Whatever...Side Effects of an Involuntary Migration to Google

 In switching my use of this product to another machine, where I have moved my photo library to, I was faced with a minor inconvenience that came about as a result of a business deal Google and my previous email provider.  The end result is that I ended up with a temporary account of sorts on Google.  The interesting thing is that Google linked this temporary account to my abandoned YouTube account.  This of course doesn't mean that I'll be reviving that account.  Given my general aversion to Google products, which I wouldn't go so far as to call antipathy, I'm going to consider my options before continuing on here... 

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And Then It Happened....

Until last Tuesday Yamagata prefecture had been free of COVID-19 cases.  Then it happened.  A woman who was taking lessons at a local driving school started running a high fever over the weekend prior.  On Tuesday a public announcement was made, they had a COVID-19 case on their hands.

Within that announcement government spokespersons stated that the woman was from Kanagawa prefecture and that she had not been out of the country.  The next evening, one of students who works in a health professions reported that that wasn't the truth.  The woman had been to Thailand less than two weeks before travelling to Yamagata prefecture.

As of Wednesday this week the number of COVID-19 cases in Yamagata prefecture had risen to 22.  On that same day I found in my mail slot a printed notice from the city government which basically amounted to the following; don't travel outside the prefecture unless you absolutely have to, the pre-schools are to be closed until April 15th, and to report to public health authorities if one starts experiencing flu symptoms.

All in all, I can only shake my head in wonder.  I've been reading about how governments and the public have been working to contain the spread of the virus in Canada and have seen little of the same over here.  Some of the larger companies have put policies in place to keep COVID-19 out of their workplaces.  Interestingly enough, of those I know of, two of them are subsidiaries of American companies.

At this point in time, I'm having trouble putting my thoughts together on this topic.  So I'm going to cut it short here....

Is That What That's Called....

Last week a co-worker was asking around the office about a strange kanji.  Given his extensive knowledge of kanji, it's not too often that he's stumped by an unusual character.  One other co-worker didn't have a clue but a student who had just arrived for his class was able to explain right away.  The character in question wasn't a character.  It was a symbol.

The culprit in question was the blue symbol above the backhoe pictured on the side of the vending machine.  The name given to such a symbol is "yagou", 屋号.  Typically they are easy to distinguish from kanji but this one was close enough to resemble a kanji character.

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 Following the 1/700 B-Resina HMS Suffolk is a 1/700 representation of the Aiyo Maru.  I say "representation" in this case because the kit doesn't bear too much resemblance to a respectable rendering of a model ship.  A poor quality casting coupled with inaccurate details and a questionable design choice of casting the hull in three pieces results in a sight for sore eyes.  The manufacturer has been casting hulls in sections for over twelve years though their initial offerings from about twenty to twenty-five years ago had hulls cast as single pieces.  I suspect that option was chosen to avoid the problem of warped or hogged hulls.  But other manufacturers have managed to find a solution to the problem without resorting to this odd ball technique of splitting the hull into short sections.

A few years ago a reviewer on a model ship forum described a ship kit made by this manufacturer as a bar of soap.  Some wag quickly chirped that if the kit was a bar of soap then at least it would be useful....

 

At Least It's Finished

A quick rundown on the steps taken to complete my build of the 1/700 scale kit of HMS Suffolk.

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Having scalped off the ships' funnels, I went about making replacements.  The replacements were made from parts taken from an under scale kit of HMS Dorsetshire.  The seats for those funnels were molded directly onto the deck part of that kit.  So I went and made my own....

I attached the piping on the sides of the funnels and built a part on the forward most funnel which was to represent the ship's whistle platform.

Following that, I scrounged up replacement parts from kits of HMS Cornwall and HMS Kent with which to build the ship's main armament.  The barrels required a small bit of surgery to get them to fit properly in the turret housings.  Here the turrets are placed on board in a "dry fit" test.  After they were painted they were glued on.

The last steps were to assemble and paint the cranes; mount the anti-aircraft guns, assemble the secondary armament and attach it; and to paint and attach the ship's launches and cutters.

At which point I arrived at my finished product:

This wasn't a speedy build by any stretch but it was reasonably satisfying.  I scratch built a few replacement parts which turned out okay.  They're certainly not top notch quality but they're sufficient to get me to the point where I can say that the kit has some degree of semblance to the real thing.  Painting the camouflage was the fun part and the results aren't too shoddy.

Off to my next project....

At The End of The Day...

...I need to do something about the whole pile of model kits I've acquired from a couple of years of trolling online shops and auction sites.   In the last half of 2019 a lot of purchases had the characteristic of being "Oh, heck...why not?" type of acquisitions.  Sometimes the decisions left me wondering what in the world I was thinking of when I clicked on the "buy" or "bid" buttons.  One of them was the 1/700 scale model kit of HMS Suffolk which was produced by a company called B-Resina.

First of all, why did I bid on the kit?  Probably because it represents Suffolk which was a County class cruiser that sported a cut down quarterdeck.  This modification was done to only two members of the class of ships.  I have collected all four of the County class cruiser kits released by Aoshima over the past year and half or so, not to mention a re-scaled version of HMS Dorsetshire...oh, and a pre-war version of HMS Dorsetshire.  Okay, that's five kits in that stash.

The B-Resina kit of HMS Suffolk has been around for some time.  I'm not sure for how long.  A review of the kit written at the time of its release surmises that it's a scaled down version of Airfix's 1/600 scale model of the ship.  Interestingly enough, the B-Resina kit is pretty well a perfect copy of the bigger model, and it copies the idiosyncrasies of the big brother.  If you want to know what those are then I recommend digging up a review which I came across on Steelnavy.com....I think.

So, having purchased the kit, and looking at the stash of RN County class cruisers I had built up, I decided to start building it right away.  That doesn't mean it'll be built in a hurry but at least it'll end up spending some time on my work table as an in progress project.

First step in the project was to chop off the hunks of resin plastic which didn't belong.  That involved cutting out the solid mass under the lower bridge wings.  Then I decided I didn't like the look of the bridge tower.  So off came the deck at its base.  Next, I went out and bought some chisel style "Exacto" knife blades and removed the funnels.  They are too close together and leaning too far back according to kit review.  I tried to removed the gun crew and ammo shelters next.  That didn't happen as they are securely molded onto the deck.  My attempt to remove one resulted in a piece of the deck flying off.  I did manage to find it and reattach it.

Having cut off a lot of the ship, I then went about adding parts back on.  I didn't like the shape or location of the forward section of the bridge.  But it's solidly molded onto the ship and rebuilding it would take more effort than I wanted to put in given the nature of the project.  So I settled with adding a piece of plastic card on top of it.  The deck at the base of the bridge tower was shaped from plastic card and the original kit bulwark, albeit a bit shorter thanks to the razor saw cut made to remove it, was reattached.

The net result wasn't pretty but it was good enough...for the time being.  Having completed those steps, I prepped the kit for a coat of primer.  But first I marked off on the deck where the funnels were going to go.  Taking this step means I don't have to scrape primer off the ship when attaching the funnels.  The original kit didn't have what I suspect were two ventilator housings between the funnels.  I scrounged up parts for them from some other kits.  The locations of the housings and the funnels were taken from a 1/700 scale kit of HMS Kent.

 The height of the bulwark around the deck at the base of bridge tower started to annoy me.  So I went about cutting strips of thin plastic card, shaping them, and then attaching them.  The net result looked a lot rougher than desired even after puttying and sanding.  A second run at that process came up with the result shown below.  Not great but when I held the ship at arms length, not too noticeable.  I may take a third run at it yet.

Having done that, I attached the masts and then gave the kit a coat of primer:

At this point in time I've started painting the ship's camouflage.  In the past, when dealing with camouflage patterns that involve wavy or curvy shapes, I've resorted to hand painting.  With a pattern that has straight lined blocks then masking is employed.  For this project I went about making a do-it-yourself masking sheet.  I found a drawing of the ship online, scaled up the drawing to 1/700 scale, printed it on a sheet of paper, put the printed paper image into a clear folder, and applied masking tape over top.  The Tamiya brand masking tape is thin enough such that I could make out the pattern underneath.  After drawing the shape onto the tape and removing the unwanted parts with a knife, I had myself a primitive masking sheet for the hull of the ship.
 

Of course, the hilarious part of this is that there isn't much contrast between the first two colours applied to the model.  Hopefully it will be more noticeable when looked at under natural lighting instead of fluorescent lighting.
 

There's a First Time for Everything

In my previous post I described my efforts to replace the shoji paper on the slides in my Japanese style room.  Here are the final results:

The two slides on the left have ironed on shoji paper.  The two slides on the right have glued on shoji paper.  It may not be possible to see in the photo but the shoji paper on the left hand slides isn't quite flat.  I've tried to get them to go taut by misting them with water but that wasn't enough to do the trick.  Oh well...fix it up next year I suppose.

I showed the above photo to an acquaintance and she thought I had done very well.  "When I do it there are bumps all over the place" she said.  Okay.  But I still think I have a bit of room for improvement.  Though with the tools I have this may be as good as it gets....

Here's a work in progress shot of the centre right slide:

Time Goes By....

I obviously am not doing very well on my intention of posting a blog entry at least once a month.  It's the middle of Obon and the middle of August and this is my third post this year.

My initial title for this entry was "Time Flies..." but I decided against that.  I just finished giving a sparrow a burial.  It was lying dead at the end of hallway that runs past the doors of all the apartments on my floor.  It either succumbed to a fatal injury incurred from flying into a window, the passageway is lined with windows, or the heat wave we've been experiencing the past few weeks.  The property my apartment stands on doesn't have a square centimeter of open soil.  So I discreetly dug a hole in the patch of weeds behind the neighbouring newspaper distribution office, placed the bird corpse in the hole, and covered it up.

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Today I went about replacing the torn shoji paper of the sliding partitions of my Japanese style room.  I chose the type of shoji paper which you can secure by heating it with an iron.  After completing two sliding partitions I've realized that 1) the stuff doesn't necessarily stick very well on the wooden frames, and 2) it's not an easy task getting it to lie completely flat.  Getting it taut like the paper I'm replacing appears to be beyond my abilities.  Given that, I will head back to the hardware store to purchase some shoji paste.  I'll use it to secure the loose edges where the heat treatment was enough to get the paper to stick to the frame.  All in all, the paper I've laid down looks pretty bad but, on the plus side, it doesn't have any holes or torn panels...yet.

Start of a New Era...A Very Brief Update

Yeah, it's upside down.  It's just that when 

posted this way Menhera-chan is pointing 

in the correct direction to indicate the 

end of the Heisei era posts and the start 

of the Reiwa era posts in this blog.

So the Heisei era has ended and we're now in Reiwa.  At least one person I know asked out loud why Japan hasn't switched to counting the years using the Western method but I figured that the idea wouldn't fly to well in certain circles in this county. 

Aside from a few people saying "Ake ome", which is normally reserved for use at New Year's, there wasn't too much of a big fuss about the event in these parts.  The post office threw me for a loop when they started putting entries such as 01/05/03 in my bank passbook...okay, what year was that?  My next car inspection expiration decal will sport a big "03" instead of "33".  The list goes on....

Game Log #2 - Lost in Evoland...2!

Last December I obtained a new iPhone.  I said "obtained" because I'm going to be paying for it in installments for 4 years(!).  Similar to when I got my iPhone 6, I went hunting for a few new games to grace my new piece of hardware.

What I stumbled upon was a little gem called Evoland.  It's a short little game in which player works their way through a kind of history lesson of computer games.  The player starts off which graphics and music typical to the 8-bit gaming era and ends up in a 3D style game environment circa mid 2010s.  The game was amusing on account of its self-effacing commentary and variety of game play styles.

"You got a star".  Okay.  What's next? ;-)

As it turns out, that game spawned a successor... creatively named Evoland 2.  Unlike the games which I spent a fair bit of time playing on my previous iPhone, this one has turned out to be somewhat addictive...or perhaps not.  It's the part of me which says "How about trying this?" which has led me to spend a rather large amount of time focused on the game.  Proof of that is nonsense like this...

That 333 equals 333 bouts in a fighting tournament...yes, you can roll your eyeballs.

The purpose of that nonsense?  To get to level 50 of course... >.<

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A while ago I was using a news article related to the topic of Brexit in a lesson.  The focus of the article was an EU statement where Gibraltar was described as a British colony.  The UK government took offense to that and was quick to issue counter statement.  One of my students was a bit puzzled about the word "colony".  I was about to explain its meaning when another student offered up its Japanese equivalent.  The first student still looked a bit confused.  Then he had his "Eureka!" moment.  The problem wasn't with the meaning of the word.  It was the context.  He only knew the word from its context in the Gundam anime universe.  Ah, hah....  No, Gibraltar is not a space colony.

 -*-

I have a kids class where three girls have now entered junior high school.  The other member of the class is a boy in 5th grade.  When I asked the class if they had gone anywhere during spring break, one girl quickly replied "Okinawa!".  So my next question was "Where did you go?".  Her reply was "A hotel!".  Ah, yes.  Of course.  So I asked what other places she went to.  "Suizoku-kan" was the reply.  "What's that in English?", I asked.  She was stumped but that was okay since I was sure it hadn't popped up in their textbook yet.  The girl sitting next to me quietly said "Aquarium".  Okay.  Next question.  "What did you see?".  Answer..."Fish!".  Ah, the first year of junior high school.  They're not kids but they sure as heck aren't teenagers.

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Yes, this photo was taken in April.  Not as much snow the previous week, but it's still snow in April....

Ah... New Year's Eve

The past few months haven't been all fun and games.  A nagging sore throat turned into a cold in early November, healed a bit, and then came back for another round.  It was late December, almost Christmas, before I got over most of the effects of the cold.  Thanks to the steady colder weather we've had for the past two weeks, there are times where I've felt it coming back a bit.  Luckily I've managed to hold it off.

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This past year has been okay.  Nothing much happened in the early part of the year other than being woken up early often by the noise of the construction going on next door.  I went back to Canada in the early summer to pay a visit to relative whose health wasn't that good.  If I go back in late February it may be the last time we meet.  Summer this year wasn't typical.  Not as humid or hot as I had hoped for.  The fall was quite nice.  I had the pleasure of showing the local sites to a friend who came to visit in late October.  And in the past week, winter has struck with a bit of vengeance.  One snowfall in mid-December (which was washed out by rain just prior to Christmas) and a couple of days of snow since last Thursday.

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On Wednesday last week, which was Boxing Day, I travelled up to Tendo to do some substitute teaching.  One of the teachers at our school there had taken time off and gone on a holiday to Osaka.  The day started off with an element of panic though as we got a phone call from our school in Yamagata asking if I could teach there too.  A teacher there had come down with a heavy cold.  I looked at the clock and said there wouldn't be time for me to get there on a local train.  Would they pay for me to get there on the Yamagata Shinkansen?  Yes.  So I started off to get my car keys.  A few steps from my apartment door, I got a phone call.  At first I didn't realize it was my phone.  I had gotten a new phone the previous week and that was the first incoming call I had received.  Turned out they had fished up a Japanese teacher who could fill in.  That was a good thing because if I had taught at Yamagata then they would've been on the hook to get me to Tendo...there were no trains which could get me there on time for my first class.

The classes in Tendo went quite well.  I did laugh when a kid purposely switched some words in a verse he was reading.  The look in his eyes gave away his ploy.  He was trying to annoy me; the other teacher at the school scolds him when he does that - she has him on a merit system where he has to earn the James dollar he expects for finishing his lesson.  When I pointed out that I saw what he had done, told him that it was good, and praised him; it was he who was left feeling annoyed.  He wasn't expecting that. 

The foot in mouth problem of the day came during the last class; two girls and a boy.  There was one girl who is years younger than the other two students.  She's a bit of an over-actor but not disruptive. 

That day's lesson included a song which contains the lyric "It's my birthday today".  For the first time ever I had a kid tell me that it actually was their birthday that very day we were singing that song.  In this case it was the older girl.  I checked, "Your birthday is today?".  She answered, "Yes".  Whoa!  I wasn't expecting that.  So I had the kids go through the song with some changes; the name of the child and the count of her age.

The next to last item in the lesson was a test.  The younger girl reminded me of a girl who I teach in Yonezawa...perhaps a bit too much.  When I handed out the tests I instructed the kids to write their names on the test sheets.  The younger girl asked me how to spell her name...which wasn't what I had been calling her for the past half hour.  Oops!  Birthday girl got a laugh out of that at my expense.

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Nothing more to add here...so if you happen to read this post, have a happy New Year and all the best in 2019!

November's Kids...and Rice, too

Last Friday I went to teach a lesson at a preschool/nursery school.  I usually go there twice a month though it's not always the same Fridays.  This is on account of holidays that fall on Fridays.  I've been teaching there on a regular basis since April of this year.  Up until that time I hadn't been assigned a regular teaching gig at a preschool since I had been tied up teaching at a company two days a week (and sometimes three days).

Teaching a class of 20 "nen-cho" (oldest group) children isn't a super difficult task at this particular preschool.  The kids are well behaved and they genuinely enjoy their English lessons.  One just has to make sure that you have plenty of material to work with and to keep the pace of the lesson moving at a pretty good clip.  Accidents will happen though and I did forget to take along the CD of songs which I use in the lesson.  That time I managed to pull off the lesson by singing the tunes accompanied only by the kids.

There was one class in late August where I was completely caught off guard.  That was the time there was a local cable TV crew there to video my lesson.  No one had given me any notice of their being there so I just did my best to ignore the cameras and teach a standard lesson.  A few weeks later folks started mentioning they had seen me on TV.  The most peculiar incident being the one when one elementary school girl who is a student at our school decided to ask if that was indeed me she saw on TV.  How she went about it...well...I was seated in our teachers' area and she came walking up to me with a somewhat serious look on her face.  I didn't pay any attention to her until she whacked me on the shoulder and said "...Hoiku-en...NCV".  "Yes..." was my reply, which apparently was all that was necessary as she turned on her heel and walked off to her classroom.  I see....

Going back to last Friday.  I taught the lesson and after the usual "Goodbyes" headed to the exit to put away the slippers I had been wearing and slip into my street shoes.  Just as I finished putting my shoes on, the teacher was there, with all the kids in tow, to present me with a "daikon" (giant radish).  I thanked her and the kids quite profusely and did a round of high-fives with all the kids.

I wasn't sure why I had received that daikon but once I had it unwrapped at home I kind of had it sussed out.  It definitely looked like it was fresh picked.  So I assume it was grown at the preschool.  It was really quite charming.

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Late last Saturday night I got a phone call from a friend..."What are you doing?".  I went out to meet her at a bar and near the end of our "nomi hodai" (all you can drink) round we got onto the topic of the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody".  She had seen it a few days before and I had seen it the previous week.  Both of us had enjoyed the movie quite a bit.  Needless to say, when we shifted operations over to a karaoke box, we proceeded to select and sing a stream of Queen tunes.  I think we managed eight or nine in total.

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Last night I went over to Oirase, the scene of the Halloween event I had taken a Canadian friend who had taken the time to make the trek up to Yonezawa.  While the place had been fully decked out with Halloween decorations back then, it was back to its normal appearances now.  Except for group of small packages of rice sitting on the piano.  As I was getting ready to leave I asked Mayumi, Oirase's proprietress, about the rice.  "They're for sale.  Why don't you buy one as a gift?", she said.  There were two varieties of rice there.  One was Tsuyahime.  It's a well known brand which has made its way to Canada according to my sister, although with a considerable mark up in price.  The other one I had never seen before..."Mi ru ki- Ku i- n"..."Milky Queen".  Okay, I'd never set eyes on that variety before.  Mami, Mayumi's friend and part-timer at Oirase, then went on about how it was really tasty and "mochi mochi" (or something to that effect).  I was sold...made the purchase and then headed home.  As I did so I thought to myself, "Where else in the world would one go to bar for drinks and end up walking home with rice purchased at the same bar?".....

Behold! (Quite Possibly) The Only Jar of Vegemite in Town

Yes, that is a jar of Vegemite.  Pay no attention to the TimTams!

About ten days ago I received a package from Australia.  A friend from "down under" had most generously sent me some Aussie goodies featuring a jar of Vegemite.  Yes, that's right.  Vegemite.  I'd hazard to say that for most North Americans the stuff is looked upon aghast or with scorn.  I have a friend in Canada who was originally born in Australia, though you wouldn't be able to suss that out today given his flat North American English accent, and his comment about Vegemite was, "I can't believe I once liked that stuff!".  Or something to that effect....

I remember the circumstances when I first tasted Vegemite during my visit to Australia back in 2011.  I was cautioned against putting a thick layer of it on a cracker and so went with a much thinner application.  My initial reaction was interesting.  I immediately noticed how salty and bitter its taste was.  Having had a taste, that was the last of it I had until after the arrival of the above package.

The day after the package arrived, I made toast, cut it into six pieces, and packed it in a plastic container.  I took the toast and the jar of Vegemite to work.  Heck, if I was going to crack open that jar then I wanted company...or at least witnesses.

The reactions to the sight of the jar were along the lines of the expected "What IS that?" kind of looks and questions.  One student had been in England on a home stay so she was familiar with Marmite.  She was kind of excited to see the jar of Vegemite.  The others were decidedly more reserved and cautious.

The tasting session was interesting.  The first two tasters included the "veteran".  She was reasonably happy with the taste.  The other was somewhat bemused and quickly remarked about the salty taste.  The next student tried to jam out by tearing a piece of toast and asking for just a dab on a half.  I didn't let him get away with that.  He got a full piece.  The last student...whoa!  I really wish I had caught her reaction in a photograph.  Her mouth puckered up and she squinted really hard.  The taste was obviously something far out of her realm of appealing food tastes.

Since that day I've been working my way through the jar at a not quite slow but certainly not fast pace.  The "OMG" reaction to the taste of Vegemite is gone.  Yes, it is salty and a touch bitter, too.  But what lingers is a taste I couldn't quite put my finger on.  Then I checked the Wikipedia entry for Vegemite.  Aw!  There it was.  Umami.  That's the taste which makes me go back for more Vegemite....

Tidbits

Just came back from the nearby coin laundromat.  While I was there I took notice of the music being played over the PA.  It was a kind of catchy R&B fused dance/lounge tune, the type which one would catch by chance whilst dining or shopping in Tokyo.  I thought to myself "This kind of music is so far from Yonezawa".  Then it struck, "Yes, of course...if the coin laundromat is about the only place in town where one would hear something like that".  Given that this particular coin laundromat just opened a month and half ago, it's decor, equipment, furnishings, and style is very much up to date.  This is in comparison to the place I used to go to which someone I know labelled as "Showa", meaning it's at least thirty years behind the times in looks.

-*-

Over the last seven years I have on a number of times caught myself thinking "I'm washing my garbage".  Well, not exactly garbage.  Recyclable plastic items.  But it's something which never crossed my mind back in Canada.

Oh, yes.  I remember reading about an issue with recycling on the CBC website last year.  The article was looking at the problem with plastic labels left on recyclable PET bottles.  It was being made out as an issue since people don't remove the labels before tossing the bottles into a recycling bin.  If I recall correctly there was a fuss being made about manufacturers not coming up with a solution.  I find that a bit odd.  Over here, plastic labels can be quickly removed from PET bottles.  There's usually a tab of some sort which can be pulled on to peel off the label.  For the type which are snug on the bottle, such as those for Coca Cola or Pepsi, there is perforated tear-off strip.  Tear off the strip and the label falls off easily.  There.  Done.

-*-

The manager at a cafe I frequent, mentioned that she had seen pickled crickets/grass hoppers on sale at a local shop.  She wondered out loud who would purchase any.  "Probably some grannies", she said.  Then the conversation with her daughter, who also works at the cafe, went off on a tangent to their experiences with eating "inago"(sic).  Her daughter mentioned that her son was introduced to them by her grandma.  At first her son wouldn't go for them but later on seemed to like them.  The cafe manager recalled when she was a kid and her mom told that "chawan mushi" contained "mushi", insects.  She refused to eat it for some time.  "Yes, grannie is like that", she said....

-*-

I still had more than half a bag of agetofu left from my "akebi" cooking experiment of the previous week.  So I decided to make a quick stir fry dish.  When I was at the supermarket I decided to purchase sliced bamboo shoots as a substitute for water chestnuts.  The verdict on that experiment: No.  It doesn't work.  Oh well.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

あけび...Akebi

On Thursday night a student mentioned at the start of class that she had brought some "akebi".  I didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about but one other student's face lit up to show that he knew.  After class, we all stepped out to check out a woven basket lid filled with akebi.  It was then that I recalled seeing them back in 2012 or so.

"Akebi" is a somewhat odd looking fruit.  The exterior of the ones my student had brought were covered with a brown skin that gave the fruit a resemblance to potatoes.  All of these particular examples had split open to reveal their payload of white fruit flesh and a whole lot of black seeds.   To the uninitiated, the contents are a bit challenging looking.  I didn't tackle one because of that.  The fuzzy white coat of the fruit "sack" is what made me pause and decide not to sample any.

As it turned out, there were seven unclaimed akebi on Saturday evening when we were closing up shop.  Our office manager didn't want to lay claim to the fruit and neither did my teaching co-worker.  So I ended up being the one who took the remaining akebi home.

While some people mentioned that they didn't quite like the bitter taste of akebi, the ones I had had no such taste at all.  If anything they were very mildly sweet.  The taste vaguely reminded me of lycees...but not quite as distinct.

Having consumed all the fruit, tonight I will go about cooking the fruit rind following the method described by our office manager.  I remember hearing in the past that people will stuff the rinds with meat and miso.  I'm not sure if they're baked, steamed, or broiled.

-*-

I did check online to see if I could find some information about akebi.  I came upon a page on a site called kyotofoodie.com (http://kyotofoodie.com/japanese-fruit-akebi/) which suggested eating the fruit whole with the seeds.  The bitter taste comes from biting on the seeds.  Also, the ones mentioned on that site had purple skin.  Because their examples were cultivated, the pods don't split open naturally.

Okay... So September Has Come and Gone

Random thoughts and recollections:

-*-

I went to the McDonald's up in Kanaike to grab a quick bite to eat between lessons.  I took a seat "galley seating" area and looked over towards the windows.  What caught my eye immediately was a "chonmage", a topknot, being sported by a young fellow.  There were three youths sitting at that table; two looked like high school students and the last one, the one sporting the chonmage, was wearing a heavy yukata/light kimono.  He obviously was a sumo wrestler.  Given his looks, his somewhat slim build for a sumo wrestler, and his company I figured he probably would've been in one of the lower divisions, perhaps Sandanme or Jonidan.

When I got back to work and mentioned who I had seen to my co-worker, he immediately said "Wow! I would've chatted him up right away".  I pointed out that the young wrestler was with friends and I wasn't about to intrude on the group.  My co-worker agreed with "Yeah, I see what you mean"....

-*-

One of my kids classes consists of four sixth graders and one fifth grader.  They've just completed a text and to my surprise they were able to pass the final test on their first attempt.  Thus I'm going to spend a working on their English phonics skills and review the text before moving them along to the next level textbook.  In order to add a little variety to the class I decided it would be a good time to teach them a song to sing in English.  My choice was The Beatles "Yellow Submarine".  I distinctly remember learning Beatles tunes when I was back in fourth grade so I figured "Why not?".

After a first reading of the lyrics I went back to see how much the kids understood.  I picked a few phrases which I figured the kids probably wouldn't be able to suss out and gave them rough translations.  One student is quite bright and he made inquiries as to the meanings of some other words and phrases.  I sang the tune to them once, where the kids snickered a bit, and then had them go at it.  First they read it with some semblance of the song's melody.  Then I pulled out a CD and played the track for them.  Finally I had them sing along with the CD.

At the end of all that the fifth grader looked at me and asked "What's the purpose of this?".  "It's just for fun", was my reply.   I told one of my co-workers about that exchange and he laughed and said "That's just like him!".

-*-

Mid-August Report

A new Starbucks coffee shop opened up in Yonezawa recently.  Don't remember exactly when.  Perhaps it was the end of July or the first Monday of August.  I first set foot in the shop on August 6th after navigating the seemingly oddball parking lot.

The essence of the store's parking lot design derives from the store's main focus; it essentially is a drive through coffee shop with a seating area attached to it.  Yes, there is room inside for a fair number of patrons, perhaps 30 altogether.  But the location of the drive through order pick-up window is in a location designed to maximize the length of the drive through lane without completely marring the aesthetics of the store's road facing facade.

When I approached the store in my car on my first visit I first passed the drive through entrance and started to make a left turn into what I suddenly noticed was an exit out of the parking lot.  A security guard/traffic guide waved his baton at me as I realized my mistake and I quickly pulled back onto the main road and then made a left at the next immediate corner.  I drove to what I thought was the rear entrance for vehicles...and found out it was another exit.  So I carried on a bit further and found there was no other entrance into the store's parking lot.  I made another left turn, drove up a small side road, made a left back onto the main road; and then entered the parking lot via the lane intended for customers who wish to park their cars and walk into the store.

So the gist of the parking lot is this: if there is a long lineup of cars for the drive through window, and that line up backs onto the main road, the line up will block the entrance then to the lane that leads to the parking spots because its location is to the left of the drive through entrance lane.  Brilliant, as my Brit friends would say.

Nonetheless, in spite of my parking lot adventure, I was able to enjoy a coffee and a slice of matcha pound cake...

- * -

I know back home people have a few words when stores put up displays for holidays way too soon for their liking.  Christmas displays popping up the day after Halloween fit that bill.  One doesn't notice the too early displays for Japanese holidays because, well, that's just the way things are.  Typically the displays are a few signs saying something to the effect of "Now is the time to put in your order for (your special holiday or seasonal food goes here)".  The displays for the imported holidays, Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Christmas are much more prominent.  After all, those days are about propping up the economy and getting people to buy more stuff aren't they?  Of course I wrote that tongue planted firmly in cheek...though it probably is quite close to the truth of the matter here in Japan.

Having said that, I made sure I got a photo of what greeted me as I went shopping for an album to store my growing collection of telephone cards.  Yes, it's Obon and there's a Halloween goods display in a local department store...

'Nuff said....

-*-

Last bit...an oddball 3D image from a computer game I've been wasting some time on....

...Don't ask....

Short Items

Earlier this month I made my way back to Vancouver to visit an ailing relative.  Not exactly the best of circumstances but it was the best thing to do.

While I was back in Vancouver I had a bit of time to spare to touch base with friends.  One of them is a former co-worker who shares an interest with me in anime and military topics related to the model kits each of us enjoys building.  I met up with him at a Denny's restaurant in Vancouver.  The primary reason for the selection is that it's a convenient location for the two of us.  The secondary reason was so that I take photos of what I ordered.  The photos would be used to tease and torture an expat American co-worker.

At our little get together, my friend very graciously gave me two volumes of a work documenting WWII German naval camouflage.  The books are extremely well researched and a joy to look at.

As luck would have it, upon my return to Japan, I happened upon two relatively rare 1/700 scale kits of German WWII era torpedo boats.  The boats in question are listed in the books my friend gave me.  The kits were featured on a Japanese online auction site.  Needless to say I placed bids on of them.

I was going to attend a concert the night the auctions closed off so I set my smartphone up so that I was logged on to the auction site.  Then I slipped my phone into my pocket and went off to enjoy Yamada Koshi in concert.

After the concert ended I checked my smartphone and the auction website.  I had a notifier advising me I had been outbid.  I checked the auction, saw there was a minute left, and quickly placed a counter bid.  A second later, a little red message indicator went on.  I had placed the winning bid.  I had somewhat precipitously placed my winning bid with a literal second to spare.  I was certainly pleased about my good fortune but I'm quite sure there is someone else out there who doesn't share my opinion.

-*-

The cab driver who took me home after I had returned to town mistakenly took the wrong route.  I'm not sure why but I guess he was on some sort of auto-pilot mode.  Aside from that slip up, he mentioned that even though it is "tsuyu", the rainy season, we hadn't had much rain.  It would be another two weeks before we would get any rain.

As such, when it rained it poured.  Over a period of four days we experienced three sudden late afternoon thundershowers.  The last one was quite spectacular as it dumped 110mm of rain in Fukushima prefecture as it made its way through the mid Tohoku region.

My experience with that thunderstorm was a bit more quaint:  I had done a load of laundry, hung out it out to dry, washed my car, and then headed off to go shopping.  As I returned to my car after finishing shopping, the first raindrops came down.  That rainfall soon turned into a torrential downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning.  I then recalled that my laundry was hanging outside...soaking up water.  I guess I had tempted fate by doing both my wash and washing my car.....

Spring? What Spring? & Game Log #1

A friend was in Tokyo yesterday.  She's over to Japan for a short visit from Vancouver.  Of course, she sent a photo of cherry blossoms along with her query on when I'd be free for lunch on the weekend.  This is after I had received a photo from my sister of cherry trees in full bloom in Washington state.  I mentioned those cherry blossoms and then added I had seen a few snowflakes drifting down today.  It's early evening now and they're still drifting down but there's a bit of rain too.  As for dinner this evening, it's a meal that would do Yozan-san proud; a modest piece of fish with some string beans.  I ordered an "oo-mori" (extra size) dish of cream mentaiko pasta for lunch so I think I got my day's requirement of carbs there.

-*-

As I now have a desktop computer, I've revisited a few games which ran on my Macbook Pro but tended to send the fans into overdrive.  They don't cause the same issues on the iMac, which has less memory and a slightly older (and slower) CPU than the portable machine, but one has the peculiar habit of crashing.

The one which doesn't crash is the slightly old title, Civilization V.  I don't so much play the game as much as I just fiddle around with it in multiplayer hot seat mode.  It's a fun little time waster but only recently did I notice an odd feature; the Great Wall of China is not a stationary.  The following screen shots demonstrate its every changing shape.

Here it is in one game while in its construction phase;

Here it is a number of turns after its completion.  Note that it has expanded to grab more territory;

And here it is a few hundred years later in game time;

I'm not sure if this is the way it's supposed to work or if it's a strange form of commentary on the real world...

Winter is more or less over...

The continuation being "...depending on where in the northern hemisphere you are".  My sister sent me a photo a few days ago of cherry trees in full bloom in Washington state.  Where I am, that's something we'll see somewhere around the end of April.

This past winter was short and brutish.  We hardly had any snow during the Christmas holidays.  Actually, there was next to none.  Temperatures were cold but not much precipitation.  Then came mid-January.  By the time of the Snow Lantern Festival in early February there was enough to ensure that snow didn't have to be trucked down from the mountains.  Needless to say, I spent many winter nights cuddled up next to my kotatsu.

So what's with the title of this little blog post?  Well it has to do with the following photograph.  I had just paid my March installment on my city taxes and thought I'd take the little path through the back of Nishijo Tenmangu Park...until I was confronted with the fact the path was mostly buried under a meter or so of snow.  To add insult to injury, the snow had melted off the part of the path which goes over a bridge.  I had seen the clear bridge first and had thought to myself, "I'll just take this shortcut", when I noticed there was no easy way of getting to the bridge.  Such is life....

A Short Visit to Akihabara

Note: I had originally posted this elsewhere but I suspect that site deletes blog posts after they're a year old.  Thus I've reposted it here...

I usually don't go to Akihabara when I'm in Tokyo.  Shinjuku, Shibuya, Odaiba, a whole pile of other places...and wherever I end up drinking with friends take precedence over Akihabara.  I think the last time I was there was back in 2005.

For starters...one doesn't go to Akihabara for food.  I paid ¥800 for a less than happy meal of katsu-curry.  The curry was basically reheated stuff scooped out of what looked to be 5kg plastic bags.  The rice was passable but the tonkatsu was pretty thin by my standards.  For the same price I got a much more interesting meal (duck on rice with salad, soup, and mango juice) in Ikebukuro at a Thai restaurant named Pirabukao which is housed in a hut.

The other thing is that I kind of took the long way around to getting there.  I took a JR train from Shin Nihonbashi station to Tokyo station and then the Yamanote line to Akihabara.  I could've walked to Tokyo station.

As for Akihabara itself...it's there.  Big deal, eh?  I cruised through a number of stores just to see if anything caught my eye.  I really had only two things on my mind: one, visit the two Volks shops, and two, find a drugstore.  Yes, finding a drugstore in Akiba can be a bit of challenge.  The Volks hobby shop was what it was but their doll showroom was a touch more interesting than their showroom in Sendai.

Given that I had no real plan of attack, I managed to get myself comfortably disorientated but not lost.  I passed through the areas with plenty of little electronics shops, the obligatory pachinko and slot shops; the maid cafes, the Gundam Cafe which is next to the AKB48 Cafe, and the big name chain stores.

My haul...hardly anything.  Figures...zero.  Goods...three folders.  Memories...well, at least I now know which part of Akihabara is a bit of a menagerie.  It's the block where one will find the hedgehog, cat, and owl cafes!  (^o^)