Daffodils from the hills...

Yesterday was what the Japanese call 春一番 Haru ichiban...

Shall I say, the first strong wind to mark the start of the spring season?

The winds were, well, howling the whole day and night...

At the individual level, it means the start of the running nose season for yours truly...

In other words, yes, the pollens from the Japanese ceder trees are starting to burst and fly...

Anyway, took today off from work...

It's been a while since I walked the hills with my sweeto haato...

And woah... the daffodils by the hillsides...

Their fragrance... their simplicity... their beauty...

Meanwhile, the nose, oooh... the eyes, itchy...

And... aaaacccchuuunnggg!!

The joys of singing... err, I mean, croaking, again...

For the better part of this winter season, been driving my grasshopper to work...

My excuses?

1. Workload is getting big, so I need to utilize as much time as I can get to do the work

2. The cold is getting to me

3. On the return trip home, I need to pick up some reusable wood from the stone masons' factories...

Yours truly, on the left side...

With so much driving, and nothing much else to do while driving, I said to myself one day, why not do some 'yelling'?

And so, I found myself 're-discovering' an old past-time...
Soon, I was croaking and croaking away...
And it feels good... very good, I must say...

And here, on the right side...

Actually, I love singing... I do...
This is not to say that I am good at it... ;)
I just love to sing... to myself, that is...

And if you are in Japan, chances are, you will probably go karaoke-ing...
As I did when I was younger...
The highlight of my 'singing' was when two of my best friends (both Japanese guys) paired up with me to sing a number called 長崎は今日も雨だった literally, 'It rained again in Nagasaki today'...

Never mind the date in the two photos above... I remain indebted to the individual who bothered to take those pictures and handed them to me...

The performance was actually in December of 1994, in Nagoya, in an event called 留学生の夕べ or 'Foreign Students' Evening'...

The following March (of 1995), my dad passed away suddenly while I was skiing (more like, falling down the slopes) at the mountains in Gifu Prefecture...

The shock from his passing lingered on for an extended period of time... I found myself talking more softly while the thought of karaoke-ing simply disappeared...

Now, almost two decades after the passing of my dad, and also the demise of my mum two years ago, I am  're-discovering' the urge to croak again...

So, if you hear someone near you, humming out of tune, please say hello... :)

Meantime, I derive pleasure to share the two images above, images that remind me of my two minutes of fame on stage...

The wood-chopping continues...

As with the past few weekends, the main preoccupation is... yes, you guessed it... wood chopping...

It is a strenuous activity, but I enjoy 'punishing' myself this way... 

And as I joked with a dear friend when I visited him in San Francisco last March ... 'chopping wood makes me feel like a man'... :)

Strenuous... especially when the grain of the wood is not straight as in the above specimen (an elm, perhaps?)... 

Wooh, you can chop and chop but that thing just will not split that easily... 

 

Last October, we first heard the sound of wood cracking when we stood near the firewood shed... 

But inexperienced as we are, the sound was not from the wood drying... 

It was the sound of worms chewing on the wood...

See the above picture? It has no eyes, and the jaws are very hard... (I touched it)...  

Searching the net, I found out that they are wood borers... tanbark borers, perhaps?  (Source)

Their length is about 1.5 to 2 cm...

Each time I chop wood, I get tens and tens of them...

Our favorite bird, Daurian Redstart aka the Potager Y mascot, loves to come by whenever he (yes, a 'he') sees me chopping wood... 

Imagine the feasts he gets each time he catches me with the axe...

And yes, the 'man' needs to take a break from the chopping, sometimes... 

Chiang Mai, I was at...

Just came back yesterday after spending a few days at Chiang Mai, northern Thailand...

Purpose was to thrash out the final details of a student program that we are experimenting with...

Thanks to our counterparts, I managed to meet several key persons and I am happy to say that the negotiations turned out very well...

In the off-hours, sneaked out to steal some shots of the happenings in town...

Before long, I could not help but to hear some traditional Thai music...

There was a 'big band' of about 15 musicians... guitars, cymbals, xylophones, keyboards, drums, traditional trumpets, gamelan-like percussions...  

It seemed like a religious event... people were praying and there was a make-shift Thai shrine set up just for this purpose...

And the dancers... so colorfully clothed, and their movements so graceful ... 

In the evening, took a stroll at the night market... 

I have seen quite a few night markets here and there, but this one in Chiang Mai, hmmm, should I say, really 'pulsates'?

There is really so, so much activity there... and the range of stuff sold there is immense... as in bags, clothes, accessories...

Tidbits... as in corn... dried squid...

 Sausages, anyone?

 Goodies on skewers...

 Decorative little bulbs... 

Fried noodles... now if I could only muster enough courage to try out stuff like these...

Avocado salad, among other stuff...

Temperatures these few days have been dipping below freezing point...

We had minus 4 degrees one morning, and there had also been some brief moments of snow...

Not much going on in our potager in this cold season...

I spend almost all my time in weekends chopping wood for our stove... 

And my sweeto haato, as usual, had been very kind to cook me some sumptuous meals...

Had this avocado salad for dinner last night...

We always throw the avocado seeds into our garden and they do germinate...

We have a few of them, growing up to about a meter or so... wonder if they will ever fruit...

Sometimes we have some cheeze (Camembert, this time) with crackers before the main meal...

Fried rice noodles was what we had for lunch today...

Bean sprouts, mushroom, leafy greens, tofu, chillies, a little meat and spring onions...

And for tonight, butter scotch pumpkin salad...

We have been eating pumpkin quite a bit these days...

Am very happy that we can grow this lovely vegetable in our garden...