we gave the tour a miss, and just marvelled at the bridge’s beauty from afar. Near the bridge on the Kobe side is a huge outlet shopping mall where we stopped off for lunch before making our way back to Osaka.

Akashi Kaikyo Bridge

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into our time in Kobe. Coming up in the next Japan Journals will be our time in Kyoto. Have you ever been to Kobe? What was the highlight of your trip?

Love Sheen xxx

Japan Journals: Osaka

Good Day Everyone,

Japan is made up of almost 7,000 islands but approx. 97% of the land is comprised of the four largest islands. We visited the largest of these islands, Honshu. After arriving at Narita airport we caught the Narita Express train into Tokyo which took an hour. From Tokyo we caught the Hikari bullet train straight to Osaka, which took about another 3 hours. Traveling by bullet train was a great way to see Japan and you can read more about this in my bullet train blog post here.

Osaka is Japan’s third largest city by population, after Tokyo and Yokohama. During the day, Osaka is a mass of grey concrete buildings as far as the eye can see but at night it comes alive like no other of the cities we visited, with colourful neon flashing lights, amusement arcades and eateries all vying for our attention. Whilst not the most attractive of the four cities we visited, I had one of my most favourite days of our trip when we visited Osaka castle and the surrounding park.

Osaka Castle

If there could be one aspect of our trip that we could repeat, then for me, it would be our time in Osaka. I feel that we didn’t really do Osaka justice, partly because of the four days we stayed in Osaka we spent two of them in Kobe, and one was spent at Osaka castle. Consequently, we didn’t really see much else in Osaka. We did venture out during the evening once or twice but after a full day of sighting seeing my joints couldn’t take a late night. The other reason I would like to repeat our time in Osaka is because when we arrived I felt totally over whelmed, and a bit frustrated if I’m being honest, by the difficulties in getting around and understanding my new surroundings… I guess you could say I had a bit of a culture shock. Trying to get to the places we wanted to go to prove to be more difficult than I had anticipated. We obviously couldn’t read the street signs and there were hardly any tourist signs in English. Some of the train/subway stations were sooo large and complex than we often ended up going around in circles, despite getting directions from station staff. We found the transport system in Osaka the most difficult in our whole trip. I’m sure the fact that it was our first destination had a lot to do with this and going out in Osaka for the first time at night when everything is crazy busy and noisy probably didn’t help. Add to this that on our first night we were racing against the clock, trying to get to what we were expecting to be a store, before it closed, but it actually turned out to be a teeny tiny concession stand within the Takashimaya department store at Namba Parks… Oh the frustrations of that night!

Our hotel on the left

When it came to booking our hotels, we didn’t have that much choice as hotels were very busy due to the cherry blossom season. In Osaka we stayed at the Hotel New Otani which I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. It is located by the river within a few minutes walk to Osaka castle and less than 5mins walk to the nearest train station, Osakajoken, making it a very convenient place. There are also convenience stores within a couple of minutes walk and a small mall with coffee shops and a few restaurants nearby. The staff were really friendly and helpful, and spoke enough English to help us with our queries. 

The river at night

We booked a twin room (there were no doubles left) and the room was surprisingly larger than we were expecting, for Japan. All three of the hotels that we stayed in during our trip provided ample complimentary toiletries as well pyjamas/night shirts and robes… that’s right pyjamas. There were also complimentary hot drinks, although these did not consist of coffee and English breakfast teas as we are accustomed to, but green and other fruit teas.

Complimentary pyjamas and slippers

View from our hotel room

One of the things that I loved about Japan were the heated toilet seats in our hotels. Now I know that sounds a bit weird but seriously Japan must have one of the most technological advanced toilet seats ever! There are multiple water spray action choices for washing, temperature control and some even have a deodoriser option! They were such a comfort when coming in from the chilly weather outside. Weather wise as it was spring time, we got some lovely sunny days where the temperature got up to around 25°C but some days were significantly chillier, as were the mornings and evenings. 

Food wise in Osaka, we ate at one of the hotel restaurants a couple of times as it had a very Italian inspired menu and so we were able to find suitable vege options. Most of the malls have eateries in the basements and we were surprised by the high number of restaurants serving Italian food such as caprese salads, pizzas and pasta in one form or another. There were also a lot of waffle/pancake places which were ideal for breakfast as none of our hotel reservations included breakfast.

We spent a very sunny warm day walking around the park surrounding Osaka castle, which was just across the river from our hotel. It was so lovely to see lots of people having picnics along the river banks underneath the cherry blossom trees. There was a part of the park that was sectioned off and this contained sooo many cherry blossom trees that my mind just went into instantaneous over drive with photographic opportunities, as my eyes tried to take in all the natural beauty before them… I literally squealed with delight! I was sooo happy to be there. There were many different types of cherry blossoms with various shades of red to pink to white to even hybrid ones that were half pink and half white… You'll find many more cherry blossom photos on my Instagram ;o)

The park was huge and there was no way that we were going to be able to make our way around it all! After a very long time amongst the cherry blossoms, we made our way towards the bridge that took us across the moat surrounding the castle, stopping of for a toffee apple along the way ;o). There were various food and drink stalls by the bridge including an ice cream stall with some interesting flavours like green tea and cherry blossom.

Quite randomly, as we walked up the incline towards the castle we came across an American guy called Justin, known as Soothsayer Electro Violin, who was playing such wonderful music that people, including us, just had to stop and listen. Justin speaks amazing Japanese too and we had a great time chatting with him.

Osaka castle was originally constructed in the 1580s-1590s but since then parts of it have been rebuilt and restored after damage in various wars and battles. However, the high stone walls surrounding the castle are the original from the 1620s. Once at the top of the incline, we took in the beauty of the castle from close up. We didn’t go inside as the queue was very long but we walked towards the edge of the grounds to take in great views of the park below and Osaka itself.

On one of our nights in Osaka we ventured out to find an Egyptian restaurant that we’d read about online but after getting increasingly lost and frustrated in the Umeda train station we gave up! Despite following signs for the red line, we just could not seem to find this train line that we needed to get. After asking for directions from strangers as well as the station staff and still not finding the red line we wandered out of the station and into the night outside for some mental calmness!

HEP Five ferris wheel

Once outside, two buildings/structures caught our eye. One was the Umeda Sky Building which I had really wanted to go to but couldn’t cope with the notion of battling the Osaka train system again. So we went towards the gigantic red ferris wheel which looked like it was walking distance from where we were. The ferris wheel was at HEP Five which is a shopping mall and entertainment centre in Umeda. The ferris wheel protrudes from the top of the HEP Five building. With a diameter of 75 meters, the highest point of the wheel is 106 meters above ground. This was a fantastic way of taking the weight of our feet and enjoying the sights of Osaka from above.

Osaka at night

I hope that should we ever visit Japan again then Osaka will be one of the cities that we go back to simply because there was so much that we just didn’t get time and/or have the energy to see, but I loved what we did see, bar the train system that is ;o)

Have you ever visited Osaka, or Japan for that matter? What was the highlight of your trip? What sights would you recommend?

Love Sheen xxx