Winter sky gazing from Hovenäset in Sweden

Just so you know, the above and below are not the aurora but just me peaking into the 30-second open lens camera and making a scene.




Below is another shot of open lens. Both are shot from the summer house in Sweden. So many stars!

Knitting again

As a winter ritual, I have started knitting a scarf again. This time, I am knitting in a new way that I hope resembles moss stitch... although I'm not sure if I'm doing it entirely correctly. In anycase, I very much look forward to the end product!

Beautiful mountains

Near the time of sunset (at around 3) was always the most beautiful...



Photo credit: Jonna Lundgren

Lots of snow in Sälen

 

 

Sälen where I spent Christmas, is several hours to the north from the cities of Sweden. This year is surprisingly mild all over Europe, but it snowed over night for the first few nights, so all in all the snow condition was pretty good. It always takes a long time to get used to skiing, but I was really happy with how I skiied (and how I never got the muscle ache!) at the end. Can't wait for the next chance to ski.

Christmas dinner in a ski cabin

This year's Christmas was at a ski cabin, high up in the mountains. We respectively prepared the nice Swedish Christmas dishes for the feast. As snack between breakfast and dinner, I munched on as many cinnamon bunns as I could. Yummmm.

Taking off from HK!

 

 

 

This morning, I took my last walk on Peel Street, which ended up being my home street for most of my time in HK both in SOHO and Mid-levels, in the last three years. I always liked how you can see many hard working HK'ies when it's very early in the morning in the neighborhood.

By the way, I am moving to Frankfurt. As it took a while to confirm this next assignment, once it came through I literally arranged all work stuff, packed, sold all my furniture, and completely moved out of HK in the last 3 days since I returned from Japan late Monday.

For now, I really look forward to sleeping and skiing in Sweden where I will spend Christmas and new year before works starts in early January. Ciao HK for now ;)

Beautiful susuki covered mountains

Noshiyu ryokan

Kurokawa Onsen (in my dictionary) is the most perfect little hotspring town (in the world). The ryokan Noshiyu is an agglomeration of everything traditional, comfortable, and chic paying tribute to genuinely old and traditional things and scenes.





The lounge was particularly nice to spend time to relax..

The most perfect dinner at Noshiyu

This may have been the best Japanese course I had ever had. The ryokan Noshiyu in Kurokawa Onsen has very traditional looks, almost beyond traditional, like in another dimension. The dinner course we had was a mixture of art, tradition, and just simply good tasting food!





To top it all, the dessert was out of this world.. a divine yogurt thing.