Yes – we have secured a Print Gocco! After discovering that there are none left in Japan, we sourced one in Chicago via the wonder of Etsy. The only thing to work out now is how it actually works – because, of course, the manual is all in Japanese!

Twinkle has discovered a new skill set – she quite likes painting! First cab off the rank is a version of Up The Hill, Down The Hill seen in our last post. It measures 14 inches square, and is painted in acrylic.

Once upon a time, we went to Estonia. We stayed in a little hotel at the bottom of a hill. The receptionist seemed to (on a daily basis) respond to our request for directions with a stern ‘Up the hill, down the hill’. We figured that either she spoke no other English, or that our hotel was the only thing on our side of the hill. Everyday, we climbed the hill, and then descended the other side to our destination. Up The Hill, Down The Hill, just as she promised.

Twinkle clearly remembers this trip, and has become obsessed with drawing hills. Oddly enough, I don’t remember there ever being anything actually on the top of the hill in Estonia as Twinkle suggests here, but maybe I’m wrong. She’s drawing another hill right now.

Art Osaka wasn’t easy to find. But once we did, what we discovered was an amazing Japanese art fair held in 47 rooms across four floors of the Dojima Hotel. Amongst the hundreds of pieces to choose from, we singled it down to the wonderful work of Hiroyuki Toi, and this charming oil on canvas (which incidentally, was still wet). On our anniversary (2 days later), we went and collected her from the Tezukayama Gallery in Sumiyoshi-ku, whereby she was firmly fixed into a custom made box to ensure her safe transit back to Sydney. She arrived in perfect (and slightly drier) condition. Check out more work by Hiroyuki Toi here.

We always thought of Japan as super clean, super modern and super high tech. But our recent trip to Osaka showed us a very different side from our naive perceptions – a side we loved. Mixed in among the bright neon and shiny plastic facades, lies a grubby world of rusting signs with lackluster colours in desperate need of some fresh paint. Click the image above to see it on Flickr.

We’ve just uploaded a new project to Flickr entitled ‘Subway Life’. With his fascination of trains, platforms and stations, Jones is always lagging behind me, taking shots from bizarre angles. The amazing thing about the Osaka Subway is just how much cleaner it is than the London Underground. Some of the floors onboard the trains are so clean, you could almost eat your dinner off of them – if you were allowed to eat on the Subway, that is!

Well, having spent several days hunting high and low for a Print Gocco in Osaka, we can today confirm that there are officially none left anywhere. Not a single machine in any of the stores on Twinkle’s carefully constructed and well researched list. We managed successfully to locate stores selling the inks, the meshes, and even the bulbs, but alas, in each and every case, we were told ‘they are no longer being made, we no longer sell them’. So, for now, eBay it is…

More on our Japanese travels to follow…