WOMEN... CHILD BEARING MACHINES

Yes, you heard me right... women are but child bearing machines...

Women's groups are jumping mad at a Japanese politician for mumbling those words...

Now, what would men be, then?

Seed disseminating machines?

Expectedly, rival politicians are having a ball of a time scavenging...

They are going for his scalp...

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MENTALLY CHALLENGED

Yours truly may sound like a broken record, but wooh... I have never been so busy in my life before...

I have to work 'smart', rather than only working 'hard'...

So, need to use my numbskull brain cells more to save energy and time...

Am currently hosting 19 students from Taiwan...

Only three guys, and the girls... sixteen of them...

Quite taxing, but loads of fun to mingle around them...

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Lately, there have been some terrible murders in Japan...

In a spate of days, three or four cases of bodies being chopped up and disposed...

Some Japanese friends asked... you don't have such gruesome murders in Malaysia, do you?

Hmmm... the Mongolian lady case immediately came to mind...

Errr, we do... in fact, we detonate the body up beyond recognition...

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On the New Straits Times suing the two bloggers...

Would be very interesting to watch...

Can't say much about the bad blood spilled among the parties involved, but the alleged plagiarism...

Would have solved quite a bit of problems if the NST writer just added a footnote saying the he took the idea from a certain blog...

The two articles do appear like they are twins... slightly un-identical in parts, but still, twins...

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Meanwhile, our prime minister is still in dreamland...

His words, actions... continuously riddle the mind...

As one writer aptly says, it is rather impolite to label him 'stupid'...

The prime minister, says the writer, is but 'mentally challenged'...

Hmmm, I really have to work 'smart' now....

MALAYSIA READY FOR 300 RINGGIT MELONS?

Heard over the radio yesterday about a farmer in Kagawa prefecture (that's where I live now) planning to export strawberries to Malaysia...

Shoppers in KL can expect to see this juicy red stuff on the shelves this Friday (tomorrow)...

The commodity comes in packs of 15 strawberries each...

Each pack will set you back by about 3150 yen, almost 100 ringgits...

Quite like eating jewels, eh...

Kagawa prefecture is also quite well known for her square watermelons...

Yes, square... as in not round...

Each square watermelon costs 10000 yen, almost 300 ringgits...

Unlike the strawberries, they are to be treated more as ornaments rather than for the stomach...

So, folks, watch out as you may very well see one of those weird-looking square green melons in your local department store one of these days...

MIDNIGHT SCUBA DIVING

Got back yesterday afternoon to a winter-warm 12 degrees...

The timing couldn't have been better...

Soon after we stepped foot into our house, the cold north winds began to howl...

The winds got stronger in the night and it snowed in the morning...

Must say that I had a ball of time this last holiday...

First, I was lucky to be able to celebrate my mother's 86th birthday due to the peculiar lunar calendar that apparently had an extra month last year...

Then, had a bash with my secondary school friends when we got together for our reunion 30 years after we left school...

We were requested by the host to come as 17 year olds, but tried as we did, spring chickens we were no more...

Father Time spared few of us although one or two of us really looked youthful...

On the way back in the car, a nine-year old son of a friend asked if I am into the Shinto religion...

Nope...

Buddhist?

Nope...

Then, why don't you embrace Jesus?

Huh?? * Uncle Lrong feeling vertigo now, as in 'deer in the headlights' *

Now, that is not very appropriate to be asking Uncle Lrong like that, his mother cut in...

But, it is for his own good, the nine year old instantly quipped...

Woah, I thought... kids these days ah...

Luckily (for me), we were just arriving at our hotel...

Changing gears, for the very first time in our lives, we welcomed the incoming year in a dive resort...

We were really lucky that the manager was game to go for a night dive to welcome the New Year... a first experience for us...

The six divers in us descended into the ocean at about 11:45 pm; scuba dived around a little bit, and congratulated each other by shaking hands at the first tick of 2007...

Exhilarating, I'd say...

RELAXING AT KK

Am now at KK… not Kuala Kedah but rather Kota Kinabalu…

Due to fly back to Japan via KLIA tonight…

Am on a stopover after spending a few days at RRR aka Roach Reefs Resort…

The dives at RRR were, I would say, pretty interesting…

Took quite a lot of macro pictures of the nudibranches, ghost pipefish, mimic octopus, leaf fish…

And also, parrot fishes, coral trouts, sweetlips, buffalo fish, and the ‘regular’ octopus…

Plus, the barracudas, jacks, catfish, and loads of ikan bilis…

Plan to upload these pictures one at a time to my photo blog (which had been quite neglected for a while now)…

At KK, dined last night at a seafood restaurant at the waterfront…

My eyes popped out when we saw a half meter Napoleon fish in a tank at the restaurant entrance, waiting to be slaughtered…

The Napoleon is a protected fish and I wonder what the authorities are doing to enforce the ruling…

I recall our visit to a pet shop at the Curve Shopping Center at the end of December last year…

At the entrance of a pet shop, a plate stood, proudly announcing that it is the largest pet shop in Malaysia according to the Malaysian Book of Records…

My heart sank upon seeing the mandarin fish, banner fish, seahorses, and surgeon fish among others in the tanks, looking really pathetic…

For what is the anemone fish without the anemone…

What is the shy mandarin fish without the finger corals to hide in…

I shook my head when I saw tube worms that are practically ripped out of their environments, swaying lifelessly in the tanks…

For how long can these creatures survive in a man-made miniature tank…

Anyway, am bracing myself for the cold weather in Japan…

I shall be putting on about five layers of shirts upon reaching Osaka…

Meanwhile, I have no doubt in my mind that we are on a one way path to self destruction…

Man is simply destroying what we have and we seem unable to put a stop to all these acts…