happylife

Made in China

I think I need to make it clear before writing this article. That is to say, I have no hostile feelings to China or Chinese people; far from it, I actually have Chinese friends in Canada and they are all good people. I bought a working chair when I came to Obihiro about a month ago. It was nicely designed with a very reasonable price. I had been happily using it for a month and it was broken a few weeks later. One of the sea-star-shaped legs was damaged like this picture and I was almost fell on my hips. Fortunately, I wasn't injured at all and the store person brought me another chair with apologize on the next day. This is my personal feelings, but made-in-China products are inferior in their quality to products which were made in other countries including Japan, USA, Europe and Taiwan. Of course, I think the news about the pork buns with cardboard or the pet food with poisonous material are the extreme cases, but the image to made-in-China products is bad and they need to reconsider how to control the quality of products.

A fashion show in a restaurant

This is the shot I took in my favorite restaurant. I was sitting on a counter seat where I could look inside of the kitchen through a small window. The window had a spot light and It was very interesting to watch menu items hot from the pan come out of the window one after another. It was just like a fashion show though I have never been to in my life. Some items were decorated or displayed under the spot light at the last process to be served to guests. Every motion of the chefs and waiters had nothing to be wasted and I could enjoy all of them in the restaurant as well as the delicious menu item itself. I think Obihiro is a great city full of good restaurants. Sure there are lots of good restaurants in Tokyo, but they are rather expensive different from the reasonable restaurants in Obihiro. It is quite natural that expensive things are good, but it is better if they are supplied for more reasonable prices. More than five weeks have passed since I came to Obihiro and I really love this city.

A phantom bridge

Japan is a mountainous country and we have a lot of dams all around the islands. Hokkaido is not the exception. I think dam is a great invention because it can be used both for power generation and impoundment. Sure it is largely affected by weather, it is way more safer than nuclear power plants and cleaner than thermal power stations. In many cases, there are some villages submerged by a dammed-up river and when the river is dried up, they sometimes appear with abandon buildings and roads. This bridge is one of them. It used to be a railroad bridge more than fifty years ago and it is now called a phantom bridge because it is usually under water. Fortunately or unfortunately, we can see it more often these days because of the less precipitation maybe related to the global warming weather. When I visited, it was standing heavily weathered and it looked like ancient Roman ruins.

Fireworks photography

The second fireworks festival was held this Saturday night in Obihiro and of course I went see it. The number of shots was as half as the previous festival which took place two weeks ago, but it was still 10,000! I felt it was more beautiful than before for some reasons; I could get a better seat because of less spectators, the moderate wind blew off the smoke after each shot and all the fireworks were launch one after another in the shorter time. I could occupy a good place by a sign pole which I used as a tripod. As you might have experienced, it is difficult to take a good picture of fireworks. The basic technique is simple, to close the stop with the longer exposure time around two seconds, but the most difficult thing is when to release the shutter. We need to push the button just before the fireworks come into flower, but how can we know it? All we can do is just to estimate and press the button as many times as possible. This is the best picture that I took in this festival with the help of the sign pole.

A tacit understanding among Japanese

If you are Japanese, you will possibly tell what are inside in these two buns. I can give you a big hint; one is Anko, Japanese traditional red bean jam and the other is custard cream. Can you tell which is which? The shapes of the buns imply the contents; the left, round one is Anko and the right, distorted one is custard cream. The difference is rather small, but most Japanese people can distinguish them. Of course, we have never been taught such a thing in school and I have no memory of being taught from my parents. It is not a rule or law, but I have never seen round buns with custard cream inside nor contrary case. It is just a tacit understanding which had been naturally formed among Japanese people in these hundred years. I think it interesting to know how a popular menu item is created and prevailed.

Rider's high

The state of euphoria while running is called runner's high. It is said that the longer they run, the happier they become while the longer the more painful in my case. It might be one of the reasons why so many runners are running all around the world. I have never had the opportunity to experience runner's high, but I can easily imagine how it feels. Actually I felt it today. It was such a fine day that I rode my motorcycle and ran around the forest in the suburbs of Obihiro. A straight gravel rode was running through the forest which was filled with fresh air and the sunlight filtering down through the leaves. There were no cars and motorcycles except for me. It was so pleasant that I soon fell in the state of euphoria which can be called "rider's high." It was such a feeling as my legs and the tires were directly connected and I could feel any small gravels on the road. After enjoying riding though the tube of forests sometimes with foxes and birds, I found the fuel was almost empty and came back reluctantly to the city. I'm thinking about carrying a sub fuel tank next time so that I can enjoy riding for longer hours.

An innovative speaker system

It was when I was a junior high-school student that I experienced the Walkman sound for the first time. It was such an impressive experience that I still remember how I felt at that time. My young sense of values or common sense was betrayed in the good meaning and I was only astonished with a question "Why such a great sound comes out of this tiny box?" This BOSE M3 compact speaker system gave me the same feeling after almost thirty years since my first experience. It is made of only two small palm-sized speaker boxes without any woofer boxes. It looks like general compact speakers used with PC, but its sound is totally different from them. It sounds just like normal-sized high grade audio speaker systems. The sound is absolutely natural and clear; most people who listened to it would look for big speaker boxes in vain. The price is much higher than usual compact speakers, but it is not more expensive than general high grade audio speakers. As it has a built-in digital amplifier system in it, we can enjoy great sound only with the small boxes and a music source such as a CD player or PC. I'm enjoying with the combination of iTunes on Mac Mini. The only problem is that the sound is so great that I can't enjoy it as a background music; my brain and hands are soon interrupted and I find myself concentrating on the music.

Viking

The word of Viking has a special meaning for us Japanese. It implies the style of serving foods in restaurants; it is called "all you can eat" in North America and it seems to be called "smorgasbord" according to my dictionary though I have never heard of it. We often use the word "buffet style" too. Which word is used, I love the style of dining. I sometimes think that it must have been an eternal dream for ancient people who were busy only to get their daily food. What did they want except for they can eat whatever thing as much as they like? Anyway, I am very happy to find a good Viking restaurant in a hotel where we can enjoy Japanese, Chinese and Western lunch menu items at one time just for 840 yen! Can you believe it includes desserts and soft drinks? I was so happy that I tried all the menu items on the table, which were more than 40 items, and I couldn't have dinner in the night.

Night run

It was the most terrible tropical night and I couldn't sleep in my bed. I decided to get up and ride on a motorcycle in the midnight. The air was warm and moisturized, but it was good for riding through. After riding around the city for about an hour, I dared to go out of the city into the forest. Different from Tokyo, Obihiro is surrounded with forests and meadows. I found it was way more pleasant than in the city because the air was cooler. As I didn't have a map both in my pocket and my mind, I was a little bit nervous not to lose my way. I didn't like to ride all through the night and I didn't have enough fuel. Against my will, I was almost missed in the darkness of the grassland and I had to ride on a gravel road without any road signs. It was a little bit scaring but more exciting. I don't hate to feel the secretion of adrenalin in my brain. Fortunately, a few minutes later, I found the city lights in the distance and I could come back to my room which was a little bit cooler than before.

Tropical nights on AMeDAS

Nights with the temperature more than 25 degrees are called "tropical nights" in Japan. It has been tropical nights every night for a couple of days in the most area in Japan. This picture shows the result of AMeDAS (Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System) in which the orange points imply more than 23 degrees and the red one more than 30 degrees. Can you believe that it is the figure at midnight? This island is really tropical, isn't it? Anyway, thanks to the AMeDAS, we can get accurate weather forecast based on the sufficient meteorological data. The system, which was build more than 30 years ago, is made of 1,300 robots scattered all around the country. Each robot keeps measuring the temperature, precipitation, wind and snow fall at a regular interval and the data gathered from all the robots are compiled to be shown to public. It's so useful that I often see it instead of the rough weather forecast.