Sunday, June 24, 2007

Ah, rainy days I like...

Supposed to be the rainy season now in Japan but it has not been raining as expected...

But today, the wonderful rain... it makes me feel so good...



Was driving to the office (yes, on a Sunday) when I noticed the rain-soaked padi fields...

They captivated me enough to make me screech to a complete stop...

With the clouds smouldering over the low hills in the background... ooh... nice...



The Japanese folks associate the rains with the 'ajisai' flower (Hydrangea?)...

We have a few species in our garden... the blue one above is one of my favorites...



A close-up of the pinkish 'ajisai'... apparently the real flowers are those little-little stuff in the center rather than those that look more like flowers at the sides...



Another close-up of a different specie... hmmm... lovely, don't you think?



And of course, the plums... the Japanese do not call the rainy season 'baiyu' (literally plum rains) for no reason...

We have three plum trees in our garden, one red-flowered, one white, and one that has yet to produce any flowers...

You bet that I shall be looking forward to imbibing plum wine from these...

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Devil Laughs...

Come 2057, I shall hit the 99 counter... I'd probably be toothless and certainly hairless... if I am still around, that is...

The Japanese have a word for it...

'Rainen no koto wo iu to, oni ga warau'... literally, 'talk of next year, the devil laughs'... (similar meaning with that "don't count your chickens..." thingy...)

Not to say that we should not plan the future... it is necessary to a certain extent for it gives us direction...

Still, my body reverberated uncontrollably as I read through that 'truly inspiring' speech by the 'dreamer' Malaysian prime minister...

Says he of Malaysia...

"A hundred years of Merdeka (independence) would see this society, this nation achieve the unimaginable.

We will have Nobel laureates, truly global corporations, respected and market-leading brands, internationally acclaimed poets and artists, among the largest number of scientific patents in the world and even the best football team in Asia.

Our students and professors will dominate Ivy League universities and our own universities will be citadels of excellence for international scholars.

We will be pioneers in alternative energy, drawing on our strength in biofuels.

Our cities will be the most liveable on the globe, blending cosmopolitan facilities that are rooted in a tolerant and just societal ethos".

Oh god... forgive him, for he knows not what he speaks...

On a more earthly tone, merely saying that this man is inept is beginning to sound more and more like an understatement...

As many have already pointed out, there is plenty to do now for the nation...

Think of the corruption, water drainage, education, race relations, the horrid police, crime, you name it... but he chooses to glide amongst clouds and dream of 2057... oh god...

Well, I'd better go chew on more 'natto' so as to prolong my life to hit 99...

With the help of natto and perhaps more seaweed consumption (now, don't go a-ha-ha-ha-ing here...), I hope to be around in 2057 to see for myself, among other earth-shattering achievements, how our students and professors beat the hell out of those 'wretched' Ivy League universities and how our universities will be citadels of excellence for those 'pitiful' international scholars.

Meanwhile... allow me the privilege to go a-ho-ho-ho-ing with the devil...

Monday, June 18, 2007

NINGEN DOC a.k.a. MEDICAL CHECK-UP

Hospitals or clinics (especially those in the country side) sometimes double as places of social interaction especially among the senior-senior citizens...

The saying goes in that, if you are absent from the hospital or clinic over a prolonged period of time, you have either kicked the bucket, or you are on the verge of doing so...

June is that time of the year for my annual medical check-up...

Been doing this for more than 10 years in a row, but I still cannot get used to that Valium stuff...

The instructions are pretty standardized... stool to be taken over two days... no gnawing of food after nine the previous evening... report at the hospital before eight in the morning... etc...

Was the first one to report today... this is a first for me as throughout the years, no matter how early I thought I was, there was always some one else reporting ahead of me.

The gong goes off at eight twenty... and the process starts rolling...

The first thing to do... pee into paper cup... and the instruction on the wall says, do not take the first 30 ml of pee, take only the 'central' part of the pee and fill up to one third of the cup... wheew...

Then, measure height... weight... fat content... all these done by one single sleek machine... just needed to stand barefoot on a plate and lean straight... a bar gently drops from above to touch the crown and hola!

Blood pressure check follows... and, heart beat... max and min...

They used to have the eyesight checks manually where you stand about three meters away from the zeros and alphabets...

You are supposed to block one eye with a spoon-like tool and try to mumble the correct number or alphabet under the hawkish eyes of a lady nurse...

This year, they used a machine... and I think I may have 'cheated' by continuously guessing instead of admitting failure... there was no eagle-eyed nurse around to spot me...

Sometimes I think it is amazing that we do not fall sick more often... think about it... just about anything can go wrong with any part of our anatomy... eyes, nose, stomach, brain, liver...

Am turning 49 next month, so, am bracing for some repair work to be done on my 'machine... let's see what the results say in a week's time...

The good thing about this official medical check up is that, you get an official day off although this does not mean that I can goof off for the day to play with my goldfishes...

The reason is, you have to 'eject' out the Valium taken during the stomach x-rays... and you cannot be dashing out of the room (with one hand on the rectum) in the middle of a meeting with staff or counseling with students when nature abruptly calls...

(Apparently, the hospital has introduced a less troublesome and less painful method to visually inspect the stomach whereby a very fine tube/digital camera (5.6 mm thin) is inserted through the nostril... hmmm... maybe next year, I shall try this method...)

The other good thing about the medical check is, the hospital gives you a good lunch box after the check is completed...

And, the union I belong to subsidizes the fees so I pay peanuts for the check...even the lunch box fee is included...

While paying for the fees, the familiar lady at the counter greeted me 'Lrong-san, O-hisashi buri desu ne'... (Lrong-san, long time no see, ya...)

A thought swiftly raced across my mind... now, could she be thinking of the reason for my prolonged absence from the hospital, as in the senior citizens' case?

Naaawww, as yours truly, promptly: 'O-kage sama de, kaze to ka hiite inai desu'... (Thank god, I had not been catching cold lately).

Anyway, just returned from the first successful mission 'ejecting' the Valium...

Aaaaaaah, feels very light... indeed...

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

A MIRACLE HAPPENED

Last week, I finally decided to sign up for a hand phone...

Yes, after years of telling my coordinates that I am hand phone-less, and after countless of times seeing their jaws dropped in disbelief, a miracle happened...

My university colleagues cheered with gusto as I deliberately announced the number...

Been quite occupied with 'business' trips lately... after returning from Hawaii, took a quick trip to Tokyo to meet up with some colleagues to discuss about research issues...

Lunch quickly followed the meeting (ah, food! food!)... as our gracious host took us to a Vietnamese joint in Shinjuku...

Ummm... papaya salad, raw spring rolls, roasted chicken with lemon leaves, some kind of fried stuff that was supposed to be on the menu of royalty, the humble yet exquisite pho, and sweet pumpkin soup for dessert... ummm, hoolaalaa...

Then, managed to squeeze some time to meet up with Adriene who is a graduate student in the masters program at Sophia University...

A day before flying to Tokyo, she asked me for my hand phone number... that was the spark that led to the miracle...

(The real story is, dreading to witness another jaw dropped, yours truly decided to just dash to the nearest phone shop...)

We walked around the crowded streets of Shinjuku, occasionally gawking (more of me rather than her) at the ganguros... and finally settling down to chat over some soft drinks...

And yo, before you realize it, it is time to say 'sayonara, sayonara, sayonaraaa'...

Anyway, traveling on a Sunday in the Tokyo subways is quite a blissful feeling...

There are just so few souls in the trains and stations...

But however blissful it is to travel in empty Tokyo trains, the level of blissfulness can never match that of sleeping on my own futon...

The quiet of the Shikoku night... the frogs a-croaking... the sound of gentle waves coming in from the sea...

On my prior trip to Tokyo, Makuhari City in Chiba Prefecture in fact, I could not sleep at all in the night...

Which led me to think... for future trips, I shall try to fly home to snore, rather than to spend the night in the raucous city, rolling a thousand times left and a thousand times right on an unfamiliar bed trying to catch just one minute of shut-eye...

Still, I am due to head to Tokyo again on 21st June and shall be night-stopping... oooh... I see another restless night coming...

This time, I hope to catch up with not only Adriene but also another Malaysian compatriot who is supposedly strutting his stuff at Waseda University...