Raining Season 梅雨

Raining Season 梅雨 (5th July 2012)

raining season is here in Japan

It has been a depressing week due to the non stop drizzle. The weather just changed and changed. It would rain suddenly and then stop suddenly! 2 days ago, Oita prefecture 大分県 had the highest rainfall count in decades until the Yamakuni River 山国河 overflowed at the up stream and washed away buildings with a man inside. The authorities even issued evacuation order for the residents nearby the river, stopped the trains service and closed the highway. On that day, my colleagues told me that better don't passed by the river when going back home. They suggested that I took another route to go home. However, after office hour, the Yamakuni River's water subsided at the downstream. So, I followed my usual route. My colleague's father called him from Malaysia and asked him not to go anywhere (趴趴走) because of the flooding. Well, actually Nakatsu's rain was quite tame and the flood only happened at southern Oita. 

Golden Week - Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route 立山黒部アルぺんルート

30th April 2012

After a night of sleep, we woke up before 5am so that we could take the 5.42am train from Toyama to Tateyama. We used forwarding service for our bags at the Toyama station, and picked it up after finishing the tour in Shinanomachi 信濃町. We booked our ticket early online. So, once reached the station, we didn't have to queue up to buy the cable car tickets, we just claimed our tickets at a designated counter and proceeded to queue for the cable car. The slope from Tateyama 立山 to Bijodaira 美女平 was very steep and up to 29 degrees, so it was kind of scary!

reaching Toyama Dentetsu 富山電鉄 before 5.30 am to take the train 

Mango tree

Mango Tree (18th June 2012)

When we moved into our house, my father bought a small mango tree sapling and planted it in front of the car porch. The tree was kind of funny and stubborn maybe.  We didn't get to eat mangoes from that tree until a few years later. After that, depends on the tree’s mood, sometimes it bears fruits, sometimes it don’t. My parents once planned to chop down the tree, but I was against the idea. So, it stayed there. Later, a fungus infection caused most of the leaves to drop, so my father had to trim most of the branches and it became a ‘botak’ tree. The mango tree has a very strong will to live, not long after that, new leaves grew out of the bare branches. That year, we had a bountiful harvest of mangoes. However, due to the heaty effect of the mango, my mom discouraged us to eat. So, I packed many mangoes and gave it to my bosses and colleagues. I was so proud when they said that the mango was very sweet!

(After I came to Japan and tasted the famous Miyazaki mango, I found out that it tasted almost the same with my house’s mango! The only down point for our mango was it was too fibrous.)

Since secondary school, I was so taken with the biodegradable compost thing. So, I would diligently collect the unfinished food, fish bones, peeled skin of fruits, etc to bury under the ground because I believe that those things will degrade eventually. From this, I knew that for the vegetables and fruits, after it degraded, it would give a very fragrant smell. Well, for the meat, the smell was so awful. However, at least it became fertilizer rather than ended up in rubbish dump and emitted methane gas for nothing.

Although the mango tree hasn't bear fruits for a few years, we still keep the tree because it can become a shape before the sunlight enter the living room and keep it cooler.

Tokyo 4 days trip - Day 4 (The Vibrant Tokyo)

6th November 2011

First, we planned to go to Tachikawa, a garden. However, since we had seen the red leaves the day before, we decided to tour the city side instead. We took train to Akihabara station 秋葉原駅 and went to a sex toy shop. If I were alone, I would have never enter that shop. However, we reached too early and the shop haven't open yet. We were so "paiseh" to wait outside that shop and went to a cafe opposite that shop to wait. Business must be good for that shop, it had 5 floors. My friend bought a sexy lingerie for a soon to be married colleague as wedding present. There were many weird stuffs, some even with video demonstrations, and we were the only female customers inside that shop! However, my male friends only walked one round and left, they said they were not comfortable to be in that shop with us. Hahahah! We left soon after too.

We went to Gundam Cafe after that. Although tempted to buy the models, but didn't due to money issue, it was not cheap.

Gundam Cafe

Tokyo 4 days trip - Day 3 (Red leaves in Kawaguchiko 河口湖の紅葉)

5th November 2011 - One Day in Kawaguchiko

We woke up really early to catch the earliest train to Shinjuku 新宿 from Musashi Kosugi 武蔵小杉. This was due to the very early 6am bus ticket to Kawaguchiko that we bought. Everybody was like a dead fish. We slept on the train couch. After we found the bus stop and board the Kawaguchiko bound bus, we again slept on the bus. It was so nice to sleep!

We reached there quite early  morning and greeted by beautiful red leaves! We boarded the shuttle bus to go around the Kawaguchiko. When we passed the lake, we were awed by the view of the lake with Mt. Fuji 富士山. So, before we reached the destination, we decided to get down the bus and walked there while surrounded by the beautiful view. There was a Red Leaves Festival 紅葉祭り. There were stalls selling food stuffs. One stall owner offered us his home-made alcohol after learning that we came from Malaysia, I drank a little bit and it tasted like fermented yeast, I couldn't take it but my friends later bought cups of the alcohol from that stall owner.

Kawaguchiko 河口湖