well, it’s christmas morning here at chez gleek and it seems as if i was a good girl this year! i got one of the geekiest presents possible from KP and i’m loving it.

yep, that’s the start trek DVD boxed set! yep, that’s one of the best gifts ever and i’m not joking. (i’m sure you’re all shaking your heads.) anyway, we trekked out to new jersey yesterday to visit my uncle’s house for christmas eve dinner. i got a chance to take some pictures of his serious nutcracker collection.

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so, not only was i in training all this week off-site of work with hardly any access to the internet, on thursday i either pulled a muscle in back or pinched a nerve and i’ve been laid up ever since. i’ve been glued to my couch with a heating pad for days now and it’s getting a little old. i think that i’m going to be able to get up and go out to the met tonight with KP to see carmen, though, which is nice. i had KP pick me up some of those thermacare heating pads which i can glue to my body and hopefully stave off the pain for an evening. heat seems to be the only thing that keeps the pain away.

in the meantime, i’m getting a lot knitting done! i’ve finished the first of my jaywalkers…

sorry about the image quality.. it’s hard to photograph your own feet.

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for those of you who really only ever come here for the knitting (and i know that’s most of you) i’ve decided to update you all on my knitting progress, however slow that might be. japan is so full of wonderful things to see and do that i’m not getting much knitting time in.

i got about a dozen repeats of the aminami shawl in on the plane ride here before i switched over to casting on for the jaywalker socks (i will update the backpack pages where i return from my trip.. sorry that they aren’t up-to-date but i’m sure you get the picture.) i decided that 76 stitches was way too many for a sock so i changed the pattern to 68 and hopefully i won’t regret that move. they seem a little tight but i know that i can make the heel a little longer so that they’re easier to pull on. if this yarn is anything like koigu then i know i’ll be happy. my koigu socks have REALLY loosened up on me since i made them. the fabric has become quite slack and soft so i’m thinking that with some wear, these jaywalkers will fit nicely. i would have joined the KAL that januaryone is hosting but i’ve been on the other side of the world and didn’t even know about it until now. maybe on my next pair.

here is the first sock on its way to nikko this morning!

in the span of the train ride to nikko and back i’ve managed to get to about 5″ in length on the leg and i’m aiming for 5.5″ so it’s not much longer now before i find out if my gamble paid off.

back to knitting in a moment… did you want to hear about my trip to nikko? it’s a quiet little town to the north of tokyo in the mountains. my first advice to those who want to visit is to bring warmer clothes! it was beautiful and 55 degrees here in the city and 40 degrees and practically snowing there. ugh. cold and wet. KP and i went straight to the temples, did the tours, then had lunch at an AWESOME noodle joint along the way where i had the best bowl of tanmen noodles (in fact, best bowl of just noodles) anywhere. it was good that i ate the whole thing and was full for hours. *eh hem* the temples were quite nice too.

love that red

there be dragons

inside the nikko national park is where all the notable temples of the area are located. amongst them is the famous tosho-gu shrine best known for the relief carvings of the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkeys.

hear no, see no, speak no

there’s not much else up here to see besides the fantastic old shrines. i actually liked kamakura a lot more as you can tell from the wealth of pictures taken there. nikko was interesting (KP liked it a whole ton more than me) but just didn’t float my boat. at the end of the day, i was happy to be back in our apato in akasaka. it was just too much cold weather and not enough extra clothing and that would drive any sane girl off her rocker.

more images in the gallery. (by the way, stupid gallery is doing something funky with images when i rotate them so please disregard any errors you see in the photos. i will fix them when i’m at home on my own computer. this is the last time that i travel without my powerbook. i feel lost without it!)

ok, back to knitting… i’ve moved all of the knitting books that i bought in japan into the queue gallery. i can’t wait to get home and start translating! all of the patterns in japanese books are well charted and there are usually only a few instructions that have to be translated. after doing a few crochet patterns earlier this year, i feel like i can jump into something a little more complicated this time around. i did find this handy page that has a bunch of knitting kanji already translated and there are several other pages on this site that are helpful in speeding along the process. it’s a lot of work but improving my japanese skills and knitting at the same time, well, that’s time well spent.

here are just a few of the patterns that i REALLY love from the books that i bought (and this is only a few… i saw several more i would love to try.)

a wrap with holes for your arms

love these cables

this would look great in noro silk garden

excuse my thumbs in that last one.. i was taking pictures of the pages while doing laundry here. love this place we’re staying. it’s the bomb. more in the queue gallery. so that’s it from tokyo. i’m off to bed while the majority of you (on the east coast) are just getting up after a day of turkey-fueled bliss (poor birds.) hope you had a thankful day!

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