happylife

A Vulgar Menu Item?

Ramen is one of the most popular menu items in Japan. It is a noodle in soup which originated from China, but it has been improved a lot to fit Japanese taste. One thing I feel wasted about ramen is that it has too much soup compared with noodles and most people leave the soup half eaten while they eat up the noodle. In my case, a bowl of ramen is not enough, but I can't eat it up including the whole soup. It's too thick and I need something to eat with the left soup. Some ramen restaurants provide a cup of steamed rice so that we can eat it with the left soup. I feel happy when it is provided for free, which sometimes happen in lunch time. In this restaurant I found in Sapporo was a little bit different and it made me happier. As you guess, eating the rice putting into the soup tastes better than eating them separately, however, it is regarded as a very bad manner in Japan. Some one calls it "cat food". Lots of people including me hesitate to do it, but in this restaurant, the "cat food" was on the menu item list -- the vulgar but delicious eating manner was authorized in the restaurant! So I was able to enjoy the special risotto after the noodle without worrying about other people's eyes. 

MandalArt

MandalArt is a kind of thinking method similar to Mind Mapping. In Mind Mapping, we create an idea tree which is made of keywords surrounded by circles and connected with lines. It is an effective way to think about complicated things. While the idea tree of Mind Mapping is drawn on a white canvas, MandalArt has a fixed form in which keywords are written. It is made of nine square cells which is just the same as tic-tac-toe game board. All we have to do is write down our main subject in the center cell and fill the eight surrounding cells with keywords derived from the main subject. In the next step, we copy each keyword of the eight cells in the center cell of the next MandalArt form page. By repeating this process until all the keywords are derived from our brain, we can make up a structured idea. It is such an easy way that you might be doubt of its effectiveness, however, it is the most powerful method as far as I know. It was more than ten years ago when I came across this method and six months later, I quitted my first job for a large company to start my own independent business. Anyway, MandalArt method has been implemented into the iPhone recently and we can now use this powerful method more conveniently. It is really comfortable to edit, move, copy and paste cells to arrange our idea tree until we are fully satisfied.

To Take a Picture with a Doll

When we travel we usually have a camera and often take pictures. The more popular digital cameras have become, the more pictures we take because we don't take care of their film cost any more. We are happy enough to take any pictures we like, however, our pictures are mostly dull. They are almost same -- when we visit a tourist spot, we take pictures of the specialty over there from the same camera spot with the same angle. Most of such pictures are not better than the advertising picture which was taken by a professional cameraman. We sometimes take pictures of our family or friends at the tourist spot, but they are dull, too. Who can enjoy the pictures of ordinary people with the same say-cheese smile and V-shaped fingers? When I was traveling around the Sulfur Mountain the other day, I found this woman taking a picture of something odd. It was a stuffed cat. She may write a travel photo blog with the doll. I think it's a good idea because the picture will become more unique and get to have a story in itself. It's also good from the point of photo framing because the cat will make the photo more three-dimensional. It's a good idea, but I won't do the same thing because I don't like myself looked like Mr.Bean.

From South To North

This picture depicts my GPS tracking in the last couple of weeks. After watching the total eclipse of the sun on the Tokara Islands -- actually and unfortunately all I could see was the sun not hidden by the moon but covered with thick clouds -- I traveled up through the islands of Japan from Tokara via Tokyo to Kushiro. The temperature has come down more than ten degrees and it is way more comfortable here for me. I'm in really cool and calm conditions both in weather and mental. I can't believe that the hot and hard cruising days seeking for the special astronomical show were less than two weeks ago. I remember that someone once mentioned about a law in which the further we travel, the longer time elapsed we feel even if the actual time is not so long. I'm thinking about staying here for months and not moving around so much. If the law is true, the long days might feel shorter.

What Helps My Reading

I don't read so many books recently because I'm rather busy to read quite a few documents mainly on the Internet. I'm happy when I read those documents on the Internet because I can open as many pages as I like and switch between them just by clicking the tub on the browser software. It's so convenient that I don't like to open paper books or manuals any more. When I have to read some paper books at one time it is very irritating because some of them automatically close and I have to find my page again and again. Sure, bookmarks keep my page, but I have to re-open the page because most bookmarks can't hold the page open. This is the way which is very useful in such case. All I have to do is clip my favorite page with this huge paper clip. It is heavy enough to hold my page open and I don't have to feel frustration any more. If you need to read thick books such as computer manuals or dictionaries at one time, this cheap clip will work much better than you expect.

 

Real Scale Gundam

This picture is not composite. Japan has deployed the Gundam in the harbor area in Tokyo finally. Japan's technology has made the gigantic robot weapon in the animation world real. It is 18 meters tall and weighs 35 tons. It is as slender as a man who is 180 centimeters tall with only 35 kilograms. The only problem is that it can't fly, walk or even raise hands because of the lack of cold atomic fusion energy and a new-type pilot. However, its eyes glitter and it can emit smoke from several parts. That is enough for now because we have no threat of space wars now. I hear that it can be dismantled into small parts so that it can be carried to anywhere in the world. You may see this Gundam in your hometown in the future. 

 

Innovation of Eraser

Because of the progress of digital technology including a personal computer and a PDA, my chance of using a pencil and paper has decreased dramatically. However, these primitive tools, which I have been accustomed to since my school days, still have a great advantage to those digital tools. When I think about abstract ideas, a pencil in my hand is way more helpful than any modern computer. One reason is that I can get relax with a pencil while I feel more or less nervous in front of computers. Another reason is that digital tools are far from perfect and they can't be transparent while analog tools are so simple that I don't have to be conscious about them. That's why I sometimes enjoy shopping in a stationary shop browsing interesting analog tools. Today's game was this innovative eraser. It doesn't look like an eraser, but it can erase pencil lines very perfectly. It is composed of a sticky roller and a plastic cover. Can you guess how it works? All you have to do is roll the roller on pencil drawings which you want to erase. The sticky roller catches the lead of a pencil without creating dust and damaging the paper at all. If the sticky roller becomes dirty, you can roll it on a piece of duct tape to remove the lead and you can use it again and again. It costs less than $2! Isn't it cool?

The Backache is Back

I don't remember how many times I have suffered this kind of pain in these five years. The pain has come back again to disturb my peaceful life. It never goes away whether I lie down, sit, stand or whatever position I take. It's literally a continuous pain. The Chinese character which implies "back" is composed of two parts; one has the meaning of "body" and the other has the meaning of "important." Yes, the back where I have the terrible pain right now is really an important part of our body. It was only one month ago when the last pain came. The frequency of its visit is clearly increasing. It's so often that I now know what I should do in this case -- to take a rest, to change the posture as often as possible and not to eat too much. I also know the benefit of this pain -- it's really effective for dieting. I'm going to take this pain as the warning from my body that my weight is too much.

Demolition Work

My happy morning sleep has been disturbed for these five days because of the demolition work of my neighbor house. As my room is adjacent to the demolition site, I can see their whole work from the best seat. Sure the dust, noise and vibration are terrible, I can fully enjoy the demolition show instead. The first part of the show was boring because the whole house was covered with construction sheets and five workers were mainly working inside the house. However, it has changed since yesterday after a new hero came on stage. The hero has a pair of caterpillar tread and a huge, iron claw which can break off a thick wooden column in a moment. I don't know its actual name even in Japanese. It is not a bulldozer but very close to it. For most people, building a house is one of their biggest events in their life. A lot of people sink most of their money into it setting up a loan, but it is so fragile that just a one hit of the claw breaks it off. After enjoying the climax of the show, I couldn't help feel the vanity of life.

A Kitchen Timer

It is sometimes a good idea to limit our time. As we are a lazy animal, we don't move until the deadline comes close. Projects without deadline will not be accomplished forever. A kitchen timer is a useful gadget for limitation of short range time span -- I usually set 15 minutes for writing this blog article. I had been using the built-in timer of the iPhone until I got this carrot-shaped kitchen timer. The advantage of this single purpose timer to the iPhone's built-in timer is its easy operation and loud alarm sound. As you can see on the picture, we can set the time of 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 1 minute and 10 seconds by one touch operation. We can set 15 minutes by tapping 10 minutes and 5 minutes button. As we rarely need to set the time for example 18 minutes and 15 seconds, this user interface usually works better than the iPhone. When I feel sleepy, I set this timer 30 minutes and go to bed. Before enjoying net surf or playing video game, I set it 20 minutes. If you feel you are wasting time, this gadget will save your precious time.