Eat, Drink + Be Merry. Food, Travel, Photography, Design + Music in Los Angeles and Other Parts of the Earth.

I was recently at a bookstore in Japan and was stopped in my tracks when I saw this photo on the cover of a book. I bought it immediately. Her name is Nana Rokusha (ナナロク社) and her pictorial biography is a top seller in Japan at the moment. I fell in love with the way she eats food. I hope I look like that when I eat. I recommend this photo book if you’re looking for new coffee table material. The photographer, Kawashima Kotori (川島小鳥) spent a year in the Nigata prefecture photographing Nana with her family and the photos are awesome. Funny, innocent, gross, adorable – it’s a nostalgic reminder of all the things that happen during our childhood. You can buy the book here through Amazon Japan or maybe find it at a bookstore in Little Tokyo or Torrance/Gardena. The book has over 200 photos of this special child. Photos are property of Kawashima Kotori. Thanks for reading.

Is that haircut not the best?!

Hello. As I’m writing this and packing for our flight to Southern Japan tonight, I’m thinking about the wonderful year Jeni and I had. We met some great people this year, started doing more professional photography and ultimately, were able to travel to 6 new countries. We’ve become culture freaks and it has been a goal of mine this year to really move away from just writing about food, but life, in general. Traveling as much as we could, we really did learn a lot not just about the world, but ourselves as people. I launched this new site with hopes in introducing my readers to people that had a story that needed to be heard and changing any misconceptions you may have had towards another culture. And I’ve tried my best to use photography to tell a story. I wanted to thank those that have followed me from my previous site and to those that have decided to spare a few minutes each week to hear me out.  And to the many people that have walked up to me in public to say hello and let me know that they’ve been reading the site for X amount of time – you don’t know how meaningful that is to me. Were it not for my readers, I wouldn’t be going on my 7th year of writing Eat Drink & Be Merry. With that, here’s to another year of traveling, cultural education and eating/drinking/being merry. Merry Christmas and a happy new year. And hope you enjoy this mix!

Beach Fossils
Bent
Chad Valley
Cut Copy
Freddie Joachim
Gardens & Villa
Gorillaz
Heavenly Beat
James Blake
Mayer Hawthorne vs. PillowTalk
Nujabes
Perseus
Polographia
Ra Ra Riot
Ratatat
Real Estate
Stereolab
Teletextile
Tennis
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Download WonderTune Japan II.
WonderTune Japan II on Spotify.