It's my party and I cry if I want to....

I wanted to post this pictures earlier this week, but since last Tuesdaynight I was suffering from a nasty flu/heavy cold. Now I'm feeling much better compared to last Wednesday and Thursday.

Thursday February 9th I turned 40 (yeah, yeah I know) and during the weekend of the 11th I had a small birthdayparty with some good friends. Noriko spend a lot of time preparing lots of sushi. She did an excellent job and created some gorgeous and very tasty sushi. She made 7 plates with more than 100 pieces of sushi. First she was afraid she made too much, but at the end of the night all sushi was gone. It was a great success. The sushimaster herself was not satisfied with the picture I took from her with some of her creations, so you have to do it with just some of the sushi pics and a pic from the birthdayboy. Although the title of this post and the t-shirt below might give you a different idea, 40 ain't that bad. Had more trouble with it when I turned 30.

It looks gorgeous, doesn't it?

The birthdayboy

Japan in Holland

Last Thursdaynight Noriko, my good friend Andy from England and me went to a socalled izakaya in Amsterdam. An izakaya is a Japanese pub. You can check the link for some more info what an izakaya is. There are not many izakayas in Holland, but in Japan it's a popular form of eating out after work. In a way you can say that an izakaya is the Japanese equivalent of the Spanish tapas bar.

Anyway, this is a very nice place. I've been to this place a few times before. The time you spend there you really have the feeling that you are abroad. The atmosphere in this place is exactly the same as in Japan. About 90 to 95% of the customers are Japanese, which often is a good sign.

Here are a few pics. To keep a bit of the same kind of atmosphere of my posts from Japan most pictures you are about to see are foodpictures. The main dishes are barbequed meats on a stick, like yakitori, tori-miso (both chicken), buta-miso (pork), but they serve many small snacks, but also udon. The name of the place is Hakata in Amsterdam. Recommended!

This guy behind the counter prepares all night long the barbequed snacks that you see in the first three pictures.

I couldn't remember the name of the last two dishes, but I knew it was very yummy!

Long time no pics

It's a long time since my last post. More than two weeks. I have been quite busy, both with work and in private. So I didn't took any pictures until last Saturday. From January 25th till February 5th the anual International Filmfestval of Rotterdam took place. I think I discovered this festival about 6 years ago. Since then I'm a regular visitor. The festival offers a wide range of international and some national independent movies. I don't know the exact number of films, but I think there were about 250 movies shown during the 12 days of the festival. One of the reasons I like the festival is that Asian movies often are well represented at the festival. My main interest are movies from Japan, China and South-Korea, but I also see movies from other countries occasionally. I have seen some real nice movies the past 6 years.

Last year I visited 17 movies in 9 days. Although there were plenty movies this year I would have liked to watch I took it easy this year. Basically because of my limited available time. I went to the festival on three days seeing a total of 8 movies.

For a short description of the movies I saw you can click on one of the following movie titles:

• The Great Yokai War
• Grain in ear
• Three Times
• Takeshis
• The Enchantment
• The Lost hum
• 9 Dragons
• Linda, Linda, Linda
  

The following pics were taken in Rotterdam last Saturday around the square that forms the centre of the filmfestival. The square is surrounded by two theatres, one movie theatre with 7 or 8 moviescreens and many restaurants. There are also some nightshots.