Recently my friend Karin (who lives in Berlin) and I met in Moscow. Last time I’ve been to Moscow I was twelve, and could only remember a very tasty ice-cream I ate on Exhibition Grounds, and that my cousin Sasha, whose room I occupied during that visit, had a very cool kind of calculator, which could generate mathematical exercises as a game. This time I had definitely more memories. This city is beautiful, sexy, intriguing, but also cruel, clinical and very cold in every respect.

press here to see some photos from my trip >>>

Michelle was sure she was a princess, but it was only a Shavuot dress. All the kids in her kindergarten were dressed in white and had little baskets with fruits and cheeses.
Shavuot, jewish holiday of the first harvest.

Today is a celebration of Lag baOmer, a Jewish holiday when in the evening kids (and not only) light bonfires everywhere. Just next to my house they lit it so good, that it put on fire the whole waste ground! 8-0

Here is the opening of my exhibition in Shanghai, in beautiful gallery 1918, the Villa.



more photos inside

Yesterday I had a lesson, the subject was preferences, «I like», «I don’t like», «I’m good in» etc.
So I asked Yukiko, how to say «I love you» in Japanese. I asked it before, but didn’t remember what she said, and that’s why:
 — We don’t say «I love you», — she said, — we use only «I like you». «I love you» is old-fashion. Nobody uses it, except of old people. Or soap-operas on TV. It’s an exaggeration.

I was puzzled.

 — But if you want to tell somebody that you love him, what do you say?
 — «I like you». Or «I like you a lot».
 — Using the same verb as you say «I like this book»?
 — Yes.
 — Hm, but, Yukiko… How do you distinguish in Japanese someone you only like and someone you really love?
 — You can tell him: «I want to take care of you, please, come to live with me».
 — Hehe! And what happened to all the vocabulary for relationship between «I like you» and «Come to live with me»? And if you don’t have a place to live together? How you express love?
 — Lena, — said Yukiko, — in Japan we don’t talk about love, because it’s something expressed with actions. The other side has to feel it from you. If he needs words from you, you’re doing something wrong.

==
wow.

Last Purim, a happy holiday in Israel when everybody dresses up with costumes, my daughter was a Little Red Hood (I think she has started a new fashion in Tel Aviv, most of the girls were dressed as queen Esther or Fairy, or Princess):



and I was hm… I don’t know, a Queen of Ugly Monkeys, perhaps :)

and Michelle jumps like a little goat from stone to stone

My daughter today turned 3.

For the first time in my life I went (with my family) to a Little Crater. I’ve been many times near the big one, Makhtesh Ramon, and always thought there is nothing that looks more as a moon for me. But the little one seems to be even more «a moon». Desert is so quiet. Good to be there sometimes…

Before I forget how was it, — a little video from my Tokyo exhibition «Owls and other people». It took place this April in really cool gallery Billiken-Shokai. I miss my friends… It seems like most of my friends are always far, far away.

p.s. Lesha (the webmaster)! Thanks for all your work on my website and blog!

When I go with my daughter to restaurants or cafe, she is easily getting bored before the food arrives.