Happy days

We went down to Geneva last weekend, to see my friend Dawn and to enjoy a little city trip. We stayed in Nyon, just outside Geneva, and enjoyed walking around the castle and the lake front.

The delicious Croix Verte restaurant in Nyon - best tagliatelle carbonara I've had in a long time.

The castle in Nyon, perched on the hill above the lake.

Another lovely building across from the castle, which I think is the town hall.

A charmingly crooked house near the castle.

Road not gritted.

Some plants on the way down to the lake that were being a bit optimistic about the best time to bud.

Beautiful old buildings down by the lake - and even some shops open on Sundays!

The lake with clouds over the French side.

David getting some photos of sea birds.

It was a very cold but clear, still day.

David found half a baguette, and chaos ensued. Ducks, coots, grebes, swans...

There was still plenty of snow on the ground, and on the piers.

Danger! A lovely patchwork shop that I avoided going into, as I knew I would probably go mad in the Japanese food shops in Geneva.

A scale model of the Swiss mountain train painted in the livery of the Hakone-Tozan Japanese mountain train.

A wonderfully clear view of the Saleve across the lake at Geneva, with the sun just starting to go down.

Dawn and me by the lake.

We found a fantastic place for fondue and enjoyed delicious moitie-moitie and mushroom fondue...

Followed by some amazing desserts, handmade meringues and Gruyere cream, and vin cuit (pear juice cooked for 30 hours until it's a thick, almost fig-like syrup) over ice cream.

Back in Zurich, the as soon as the Valentine's Day chocolates go on sale... it's Easter.

Clearly labelled - it's horse meat.

And I never noticed it before, but the local supermarket also has rabbit.

We went out to one of our usual haunts, Nagasui, on Tuesday night and I had an amazing chicken stir-fry with fresh shiitake mushrooms and dried black mushrooms, with dark soy sauce, chilli and pine nuts, all in a "dish" of deep-fried noodles.

And finished off with black sesame ice cream.

We got fortune cookies with our bill, and I opened mine on Thursday evening - just before receiving notice from the Institute of Translation and Interpreting that I had passed their exam and was eligible to become a full member! I also got the cute shiba-inu puppy card you can see in the background, from my homestay mother in Kyoto.

One of the joys of working from home is that you can take lunch in the kitchen if you need some emergency cake - I did my usual green tea steamed breads and decorated them with little sugar balls which melted during steaming, making them look like little green asteroids.

I also did a batch of cocoa steamed breads with chilli - and took one for myself for a little celebration!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Himself's present (one of them) was to decide what gets done with the last bit of pumpkin that was in the freezer, and he went for muffins. I managed to get breakfast and the muffins cooked before he was too late for work, and I got a big Lindt chocolate heart and lots of small Laderach ones!

Have a lovely Valentine's Day! (And for those who are avoiding the celebration, himself's office film club are showing Shaun of the Dead tonight.)

Lately

I've been meaning to get a picture of this for a while, it feels like some sort of comment on Swiss multiculturalism. Hello Kitty strawberry spread next to Heidiland butter (yes, it is a place).

Migros were also running a promotion for "Asian" goods, the vast majority of which were made in Asia apart from an incongruous Buddha mashup tray made in Italy. 

David's office had one of their social TGIF evenings, which was a "spicy" night involving tortillas, meat and vegetarian chilli, hot sauce and some hilarious warning signs.

I found an open wooden crate of parts in Selnau station with something written on it in Chinese, next to the braille-marked stairs up to Sihlbruecke.

Cute idea in the local 2 Fr shop to have grow-your-own plants, but I'm not sure if it really works for green tea, coffee and tobacco.

And we went for a walk on the snowy paths by the river on Saturday to visit Hiro Takahashi's bakery. We had a lovely not-too-sweet cheesecake and a chocolate gateau that was more like a giant chocolate brownie and should have come with a side order of insulin. And we took photos of some of his lovely Japanese-style breads.

Amazingly, there were some trees budding and flowering even though the temperature has been hovering around zero for weeks. And we found a tiny snowman!

Looking forward to a trip to Geneva this weekend to see friends and hopefully explore the town of Nyon!

Day out

I spent most of Saturday preparing for selling my jewellery at the Swiss-Japanese Friendship Society's New Year event, which involved getting change from the post office, a detour to the Korean food shop to pick up some hot Japanese curry roux, then to the large Migros down the train line to pick up some polyester stuffing - to make cushions with! I finally used up some of the fabric I got in Takayama years and years ago and I'm quite happy with the result, although the stuffing is a bit lumpy. (I also totally overestimated how much I'd need, I got two 250g packs but ended up not even finishing the 500g pack I already have. Stuffed things are in my future.) And we had some rather delicious curry.

Sunday was a great day for food, but not for selling jewellery. I got there early to help set up and so had my pick of the tables and got a nice prominent spot, but spent most of my time chatting to people and buying from Tomoyo Jaeger, who makes amazing Japanese sweets, and Hiro Takahashi, our local Japanese baker. A friend bought two packs of five phone straps with decorative mini-envelopes (puchi-bukuro) to give as gifts to her students on their birthdays, Tomoyo bought a phone strap and a little boy bought a Swarovski designer crystal pendant. For himself. You go! Everyone commented that not many people had come, and one member of the committee mentioned that people were spending money on food but not much else. But my bento from Usagiyama (aka Hotel Hasenberg) was delicious and it was good to see everyone.

I will never in my life have the patience to make an omelette the thickness of a crepe, let alone wrap it so nicely around a rice ball. Thankfully Usagiyama do that for you.

 My table.

The cushions I made on Saturday showing off some of my jewellery.

Hiro Takahashi and Tomoyo Jaeger were across from me. Great view!

I saw this ad in the main station on my way home, which made me wonder if I was still in Switzerland, or in Japan...

But then I remembered seeing these Swarovski crystals in Migros on Saturday for about four times what I pay for them in the UK, and that's when I don't buy them wholesale.

A warning sign that "Seilkran" will be operating at this station next week, which seems to be some kind of combined crane and winch system.

And finally, some photos from last weekend in snowy London! Bill and Austa took me on a detour into a snow-covered graveyard. Appropriately enough, we were on our way to the "Death" exhibition at the Wellcome Collection.

Out and about

I was out last weekend to get a new toner cartridge for my printer - I bought it about 3 years ago with a small cartridge included, and it's only giving me the 'toner low' light now. Nowhere had the small cartridge, so I got the big one which will presumably last me until no-one prints anything any more.

The display of cat play trees at the pet shop in our local shopping centre, with a sign sternly warning that this is not a seating area.

 And a strange bunny head made of small post-its seen in a deserted office building I walked through to get to the shop to get my toner cartridge.

It's cold and snowy, but that's par for the course and most importantly nothing stops here because of it. Fingers crossed that London doesn't get any snow while I trying to get there on Friday night or get home next Tuesday.

Carrying over

I was so happy to get my last pumpkin at the beginning of December, and since it was a big one there was way more than I could use before we left for Christmas and New Year. After roasting, I searched to see if you could freeze the cooked flesh and came across a great idea - freezing them in muffin cups so you get nice regular amounts! What I forgot to do was check how big mine were - the article I read online said the containers held 1/4 of a US cup, but it turns out mine hold 1/2 a cup. So, I accidentally defrosted twice as much as I needed.

Nothing else to do but bake and bake again... pumpkin and chocolate-chip cookies from the "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" book, and a new pumpkin loaf recipe baked in a new disposable cardboard container. Waiting for it to cool down to see how it worked out!

Happy New Year!

Without any fuss (or indeed any notification at all!) the Open University awarded me the Certificate in Contemporary Science on 31 December 2012! Awarded for the completion six short science courses (microbiology, drug design, genetics, nutrition, alternative energy, seismology & vulcanology) it's a nice way to mark the halfway point of my first year of the BSc.

I can now use Cert. Cont. Sci. after my name, which I may do if I need an ice-breaker!