happylife

Autumn clouds

This morning is pleasant after three-day rain. The sky is blue, not clear but with quite a few spotted clouds. These are autumn clouds. I love this crisp air as much as crispy corn flakes for my breakfast. I don't like the long, dark autumn and winter days in Vancouver, but I like this kind of fine days in this season. I might love them more than the glaring sunshine in summer. I'm happy because my work was almost finished. I'm now going out to Stanley Park to enjoy my last one week this year in Vancouver.

Cops in Vancouver

Last night I went to a Japanese restaurant on Broadway and watched several cops having dinner and beer in their uniforms. I don't know this is legal or not, but in the downtown of Vancouver, we often see cops taking a rest inside or outside of cafes. I have never seen such cops in Japan. If they did such things, they would soon be accused by people or newspapers as tax thieves. Ordinary people in Japan, if they were not criminals, do not like the police because they are too stiff and snaky. On the other hand, Canadian cops seem to be friendly, gentle and respected, at least I feel so. I prefer Canadian cops to Japanese ones.

Copyright of character goods

License business is said to be the most lucrative business which is legal, supported and protected by the copyright law. But for Chinese people, this law seems to be inefficient. We can see a lot of character goods shops in chinese malls. All the goods sold there are very cheap because they are fake. For Chinese people, it doesn't matter whether they are regular or fake, and the cheaper the better if they are similar. This kind of shops cannot be found in Japan, because Japanese people are very compliant to the law. I can't say which attitude is better, because I think the copyright law is too advantageous for the owners of license. For example, just one tiny drawing sometimes makes millions of dollars. I can't believe that the drawing is so precious.

The newer, the better?

Different from wine or umeboshi, in hi-tech goods such as digital cameras, computers, and so on, the newer ones are the better. But this law does not always suit computer software. New software has surely a lot of new, attractive functioins, but it also has more bugs and it requires more powerful CPU power. In most product software, programers are repeating bug fixing even after the product has been released. So, software is generally most stable on the eve of its major version up. Besides, we can get the mature product in a lower price just before the newer version comes up. I regret to have bought the latest version of a graphic software, which is full of bugs and runs more slowly, and which I uninstalled an hour after the first installation.

Chinese method

Living in Vancouver, I see a lot of Chinese people every day. When I was taking lunch in a Chinese restaurant, I found an interesting idea about the similarity of Chinese dishes and Chinese characters. Both of them have numerous kinds. There are about ten thousand Chinese characters and ordinary Chinese restaurants have about three or four hundred kinds of dishes. But they are all made of a combination of some parts. For instance, most Chinese characters are constructed from two to four character parts. So, if they had just 20 kinds of character parts, they can get 20+20x20+20x20x20=8,420 character combinatioins. The actual Chinese characters are more complex, but this is the principle of Chinese method. Also in Chinese dishes this method is used. The combination of meat (port, beef, chicken, lamb, or fish), vegetables, sauce, and cooking way (to fry, to boil, to barbecue, and to shred) makes hundreds of dishes.

Umeboshi

If you're Japanese, this picture will make your mouth full of saliva. These are umeboshi, Japanese sour plums preserved in a Japanese traditional way. My mother gave me this umeboshi , which are fifteen years old, when I left Japan. It is such a popular food for Japanese that quite a few Japanese bring umeboshi with them when they travel abroad. We have it in various way such as rice-ball, congee, and just with steamed rice. The combination of umeboshi and rice is one of the most popular Japanese dishes. But there is a strange superstition, that is if you have umbeboshi and tempura at the same time, you'll have stomack-ache.

Fog

In this season around Vancouver coast, we often have fog which flows up on False Creek or Burrard Inlet. It is so thick that it hides everything just five meters apart from you. Sailing in a fog is very dangerous and if you have no GPS and radar system, you can't move until it gets clear. Fogs are more blinding than nights. We can see stars, the moon, and lights of other ships or buoies at night, but we can see nothing in a thick fog. Whiteout is more fearful than blackout. Yesterday, this fog was flowing through the Lions Gate Bridge and about to hide it into the white darkness.

Bud

The cyclamen in my old, flawed cup is budding. The color of the bud is gradually changing from light pink to vivid crimson. It's very interesting and cute. As I have no macro lens for my digital camera, this picture is a a little bit blurred. But by using a black bag as the background, I could record the vivid color.

Tenkasu

Do you know this strange food? This is "tenkasu" which means garbage of tempura in Japanese. As you know, tempura is a popular Japanese fry menu, and this tenkasu is literally the garbage of flour. In Japan, we can get tenkasu at the storefront of restaurants for free. But here in Vancouver, I have to buy it. This pack of tenkasu costs 50 cents. We use it as a flavor of various dishes. A bunch of tenkasu makes udon noodle by far tasty. It works just like croutons on potage soup.

Wing on wing

It was fine today, and I enjoyed sailing in English Bay after one month break. Before starting I had to pump out the bilge which was alomost three bucketful amount. Then I launched for a short time sailing under a best condition; the sky was clear, the sea was calm, and the wind was moderate inflow. It was so pleasant and perfect that I couldn't help smiling. When I came back to the marina, I chose "wing on wing" method which can be used only when the wind is blowing from right behind, and which is also a little bit difficult to control the helm. My boat somehow runs fastest with this sailing method, so I often use this "wing on wing" method.