Japan's culture and history includes a variety of ancient Japanese legends from the Shinto faith

Japan has a fascinating history and the Shinto faith added many ancient legends to Japanese culture.In Shinto every natural element, animate or inanimate, has a kami or spirit with an abundance of the world's animals, or indeed vegetation, possessing kami and descended from the Japanese deities.

Check out my article on Suite for a peek into legends relative to Japanese creation, Mount Fuji, and stories about the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu. 

Enjoy a picnic under cherry blossom - Japanese Hanami style

Viewing cherry blossom bloom (sakura) is one of the most beautiful and popular rites of spring in Japan, but you don't need to be in Japan to enjoy a picnic under fragrant cherry blooms. You'll find blossom trees flowering in most parts of the world during spring and it's an easy matter to pack a picnic and feast under the delicately beautiful and aromatic flowers.

Why not try it yourself?

Discover more about Japan's cherry blossom celebrations

Visit Guyana - Georgetown & Kaietaur Falls

Guyana is a fascinating country to visit and the opportunity to spend time in the rain forest must not be missed if you get chance to spend time in the country.

The country has a mixed culture, with three different ethnic groups living together; the native Amerindians, black descendants of former slaves, and Asian descendants of workers bought over by former British colonizers.

Wooden houses proliferate and many of the old colonial homes are now embellished with statuary that appears symbolic of practitioners of the Hindu faith. St George's Cathedral is an iconic central landmark in the Georgetown capital, though unfortunately I did not chance to look around inside when I visited. It's said that wives of the former British colonizers would while away time waiting for their husbands to return from sea by keeping lookout from the tower of the church.

It's possible to take a plane trip out to Kaietaur Falls to see this magnificent natural waterfall. There's a cabin close to the landing strip that was built for the Canadian Prime Minister some years ago, so if you've always yearned to spend a few days or weeks in the middle of the rainforest and close to scenery like that in the image, you could get in touch with the Guyana tourism authorities and book the accommodation for a vacation.

Check out my article on HubPages for more detail about Georgetown

Copyright Dawn Denmar March, 2014

Vacation in beautiful Cambridge, UK & visit Europe at same time

Check out my article on HubPages showing easy ways to make the most of a UK vacation by visiting some of the iconic cities of the United Kingdom and Europe at the same time.

Easy Chocolate Truffle Recipe: Great for Homemade Xmas Gifts

Making handmade gifts for Christmas or any other occasion can be a wonderful activity with kids or friends. This chocolate truffles recipe is quick and easy to make and requires no baking. You'll only need to melt the plain chocolate used to make your basic truffles and perhaps melt any additional chocolate you may use for coating your sweet treats.

Presenting your homemade chocolates in paper sweet cases and packaged in pretty presentation boxes makes them look fantastic and the gift recipient will really appreciate the time and trouble taken to make a handmade gift.

You'll only need plain chocolate, icing sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla essence and dessicated coconut for this easy chocolate truffle recipe and then you can let your imagination go wild with flavorings and additional coatings, so you can create really personal and attractive truffles for family and friends. You can add alcohol, fruit extracts or nuts to your basic truffle mixture and coatings could include dipping individual truffles in melted white or milk chocolate, dipping in chopped nuts and even decorating the top of each candy with little sweets, colored sugars or tiny nuts or coffee beans.

Kids will adore the opportunity to make gifts for friends or family members and this recipe is an ideal option for children, even small kids will be able to mix the truffles and make them into little balls. And they'll love the chance to make individual decorations for each sweet.

This inexpensive recipe makes about 30 truffles but the ingredients can be doubled and multiplied to make larger amounts if necessary. The article also contains a couple of video demonstrations showing different chocolate truffle recipes and mixtures.

You can check out more confectionery and sweet recipes on the BBC website.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

6 December 2013 UK Weather & Tidal Surges

The UK had severe weather conditions from 5 December 2013, with two killed and several injuries reported on local news. High winds and driving rain battered most of Britain but the worst areas affected were the East coast seaside towns and villages. Tidal surges caused flooding and damage along the East coastline and crumbling cliffs due to rising of sea levels even caused some homes and a lifeboat station in Hemsby to collapse into the sea. Many seaside towns were under water and thousands of people evacuated from their homes.

Check out these YouTube videos for visuals of the tidal surges happening, the first one shows just how powerful and frightening the ocean can be:

Links to some news reports:
BBC
The Independent

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Visit the Yorkshire Dales when you plan UK Travel

The Yorkshire Dales are in North Yorkshire and closest towns and cities are Harrogate, York and Leeds. Visiting the Dales in fall or winter reveals stark scenery and golden-brown heather on the moorland.

I stayed in Harrogate, which is about 40 minutes drive away from Malham. Malham is a very popular tourist attraction in the Yorkshire Dales as Malham Cove is a spectacular limestone cliff that's ideal for climbers and towers over the surrounding countryside.

The paths winding their way up and around the Malham Cove rocks are part of the Pennine Way, a 268 mile walk that starts in Edale, Derbyshire and finishes in Scottish borders. Some of the scenery you'll observe on the Pennine Way is the most beautiful in the UK as much of the trail is across hills and peaks of the Derbyshire Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District. Malham Cove is one of the many upland highlights of the Pennine Way, which was the first National Trail opened in the UK in the year 1965.

I hope you'll enjoy this selection of photos depicting some of the area around Malham!

All photos are my own work and all rights reserved, they are not for public copying or use without permission. Please contact me if you would like to use copies of these images.  

Planning Your Christmas Dinner & Making Traditional Christmas Pudding

Preparing for Christmas when you have family and friends to cater for can be stressful if all the jobs are left to the last minute.

Many of the dishes you'll be serving on Christmas Day can be prepared in advance and frozen or prepared in the couple of days before and kept in the refrigerator.

Check out this article on planning Christmas catering in the weeks leading up to the big day and this piece on scheduling tasks on Christmas Day to ensure your meal is cooked to perfection and all dishes ready at the same time!

You may also like this recipe for traditional Christmas Pudding - from my mum - but will need to get it made in the next couple of days if you're planning on preparing an Xmas pud as it needs time to relax and mature prior to a final steaming on Christmas Day. It's an easy recipe, the only hard part is the mixing of all the ingredients to make sure they're all combined to perfection!

My Christmas pudding (shown above) has been steamed and soaked in brandy for a final time and is now wrapped up in a kitchen store cupboard all ready for the big day.

Merry Christmas and happy preparations!

Christmas Musings from Leicester, UK

As December draws in Christmas and festive celebrations are becoming more of a focus for thoughts. Last year I managed to spend a week on the Costa del Sol in the week just prior to Christmas week. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do that this year.

I'm expecting my two daughters back from University around December 20th and want to make our celebrations really special this year. My middle girl only left home in September and I miss her incredibly. I'm sort of beginning to wonder how I'll manage in a couple of years when my son leaves home and I'm living alone. It's so strange facing up to the departure of the kids I've raised for the past 21 years and a little frightening really.....

For the first time in my life I've actually made traditional Christmas pudding and two Christmas cakes. The steamed Christmas pudding is shown above and now it just needs maturing for a few weeks. On Christmas Day I will douse it in brandy and set light to it and then serve it with brandy butter, cream or custard. I prefer cream but brandy or rum butter are the traditional accompaniments. At present I'm lavishly pouring brandy over the pudding and cakes on a weekly basis. Hopefully by the time we come to eat them they'll be super tasty. The Christmas pud looks really moist and smells delicious already and I've posted an image of it above. The Christmas cakes were slightly overdone. Unfortunately my oven temperature goes a little random and I didn't check them soon enough. I moved them lower in the oven and covered the tops with foil and they're not too bad. One is slightly more singed than the other but as I keep adding brandy it does look like it's getting more moist so hopefully I won't have to cut chunks off it before I put the icing on.

My mom is helping with a homeless shelter over the next few months. It's something the churches do in the UK on a regular basis. This is the first year her church has got involved and every Saturday she's going to be up there at 6am and preparing breakfasts. She's volunteered one of my Christmas cakes for the shelter so I hope I do manage to make a good job of the cakes as I want them to enjoy it.

Mom did invite our family over to her place for a restaurant meal on Christmas Day this year but I've turned the invite down because I really want to spend the time with the kids and prepare a traditional Xmas lunch and relax in my own home. At the moment I'm frantically decorating a bedroom for the girls and hope they'll be prepared to share a room over the holiday.

We'll have a family get together on Boxing Day at this house and I hope to use some of the cocktail recipes that I'm posting on my new website for some of the guests. It's difficult though, unless they stay over for the night it's just not worth drinking and driving and running risks of accidents or getting caught by the police. I suppose I can drink the cocktails if nobody else does though.....

For some reason my local city council have decorated our Town Hall Square with Wombles Christmas decoration tableau this year and there's a couple of images below of the lights in the Town Hall area of Leicester for 2013.

Try Mixing Sidecar Cocktails: Another Classic Brandy Cocktail Recipe Ideal for Christmas Parties

Sidecars are classic sour cocktails using a mix of Cognac or brandy, Cointreau or alternative orange liqueur and lemon juice.

Check out this article on Merrimentz! for the classic French recipe for Sidecar cocktails. The English recipe is also noted and the mix you choose will depend on the quality of liqueurs used to make your cocktails. Bourbon Sidecars are alternative popular cocktails you may want to try out.

Hosting a cocktail party is a great option for the festive season and frosting glasses is traditional for many cocktails like Sidecars. Offering guests chilled and frosted glasses with rims coated in sugar and filled with delicious cocktails proves your abilities to host successful parties every time.  

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy a merry and festive season.....

Brandy Champagne Cocktails for Perfect Christmas Parties

Champagne is the perfect drink for celebrations and this brandy champagne cocktail recipe is absolutely fantastic for Christmas. Whether you're celebrating with a partner, hosting a party or just entertaining a few friends you'll find this champagne and brandy mix is a surefire winner.

All you'll need is chilled champagne, brandy, Angostura bitters and a sugar cube.

As the sugar dissolves into a myriad of fizzing champagne bubbles you'll feel the Christmas party spirit begin to rise, no matter where you are!

Merry Christmas!

Kids' Halloween Parties

Organizing a Halloween party for kids this year? Have you hosted a Trick or Treat party before? If not, why not check out this article with loads of simple tips on organizing a Halloween Party for kids and ideas for foods to serve and some games kids might enjoy.

Check out Merrimentz! Kids Halloween Parties Food and Games for more details.

You can find other ideas for celebrations on Merrimentz website too.

Enjoy a great Halloween!

Trick or Treating image from Wikimedia commons

Bonfire Night parties can create great memories for kids that remain with them all their lives. Check out this article to see how to make a Guy, get tips on making bonfires and some great ideas for fantastic Bonfire Night foods that the whole family will enjoy.
Read Bonfire Night Parties at the Merrimentz! website for more details!

Hotels with Casinos close to Phoenix, Arizona

If you're considering a holiday or vacation in the Phoenix area of Arizona, why not check out the local hotels that have casinos on site. This is a great place to holiday as there is so much to see and do. Many of the resorts are on the native American reservations, so it is possible to see native American crafters at work. The hotels have entertainments and leisure facilities on site and the surrounding countryside is a fantastic mix of desert and mountains. You can practice your cowboy skills at the Rawhide Town or ride horseback on the many trails that surround the area. Wild horses roam free in some areas too.

Cartier 21 Chronoscaph Watch makes a Great Gift

Do you have any sportsmen, women or budding athletes in the family? Consider the gift of a Cartier Chronoscaph watch which is great for measuring time in precise detail. No more need for bulky stopwatches at time trials, just set the measurements on this eyecatching timepiece.

Why not check out Hyatt Place hotels in Ohio, for a comfortable stay?
One of the benefits of booking accommodation with a hotel chain is knowledge of the standard of service and type of facilities available. Amerisuites hotel chain have five Hyatt Place hotels in the state of Ohio, in the Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland areas. All Hyatt Place hotels are situated in urban or suburban locations or are close to airports.
Hyatt Place, Cincinnati Northeast
Amerisuite's Hyatt Place Cincinnati hotel is 18 miles out of town and just a short drive from the Cincinnati-Kentucky International Airport. This hotel has an indoor swimming pool and complimentary wireless In... From: Hyatt Place Hotels in Ohio, Located in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus

Halloween

Halloween is nearly upon us and if you have kids it's a great night to plan an inexpensive party evening. Why not host a trick or treating party for local children, it could be a host of fun!

New Nalanda University to be built in Bihar State, India

A new Nalanda University is to be built near the site of the ancient Buddhist University of Nalanda. Nalanda was a famous centre of learning for the whole of the Buddhist world from the 5th century to the 12th century and it is hoped that the new university will prove to be a centre of excellence for Asian learning in much the same way.

Do Italians Eat Cats?

Do the Italians really eat cats? Top cookery writer sacked from leading TV show for recommending stewed cat as one of his favorite meals.

So yeah, he really let the cat out the bag right?

Visit St Petersburg for the Hermitage, Canals & White Nights of Aurora Borealis

The beautiful, historic city of St Petersburg in Russia is becoming more popular as a tourist destination and it is not hard to see why. With The Hermitage museum housing the Tsar's Palaces and the largest art collection in the world, the famous canals of St Petersburg leading to its name the "Venice of the North" and the White Nights.

Visitors in June or July will be surprised to find that it does not become dark at all as the Northern Lights phenomena assures a constant twilight throughout St Petersburg.