RoryQ

Day before yesterday I had a weird urge to make a curry from scratch. I had a lot of time on my hands and I figured that seeing as I had the day off I might as well spend some time cooking a proper dinner for my other half, seeing as its usual me that benefits from her culinary skills (and rarely the other way around).

Anyway, I used a Jamie Oliver recipe. I find him increasingly annoying and implausible as a human being, but for some reason his recipes make sense to me whereas when I crack open practically every other cookbook I see something that baffles me.

Anyway -

'Peter's lamb curry'

(This is supposed to serve 8 according to the instructions. Perhaps 8 midgets or small children, but at any rate... I think more like 4-6 people. We froze the surplus)

GENERAL INGREDIENTS

2 tbs butter

2 14oz cans of chopped tomatoes

1 cup stock or water

3 1/2lb of lamb, diced

1 handful of chopped mint and cilantro/coriander

1 cup plain yogurt

salt and freshly ground pepper

lime juice to taste

FOR THE CURRY PASTE

2 inches fresh ginger, peeled

2 tennis-ball sized red onions, peeled

10 cloves garlic, peeled

2 fresh chillies, with seeds

1 bunch cilantro/coriander

FOR THE 'HOT AND FRAGRANT' SPICE RUB

2 tbs fennel seeds

2 tbs cummin seeds

2 tbs coriander seeds

1/2 tbs fenugreek seeds

1/2 tbs black peppercorns

1 clove

2 cardamom pods

1/2 a cinnamon stick

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Lightly toast all the ingredients for the rub in a pan over a gentle heat for the rub. Then I put it in a ziplock bag and smashed the hell out of it with a rolling pin to crush it up real fine. There may be a more intelligent way to do this, but I enjoyed the violence of it.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees (not sure what that is in farenheit). Chop the paste ingredients and add the rub powder. The recipe calls for adding the rub and paste ingredients to a food processor and making a puree. To be honest I just mashed it up a little following a fine chopping and chanced my arm with that, adding some oil and heating gently. Then 'In a large casserole dish, fry the curry paste mixture with the butter until golden, stirring regularly. Add tomatoes, stock or water and bring to the boil. Cover with foil and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours to let the flavors intensify. This is the basic curry sauce'.

When the time has elapsed, the lamb is fried in olive oil and then basically you put that in with the curry sauce, mix, and allow it to simmer on a hot plate until the lamb is tender (an hour+ probably). Then to serve you mix a portion with the yoghurt, squeeze in some lime, chuck some coriander/cilantro and mint on top and serve with rice or naan bread.

Slow, but relatively painless.

Anyone got any other indian / curry recipes?

I saw two variations on this theme that I liked -

Shige did a small pair of matching tibetan skull wrist tattoos for a couple... I also saw a pair of matching traditional style crown tattoos (not sure of the placement). 'His' was a man's crown, in blue, 'her's' was a queen's crown in pink and red. It sounds naff written down but actually it was pretty cool.

Today I got the other half of my back outlined and some shading.

Next session *possibly* next month.

The guy being tattooed next to me got a rad Buddha head on his neck from Hua.

(The pic I've linked to was taken by Hua and is part of set on their open Facebook page. Some good shots of Belfast in general in there, murals etc)

Relieved to be done for the week.

Well, I've done 12 hours on my back in the past three days. Six the first day, then a day of rest, then six today.

I went in with the mindset that the back is one of the most painful places to get tattooed, and specifically the love handles and ass (Valerie Vargas' posts re clients automatic reactions sunk in). Probably because of this I was a lot cleaner in the run-up to this week than for anything else I've done. Very little alcohol, lots and lots of sleep all week. The end result was that the first day actually felt OK, a lot better than I expected. To me it felt like towards the end it was beginning to bite more because of the time involved than because of the location.

Today was a little harder, it started to get sore around lunchtime. I figure that whatever stock of endorphins I had built back up by resting yesterday just didn't go as far. At the four hour mark today I was feeling like throwing in the towel, but then Ching sat me up (I'd been lying on my stomach) and this totally pepped me up - it was weird, I was feeling nauseous but just the change of position made a huge difference. I actually felt like the last two hours were OK... Although then again I was also getting my upper back worked and I feel like around the shoulder blade was easier than lower down towards the love-handles / ass.

In conclusion: I'm a convert to the no-drinking-in-the-run-up approach, and I reckon as much sleep as possible is important. The only other thing I came away with is that taking the day off between the two sessions felt like a really good idea. I have no doubt that going straight into it yesterday morning would have had me wanting to tap far earlier.

My girlfriend has been watching anxiously, because she's got a pretty gruelling schedule planned for next year. Four sessions in two weeks in Japan. I think, after this week, that it is do-able. I feel like I could get tattooed next week (if I really had to).

Welcome to the forum.

I remember being amazed by one of Phetrus' backpieces a while back (death on a horse?).

I'm breaking my word and posting a pic from the end of day 1 of my backpiece, because I really like this photo, which I have borrowed from White Dragon Tattoo (the Belfast-based studio hosting Ching and Hua).

So, we got six hours done yesterday. I'm resting today then booked in tomorrow for another full day. Ching suggested we do the outline and some shading for a little over half the back yesterday, and then get the rest of the outline and some more shading on the untouched side of the back on the second session. I will probably do another 2-3 sessions next year (not sure when or where, yet, depends on their convention and guest schedule).

Ching and Hua were fresh from the London convention. They didn't appear particularly tired, but Ching explained he'd began another backpiece (a big Hannya) and done some sort of half-sleeve and a hand tattoo over there.

He had the design for my back ready - a representation of Guan Yin against a bamboo background, with a bird. The bird is a traditional motif sometimes associated with Guan Yin, as I understand. I believe the story goes that the bird was orphaned, and subsequently flew to Guan Yin, who looked after it and taught it - and it became her disciple, basically.

I'd sent over my dimensions so he had a stencil which appeared to work, with some adjustments for the shape of my back.

I'm not going to say it was particularly pleasant getting six hours done, but I had deliberately slept well and not drank anything much for about 10 days - I think it made a big difference.

Starting my backpiece tomorrow, with another session two days later. If all goes well I will post up the outline.

Nervous but also very excited.

Alanna- I use Porter every year going from Toronto to Chicago. Last time I flew was a little after the Toronto tattoo convention (I think). There was a dude on the plane who had fresh tattoos on both hands (a skull on one, a lady head on the other). So looks like a few people have the same idea as you, in a way. Porter is cool, all the free coffee and brownies you want in the airport, and on the plane they serve little cans of steam whistle beer.

That chest eagle is awesome... I'm getting more and more of an urge to get tattooed by Chad Koeplinger.

You must be over and back to Kyoto regular, Duffa!

That wolf by Chad Koeplinger is one of the nicest of it's kind I've seen in yonks (the other one that I saw recently I liked a lot was also done in Frith Street, funnily enough, by Valerie Vargas).

He's definitley on my 'must get tattooed by' list. Missed him at a guest spot in Ireland last year- hopefully he will come back.

I check a lot of the above blogs, but in terms of a drip-feed of new work and news updates and whatnot Facebook pages are sometimes hard to beat....

I'm jealous. Thinking now I should have got off my ass a few months ago and booked the flights...

I can't seem to edit my post above re the photos, but what's missing is that I was trying to say I didn't take photos in either Yellow Blaze or Horiyoshi's museum. There were signs at the museum forbidding it, and at Yellow Blaze I think it probably would have been a faux pas too...

Were those foot tattoos both one day each? I think you mentioned the first one was 4 hours in total - the second was similar, presumably? Very cool, at any rate.

We tried to take a fair few photos, although some of the things that probably would have been interesting to people here (like the interior of Yellow Blaze, Horiyoshi's museum etc we didn't take any because it didn't seem appropriate). I'll put up any good ones I do find in this thread down the line.

Yeah, it was a good trip ... Although expensive, it must be said. I'm going to be spending the conceivable future working whatever overtime I can find.

Just one other thing. We brought over a few small bottles of Irish whiskey (from the last few independent Irish-owned distilleries) to give out as presents along the way. So at the last ryokan we were staying in, Tokyo Ryokan, we gave the owner and his wife some. They were a young couple and the ryokan itself is kind of unusual - it's a sort of eco-house with some unusual architectural features... Little details like hand-finished wood and stone elements where you don't expect them. It was small, but immaculately clean and very friendly.

TOKYO RYOKAN OFFICIAL WEB SITE

Some info about the design features here: TOKYO RYOKAN OFFICIAL WEB SITE - Design

In conversation we'd talked to the husband about tattooing, and it turned out that he seemed to know a little about the scene in Japan. We didn't want to ask him directly (it was one of those situations where it seemed like he was talking around things, and we'd only just met him). So the next day we came back to the ryokan and he had left us a tube containing several Shige prints as a gift... Signed by Shige. He said he thought we might get more enjoyment out of them, and that he had been holding on to them for a while. Guess it's a small world.

Thought I might throw up a few more thoughts on my trip to Japan (tattoo-related ones, primarily).

We got back last night and the jet lag doesn't appear to be as bad travelling from East to West... I'm back at work, which totally sucks, quite frankly. On the upside, we will be back in Japan in just over a year in order for my GF to begin her backpiece with Shige.

Meeting Shige and getting a little tour of Yellow Blaze and the stencils of work he is doing at the moment was amazing. If anyone is interested in getting work done by him the only thing I would say is that actually going there in the flesh seems to be the number one option (arranging it in advance, obviously). I think this is his way of sorting time-wasters from potential real clients. He takes his consultations very seriously and it was one of the most rigorous I've seen... Lots of questions, discussion, teasing out of a plan spanning a number of years.

Aside from the consultation at Yellow Blaze that we had to make, Horiyoshi III's tattoo museum is open almost all the time (seems to be closed only the 20th and 30th of the month) and is only 1000 yen to enter. It's a cornucopia of tattoo-related history, which so much stuff crammed into such a small space that every time you turn around you're looking at something which is one of a kind. Right at the door is a painting that Shige gave to Horiyoshi and if you go further in there are a tremendous amount of vintage books and prints as well as quirky statuettes etc.

Interestingly while there we met Horiyoshi's future successor manning the till. He was discussing his father with a visiting American at the time and although there was a bit of a language barrier it seemed to be the case that Horiyoshi still meets people certain days of the week, although whether or not he actually takes clients wasn't clear.

The tattoo museum stocks a fair range of Horiyoshi's books, prints and some others from State of Grace, but I would point out that they are quite expensive to buy there. 'Kokoro', for example, was 12000 yen more expensive there than at Tower Records in Shibuya (their top floor book section seemed very extensive, huge range of Horiyoshi books, State of Grace, books from Grime and collaborators etc at reasonable prices... For Japan, I guess).

While in Kyoto a week later I called into Harizanmai and spoke to Gakkin about being tattooed next year. Harizanmai is a very slick tattoo studio and I picked up a quirky t-shirt designed by Gakkin which I think is a kind of play / perversion of the idea of a Japanese crest. He drew a kind of grub gestating in the centre of it. Harizanmai probably had the most western-friendly access of any of the studios we were in, but perhaps only because Gakkin and Gotch travel to the west so much.

On the topic of how large tattoos are received in Japan, on westerners at least, I would say that overall it was not a major issue for our purposes, but if I was living or working there I think it would have merited a bit more consideration. Due to the 32 degrees temperature on some days I was wearing shorts and t-shirts most of the time. Despite this I would say most Japanese seemed to be polite or disciplined enough not to stare, point or otherwise react to the sight of a fair bit of coverage on show. I saw some smaller tattoos on Japanese kids while I was there so perhaps the times really are changing ... Maybe there is a greater degree or acceptance. Or maybe I just got the benefit of the doubt as a foreigner (possibly always more likely).

Once or twice someone who we'd been talking with for a little while would politely ask to see something a little closer, and they were particularly interested in the dragon leg piece. Strangely it seemed to be either kids or older people (like 60 plus) who had a positive reaction. Middle aged people either didn't react openly or seemed to have a more ambivalent reaction.

The only place I felt slightly uncomfortable, partially because I was conscious that in hindsight I probably should have preferred to cover up more (but didn't because of the sheer heat and humidity), was when visiting some sights like larger temples in Kyoto. On one particular occasion there was a tour group of middle-aged people who seemed, as a group, to react more than normal to the sight of my leg tattoo. Whether that's because they were a really provincial tour group, or were from a conservative or religious group of some sort, or because they were offended on some other basis, I don't know.

I wore trousers and a polo shirt out to dinner a couple of times and in the two weeks we were in Japan there were a couple of minor occasions where I thought possibly my half sleeves were an issue. On one occasion we were politely told a pizzeria was by reservation only, even though it was more or less empty. We beat a polite retreat. The other time was at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, where we stayed for a couple of nights as a treat. There was a 'no tattoo' dress code for the swimming pool and their bars and lobby coffee area. I suspect this is 50% because it's Japan and 50% because it's a 5 star hotel which might well employ the same rules in Paris, London (I'm not really sure, to be hoenst). Either way when we had dinner and drinks at the Peak Bar (made famous by 'Lost in Translation') I wore a shirt and trousers anyway, making it a non-issue. The swimming pool apparently hands out rash-guards, interestingly.... For those wishing to swim anyway. I'm not sure what they'd do about leg tattoos... A burkini?

I visited a few sento (baths) in Kyoto and Tokyo without any problems or diplomatic incidents, but I picked locations which I believed were tattoo-friendly (or at least tolerant of them).

Nice... Looks good dude.

It was 31 degrees today in Kyoto, but not as humid as it was when we arrived... Still way too hot for this irishman.

Just writing this from the ryokan Im staying in while in Japan.

A bit of a movable feast of tattooing-related holiday stuff over the past week.... Also laying the ground for some work next year. My girlfriend has been accepted by Shige as a client and will start her backpiece next year - amazing stuff, and I was slightly star-struck when Shige walked in the door of Yellow Blaze for her appointment.

As she is planning a return visit to begin around this time next year, and because I know the dates we will be back over the next while (roughly), Im planning my own work around that. I am going to try and work in a few small pieces while when we are over next, and to that end I called into Harizanmai Tattoo in Kyoto today and spoke briefly with Gakkin about a piece next year.

Also took in Horyioshi III museum in Yokohama and met his son and successor smoking nonchalantly at reception. Awesome trip so far!

Ah yes, the fun of peeling off several bits of sellotape when you're hairier than Robin Williams.... Very pleasant.

Joking aside I do still try and shave the area I'm having tattooed in advance provided I think I'm not going to slice myself up... But I guess it depends on the size of the piece and where exactly it is. I think the leg was a special case, something about around the knee and shin just turned out trickier than expected.

I'd recommend against that. When not used to shaving that area on the leg it's very easy to put little nicks in it. Cuts (shallow or not) are bad thing for the area to get tattooed.

Guilty as charged here, I'm afraid. I nicked myself several times shaving my leg to try and save the artist the hassle. We joked about it, but I'm not sure I made it much easier for him, because he had to work around or over a few nicks.

i bet you're stoked. i'm sure ching is gonna do an awesome job. have you seen the pics east tattoo just uploaded to facebook of the front piece he's currently working on? it looks amazing.

Yeah, I know the piece you're talking about - it's a blue-skinned face with red hair... I was trying to figure out who or what it is a representation of (I think I read it somewhere when i was doing research for my own backpiece).

They put out some amazing stuff. There's a few shots up of a black and grey Fudo Myo backpiece that Yang appears to be doing on another European which looks amazing too (but not finished yet).

I'm depending on Ching keeping up his crippling convention schedule and guest appearances in the west in order to get this backpiece finished in reasonable time... :P

Got my dates for starting my backpiece - in the last week of September - and a hint of what some of the details of the design are like. Super-exciting.

It's with Ching from East Tattoo in Taiwan. I gave him a fairly loose idea of the type of subject matter I was interested in, and specified that I wanted black and grey and something that was going to make a big visual impact (it was some of the backpieces featuring Buddha heads and Guan Yin figures that originally caught my eye from him).

I do sometimes have the sense that there will come a point where I really regret not saving space for particular tattooists. I love large pieces but I guess they block off huge parts of the body.

Maybe there's something to be said for keeping a fair amount of space free for smaller tattoos so as to satisfy that?

Lochlan, I identify with what you're saying in regards to how your tattoos can simultaneously help build a rapport in some situations but act as a barrier in others. From a professional standpoint I think in my area (policing) we see the same 'swinging door' effect. Tattoos can open the door for certain segments of the population to feel more at ease in interacting with you - the tattoos are a conversation starter, something that humanises and differentiates you from your uniform (if you're wearing one). On the other hand, we must be cognisant that some clients, particularly older ones, are not going to have those positive associations ... Typically when dealing with an older person.

I also agree that if you have heavy coverage and can be good enough at your job that the tattooing is a 'non issue' for everyone involved, then you're acting as an ambassador for the next people to come along, in a way.