Vegan for January

Veganuary. It's not the nicest sounding word or ‘portmanteau’ (a word formed by merging two words together). But the meaning is clear – being, or becoming, a vegan for January.

Veganuary aims to reduce the suffering of animals by inspiring and supporting people across the globe to go vegan for the month of January. There are so many reasons people decide to try vegan. For most, a love of animals is the catalyst. Some people want to feel better about themselves and the impact they make on the world. Others would like to set themselves a challenge, and many combine Veganuary with their ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ and see trying vegan as the healthiest start to the year. Whatever your reason, we’re here to support you. – Veganuary

I have honestly never seriously considered becoming a vegan until I saw a tweet about the Veganuary campaign. I love cheese and I love chocolate, although I dislike eggs and could easily swap normal milk for soya – I only have milk on cereal, not in any drinks. I am currently, and have been for a couple of years now, following a pescetarian diet which means I eat fish but not poultry or red meat (but I did eat a grasshopper in Japan last year). Prior to that I had been a vegetarian for a long time, probably more than 10 years. I could quite happily give up fish again, to be vegetarian – I don’t actually even eat fish very often anyway, mostly just when eating out. I think it would have been, and would be, more difficult being a vegetarian/vegan in Japan. Especially when not able to understand the language. They do love their fish!

So, what’s all this about Veganuary then? I saw a ‘promoted’ tweet from the @weareveganuary Twitter account at the end of December, I think it may have even been New Year’s Eve. I got reading about the idea on their website and decided, ‘I could do that. I could be vegan for January!’ I think part of the appeal is that it's a bit of a challenge. Obviously, it ought to be much harder for a complete meat-eater (tried to get my boyfriend onboard but he wasn't keen, although he will eat vegan meals I cook for him). But, as I said, I love cheese and chocolate – I haven't eaten all of my Christmas chocolate yet and I don't plan to until February – so to give them up is a bit of a challenge.

Obviously, there are more reasons than just the ‘challenge’ to become vegan. The Veganuary website expresses a number of reasons why you might consider becoming a vegan – health, animals, environment. I think for me it’s mostly about health, although I wouldn’t say I'm generally too unhealthy. But post-Christmas… Of course, I love animals too! That was the reason I originally became a vegetarian at 9 years old, but after a while it became much more about not liking the taste than simply protecting animals. After all, I still ate dairy products and then I started eating fish. Although, I should point out that it’s always a good idea to pick fish that has been responsibly sourced and choose free range eggs. I accidentally came across this 2011 article about being pescetarian at the weekend and I believe everything expressed in it reflects how I feel about my diet, and I don't doubt that I am healthier than a lot of meat-eaters.

But, vegan! Yes, I am currently following a vegan diet and have been since January 1st – making today Day 8. It may surprise a lot of people, meat-eaters, pescetarians and vegetarians alike, but so far the food has been great. It’s been far more varied than I expected and definitely more inventive – not forgetting tasty! Except for vegan ‘cheese’ which I only tried out of curiosity. It might have been the brand I tried or something but it was horrible!

Protein? The biggest myth about vegans is that they don’t get enough or any protein. Lies! All lies! If you’re not eating meat, fish or dairy, where do you get protein from? Lots of other tasty foods: a whole variety of beans, chick peas, lentils, tofu and other soya-based foods, nuts and seeds and green veggies too!

Take a look at some of the tasty food I’ve cooked up so far.

Vegan ‘meatballs’ made with kidney beans and peanut butter! (Boyfriend approved.)

Simple vegetable stir fry with peanut, soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce. Plus sunflower seeds.

Butternut squash, carrot, kale and chickpea soup. Spiced up with harissa paste.

Also made houmous!

Other meals that I didn’t photograph include: a vegetable bake topped with breadcrumbs and mixed ground nuts, a warm mixed bean and stir fried veggie salad with bulgar wheat and a vegetable pasta dish that would have been lovely had it not been for the vegan ‘cheese’ I threw in. Yuck.

Am I planning on staying vegan after January? No, probably not. But I’m glad I am giving it ago and I will complete January without eating any cheese or chocolate! Maybe I’ll make Veganuary an annual thing, maybe I’ll eat an extra vegan meal a week too. Maybe I’ll even get my boyfriend or friends and family to join in next time! I’ll certainly be trying lots more new recipes throughout the month, and no doubt I’ll continue to cook some of those meals, and more, throughout the year.

Happy Year of the Sheep!

In Japan, people don’t really send Christmas cards. They do, however, send cards or postcards for the New Year.

The end of December and the beginning of January are the busiest times for the Japanese post offices. The Japanese have a custom of sending New Year’s Day postcards (年賀状 nengajō) to their friends and relatives, similar to the Western custom of sending Christmas cards. Their original purpose was to give your faraway friends and relatives tidings of yourself and your immediate family. In other words, this custom existed for people to tell others whom they did not often meet that they were alive and well. – via good ol’ Wikipedia

These cards often feature the Zodiac sign for that particular year, despite the Zodiac originating in China rather than Japan. And this year is the year of the sheep.

I came across this blog post this evening, which is a collection of some of this years nengajō – mostly created digitally. I wanted to share my single favourite postcard (although the postcard from Nintendo is pretty cool too).

Year of the Sheep by Eiko Tamura

This Year (2015) is called ‘Sheep Year 未年’.

so I made the shape of the S (use Futura) with a flock of sheep.

Some common nengajō greetings include:

• kotoshi mo yoroshiku o-negai-shimasu
  (今年もよろしくお願いします)
  (I hope for your favour again in the coming year)
• (shinnen) akemashite o-medetō-gozaimasu
  ((新年)あけましておめでとうございます)
  (Happiness to you on the dawn [of a New Year])
• kinga shinnen
  (謹賀新年)
  (Happy New Year)
• shoshun/hatsuharu
  (初春)
  (‘early spring’ – in the traditional lunar calendar a year begins in early spring)
• geishun
  (迎春)
  (to welcome spring)

If Japan was made of Lego…

If Japan was made of Lego, it would still be ridiculously cool.

Originally posted over on Tokyo Desu.

Love Japan magazine

I have been very much enjoying my almost-two-week-long Christmas break: relaxing, sleeping in, eating nice food, being at home with the parents and the cat, not driving around, not spending money and not working. Well, not my day job anyway. I have, however, been keeping creative both by making a start on the physical book version of my Japan (April, 2014) travel journal and with another Japan-themed project…

I have been working on the branding for Love Japan magazine, a new magazine for, you guessed it, fans of Japan.

I’ve been a bit magazine mad recently; writing for our college magazine, and researching fashion magazines for work I’ve been doing in and out of college, so I think this was the catalyst for Love Japan. I wanted this magazine to have the aesthetics of independent magazines that I’ve fallen in love with, whilst focusing on Japanese culture, travel, lifestyle, food and fashion. Issue #1 will be released in the Spring and I’ve got contributors from the UK, USA and Japan working on articles.

– via Emily, the brains behind Love Japan magazine (taken from her own blog post, here – which mentions me!)

The stand-alone logo graphic

A colour palette to be used throughout the magazine and website

Title typography for the front cover of the magazine

I also created a selection of patterns to be used within the magazine for backgrounds and/or borders, suggested how typography could be used and produced a sample design for the layout.

I can’t wait to see and read the first issue when it is released in the Spring!

2014

2015 is going to have to try really damn hard to beat 2014. I’m almost certain it isn’t going to be as good but that’s okay, because this year really was a great year.

• I went to Japan, and for that alone 2014 has been better than all years previously. Japan is somewhere that has always been top of my list of countries to visit. It’s still top of my list now, because I can’t wait to go back! (I’m currently putting together a book of my travels – much like the digital version).

• I moved out, and although only 20 miles or so down the road, I no longer live in Milton Keynes nor with my parents. I live closer to work, and my job/workplace is pretty darn great too, by the way. Not wanting to move back home yet, although it has been nice being ‘home’ for Christmas this last week.

• It’s been an awesome year for music (last years resolution accomplished). Almost all of my favourite bands had new albums – I vote Chuck Ragan’s Something May Catch Fire as my album of the year but The Menzingers’ Rented World was the soundtrack to my Japan trip so that’s special too. And Against Me! at the Electric Ballroom last month was my top gig. Although, again, that was closely followed by The Menzingers closing WTFest in Southampton. I had a top gig buddy (boyfriend) too. :)

2015 will be alright, probably.

Christmas Cards 2014

As you may have realised from my previous blog post, I have been crafting my own Christmas cards this year – although, to be honest, I do most years. But this year I have done something a little different. I made my cards by carving a small Christmas tree design (a bit smaller than A6) into a piece of lino and printing onto various papers in black ink. So the paper shows through where the design is rather than the blank ink.

Red paper, brown paper, Japanese newspaper

Shiny gold paper, crinkly white paper

I have only written 4 so far, this is the rest…

These cards were inspired by the linocutting workshop I took part in at work, back in November (see the blog post here!). I even re-printed my wintery tree design, that I created at that workshop, to have a more limited edition and larger (A5) card. Not that these cards are actually for sale at all anyway.

Red and gold

This isn’t the only Christmas card I’ve worked on this year. I also contributed to the emc design ‘12 days of Christmas’ card – read the emc blog here – with nine ladies dancing. Although this was digitally created, not handmade.

Sunday Crafternoon

It’s been a busy weekend for me. Starting Friday, I had a day off work and spent it Christmas shopping, with mama-Prew in Milton Keynes, and then shot off to London to watch Once the Musical, with Becca and Lana. The shopping was very successful and the musical was truly wonderful. Saturday I didn’t do so much but I stuck around in MK and decorated the parents’ Christmas tree among other things.

Today I returned home to Bedford for my weekly pilates class, then spent the afternoon happily out of the cold and busily doing some arts and crafts.

First on my crafting agenda was the WTFest/Menzingers poster-setlist-ticket-wristband combo collage I’ve been meaning to work on since October. Well, I think it was well worth the wait.

I added some ‘polaroids’ of my photos from WTFest weekend, as well.

The next craft is more of a work in progress. I plan to have linocut printed Christmas cards this year and these were my very first attempt. I was intending on this particular lino design being only a tester but I liked my first print so much that I went ahead and produced many more. It won’t be the last linocutting/printing I do this side of Christmas, but I have to wait for all of these mini prints to dry before I do any more! 

And finally, the third ‘craft’ is a bit of a cheat as I simply paper-mâchéd gold tissue paper onto a cardboard reindeer that I bought in Hobby Craft yesterday – on a whim. 

Also worth mentioning: as well as my WTFest collage, I now have these Japanese prints up in my room. The two larger prints I was given by my parents when I moved and the smaller four are postcards that I picked up in Tokyo. All are replicas of ukiyo-e by Hiroshige, my favourite artist.

And it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Both in my flat.

And at the parental home.

Fox Fotography

If you know me, you probably know that I like foxes. And this pretty much solely comes from the fact that my car, first and only, is a Volkswagen Fox. I call her – yes, my car is a her – Foxy and she has a little stuffed mini fox (Lil Fox) looking out the back window. But, I have always loved wolves as well and I guess they’re not so different really. Sort of like a cross between a wolf and a cat? In appearance anyway… and we all know how I feel about cats.

But onto the foxes… One Russian miner, Ivan Kislov, has been spending his down time taking spectacular photos of foxes, among other creatures, in the Arctic circle.

Bored Panda wrote a blog post about Ivan Kislov’s amazing images here and include more of his fox photos.

‘Though he takes pictures of everything from bears and reindeer to wolves and stoats, Kislov says the foxes are often very willing models: “Foxes are curious and can come very close, and I shoot with wide angle and telephoto lenses.” ’