Travelog for: Matcha

Hyvää Kekriä, äiti! 

Kekri is the traditional finnish celebration of the last day of October.
It is related to the celtic samhain and more modern Halloween.

The Kekri was the end of the work-year, when all the harvest was done, the animals were slaughtered, the berries and mushrooms were
collected, and the larders were full.
So there was more food than any other time of the year, and a good
reason to celebrate. 



We went for a trip into the Porkkala area,
and on our way there Henna told us that the harvest celebration was just half of the Kekri.
The Kekri was also the last possibility to celebrate for a long time,
since the whole month of November is a month of the dead.
Even the finnish name for November (Marraskuu) means "The month of death".



Tuli told me that during the whole November the dead people are on the move, visiting their old homes and
keeping an eye on their descendants.
They were served food and the sauna was heated fro them throughout
the whole month, and the living people had to behave in a very
subdued manner and keep up their best behavior and manners.

So, in Kekri people were drinking and dancing and uhm, doing certain
fertility rites. 



I must say after hearing all that talk about
spirits moving upon earth made me feel a bit creepy.
I was watching behind my back more than usually, but didn´t see
anything. 



It was a beautiful, lightly misty day,
and the sea looked beautifully grey.



We made up a fire and heated some glögi
over it. 
That is a warm drink the finns like to have in winter.
It is a bit similar than the german glüchwine. 



It tasted good and felt great! 






Then we walked round the forest collecting herbs
for a magical potion. 



While collecting, we hummed a secret
toyvoyager chant we have to chant when collecting herbs for
Kekri potion.
I´m sorry I can´t tell you more, it´s a toyvoyager thing! 



When we were loaded with various herbs,
we sat in front of the fire warming our paws.



On our way home we stopped on the yard
of a desolated house and climbed onto its attic, because we still
needed some ingredients, like spiderweb.
We felt all a bit nervous in the attick, it was like we had heard
odd whispering sounds and felt sudden gusts of cold air,
but we didn´t see anything.
Well, it was just an old house, full of rejected stuff. 



Like some old paintings leaning against the walls with broken frames..



At one point I felt like something touching
my head!
But I couldn´t see anyone! 



I asked the others if they also felt we weren´t
there alone, and they answered that hell yes, we´re in a big bunch
of toyvoyagers and no one can feel like being alone in one! 



At last we had all the nessessary ingeredients!

"Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble!
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravined salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged i' th' dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-delivered by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron!" 

Well, our ingredients weren´t quite that horrible! 



Then we carved some oranges and one
turnip to make lanterns, and when the evening came we lit
candles in them. 



And then we went inside to celebrate the
Kekri!



We ate and sung and drink our magical
potion, and that made us dance so that we couldn´t stop
the whole night! 
So we sung and danced and drank some more!


Here you can see us dancing

See you soon again!
Hug from Matcha! 

Hello!
I'm Matcha means Japanese green tea. I am  twin brother of the frog. I'd like to discover the world. I'll show you my hometown Yokosuka.
Yokosuka is located one hour by train of Tokyo and Yokohama and  historical town Kamakura.
We have although the U.S. naval port.Yokosuka is very few tourist attractions.However I think my mentor know many secret tourist attraction.
Please send a PM to my mentor if you're interested in hosting me.

Matcha makes a cake with his brother .

White owl delivered  a letter  to the Matcha.
It was a letter from Germany to invite Matcha.
Matcha looks so very happy.
Matcha's brother  showed many postcard of Postcrossing that arrived from Germany.
Also searching at the ipad mini.
We looked  the weather forecast for his travel safety.

Prior to departure from Japan
He enjoyed his home and hometown slowly.
And, Matcha ate his favorite Udon(Japanese noodles).

Matcha go to Strunki in Germany.
We hope for the safety of the journey.
Have fun!

Hi Mum,

I luckily arrived now in Remscheid and I am very happy, how nice the plushies here are to me.

I met Fabler Björn the nice bear from IKEA, Soeren, the funny moose-elk and "Her Highness of the long ears" Charlotte, the hare bunny.

Look, how they gave me a warm welcome, the first flowers from the garden, snowbells and guess what: We had some tea together and they made me some small sushies and we ate some sweets together.

And after the tea the whole crew sent me to bed and made me sleep so that I was able to recreate from the long journey.

See You soon, dear mum, I love You and I look forward for the adventures I will have here

Yours matcha

Hello Mummy,

today we went with our crew to a place of Wuppertal called the South-Hills, from where you have a full view of the eastern part of  the valley, Barmen. Unfortunatuly the weather-conditions were not as good as it should be, some of the pictures are a little dark and cloudy. But strunki told us, that this is the typical weather here in the Bergisch-Land. We had about 10°C and it did not rain.

In Wuppertal live almost 350.00 Citizens on almost 170.000 Km² and it is the Maintown of the Bergisch Land. The Main townparts are Barmen and Elberfeld and they fusioned togehter with Ronsdorf, Vohwinkel and Cronenberg in the early 30ths of the last century. They started textile-industrialism in the late 19th century and in the Town funded a lot of firms and factories expanded. But on the other hand you only need 5 Minutes to be in the forest or in some parks. It is a very green town.

After looking over Wuppertal, we went on to Ronsdorf where we bought some red and orange sweet bell pepper and some meat on the market.

In Ronsdorf we visited a little park inside the smalltown and played a little bit in the playground there.

On our way home to Remscheid finally we stopped by an old villa, a house as the best example of an typical style of so called "Bergischer Barock" with lots of ornaments, an impressive Main Door and green window shutters.

And in the evening we started cooking

Today we plushies did the cooking again and it was a great adventure:
We filled the sweet bell pepper with the meat we bougth on the market.

I cut the onions japanese style. Banzai!

Charlotte fought brave with the mixer, it was a huge one and we all supported her during her figth

And we had a lot of fun doing this together and the results are very yumyum

Hi Mum

today we made a cream cheesecake with blueberries when we noticed, that HelmutBluepant would come back home this weekend.

First we wet the gelatine and seperated the blueberry-juice for heating them together. The blueberries we gave on a baked pastry case. After mixing the juice with the gelatine we mixed the cream cheese, we poured it on the blueberries and decorated with some fresh ones.

But it took some time and so I decided to cook a fast noodle-soup japanese style, and the plushies liked it very much, yum yum

I look very foreward to meet Helmut here and to make a friendship with him.

There You can see us all when we track Helmuts way home.

Oh Mum,

I have to tell You that I met two other magnetic plushies!

They are two bunnies called Brown an White (the bigger one is White and the small bunny is White)

Brown had a little problem, he was not able to climb back to White and he asked me to help them this night.

What a fun for me to play with them on the frigde

Hi Mum,

today we made a trip to Wuppertal for going on the Schwebebahn (suspension railway). It is more than 110 years old, but don´t worry, they rebuilt and modernised a lot since about 10 Years

If You want to know more about it, here is the link to wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Suspension_Railway

It was a great adventure and I would love to drive with again

Love You and give You a kiss

In the evening we had a great hello: HelmutBluepant came back home and we all were very happy that he came in good condition.

For this nice event we celebrated a little barbecue

Dear Mum,

Today we had to say goodbye to Fabler Björn.

We were sad a little bit that Fabler had to leave, but we know, the he enjoyed the time with us and that he loves to come home now.

Wish You a good journey back home.

Hi Mum,

this evening we had a lot of fun at the skittle-hall, where strunki plays skittle, or nine-pins every four weeks.

You have to roll the skittles ball to the nine pins and aim of the game is to hit as many as possible.

And can You imagine, I also played skittle and I was quite good