Sweet Japanese Cafe

Today my friend texted me that she found a cute new Japanese cafe,Hanamizuki,

 near where she works, so I just happened to be in the neighborhood and popped on in. They have so many different and interesting flavored onigiris. They serve wonderful lunch sets for affordable prices and delicious desserts! I ordered the green tea and black sesame creme brûlée it was so good. I definitely will be popping back in soon.

Getting there:

143 W 29th St, New York

, NY

. Take the 1 train to 28th street station.

Treasures from Japan

As a birthday gift to myself I ordered a few items from (a couple of weeks ago) Hiki's store Uguisu the Little Shoppe. Hiki has the most beautiful assortment of goods and art from Japanese artists. My favorites are always the stationery, you can never have enough paper goods. One of my absolute favorite Japanese artist is Aiko Fukawa. Fukawa-sans delicate paintings are joyful, strange and a sheer delight to look at. I was fortunate to have found a few lovely pieces in Hiki-chan's shop including a wonderful notebook filled with Fukawa-sans work and still enough room to add your own notes. Plus, I'm waiting for a lovely 8 card set of Fukawa-sans's paintings which will hang in my home. Along with these treasures I bought a beautiful letterpress coaster set entitled "Squirrel Forest" also a gorgeous packet of origami paper by Cochae.


Beautiful wrapping by Hiki

special surprise gift inside from Hiki, lovely vintage stationery. Thank you, Hiki-chan! xoxo

Beach: Part Deux

A little beach time- Part 1

By some miracle of nature last weekend we had 55 degree weather, so I took full advantage to see my beloved beach. I took the train out to Coney Island with my bike. I immediately tide up my bike and ran towards the water the sun was warm and the waves were gentle. I sat around listening to the water then took a stroll out onto the pier which happens to have been recently renovated by my friend's architecture firm, its quite lovely. After I had a good amount of Coney Island I rode on the boardwalk towards Brighton Beach then detoured onto Emmons Ave toward Plumb Beach. The ride on Emmons was really cool, lots of swans wading in the inlet and Russian families out for a stroll. Emmons splits into the Belt for cars and greenway just for bikes along the water. I got to Plumb beach after a 45 minute ride, dragged my bike onto the sand, plopped down to have a snack. Its a pretty desolate beach, at least in the winter, except for the occassional person walking their dog. It was very serene to sit on a NYC beach and just be by yourself. After a half hour I started my way back the sun was starting head down and the beach started getting a little chilly. Back to Coney for another sit down then back home. That was the greatest birthday present I could have gotten, seeing the beach in the winter.