Fall colors in the hills...

Was out of Japan for about 10 days...

Returned home to see the temperatures dipping to the mid-teens... 

And the trees in the hills taking on hues of red and orange...

 This Japanese maple tree radiates as it takes in light from the morning sun...

Large tracts of the hills here are inhibited by this 'wax' tree... 

The Japanese name is 'haze' and the tree is apparently very useful albeit having toxic substances that can cause irritation to certain people... 

The sap is used to make lacquer, and wax can be tapped from their seeds to make candles... 

My 'sweeto haato' taking in the sights, as we paced through the paths...

Wooh, autumn in Japan... lovely it is...

Garden lunch party with neighbors...

Did a check on the history of this blog and found out that today is actually the 8th anniversary of my blog...

Hosted a garden lunch party for fifteen of our neighbors last Saturday...

That was the fourth straight year that we had been hosting this event...

Hamburgers are not really in my normal 'to-eat' list of stuff...

But this one was pretty good, I must admit...

One of our neighbors made it for the party and hmmm, my missus was surprised upon seeing my munching on that plate...

Bologna sausage, and smoked salmon... specially ordered from Kobe by another neighbor...

Good stuff...

We were very happy to welcome the presence of the parents of one of our neighbors...

They stay in another city and came all the way to join us...

Last year, only the mother came, but this year, the father came along too...

And the maze-gohan onigiri (mixed rice ball?) made by the mother... wooh, full of ingredients and goodies...

Meanwhile, the daughter herself, who is our neighbor, made this walnut-banana cake...

Urmmm, very good texture and taste...

Yet another neighbor, for the last three years or so, presented us with this made-from-scratch soba noodles...

It was just 'straight' soba... unpretentious, and to the point... very wholesome stuff...

With all these good stuff to enjoy, am sure looking forward to hosting our neighbors again next autumn...

Fishermen in autumn, wood collecting season begins...

Joined my suweeto haato for a walk last weekend...

 Five minutes from our place lies the beach...

 A fisherman or two trying out their luck on the Japanese 'needle-fish'...

A few more minutes down the path, we found some workmen felling trees in an area where there was a landslide...

And some hours later, we returned to the site with our gear... wooh, very nice ubame oak (native to Japan) logs that are most appropriate for the wood stove....

Autumn cleaning at Aji Hamlet...

Every autumn, the residents of Aji hamlet get together for a clean-up of the neighborhood...
Precisely, it means cutting the grass and clearing up the roadways...

Took time out to snap a shot of two neighbors walking down the path after cutting the grass....

Most of the grass is hauled away to another location for disposal... 

But the original residents of the hamlet prefer to burn the grass right there...

There is a law against open fire burning, but... oh well, I always thought to myself... 

And today was such a lovely day spent...
Autumn days in Japan is really, urmmm, pure delight....

Chiang Mai and Beijing, back to back...

Had been very busy lately... while traveling quite a bit since August...

Took a handful of students to Chiang Mai as part of a class...

Besides the classrooms, we took time out for a bit of fun, doing things like riding cow carts, taking elephant rides, and experiencing bamboo rafting...  

And when in Thailand, woah, food... 

Thai noodles... oooh... 

Upon returning home, thought I could take a rest... 

But no... had to do a quickie trip to Beijing to attend to an emergency situation...

Was actually my first time to step on the streets of Beijing... 

And my counterparts suggested, yes, what else but the Peking Duck...

The picture shows the supposedly most delicious parts of the duck that the host normally offers to the honored guests...

And the duck liver was real tasty, I'd say...

And after the duck, we did the touristy thingy of visiting the gigantic Forbidden City Museum...

In the evening, yes again... the Peking Opera it was... 

Thought that was fun to watch...

More gifts from a neighbor in midsummer Japan...

Had not been walking the hills recently...

Reason is, there are tons of chores to do in the potager during the weekends, and like all things, it is a matter of priority...

Anyway, thought I would take a break from the potager and accompany my sweeto haato in her regular walk last Saturday morning...

Before long, we met a neighbor (different from the one in the previous post) who was visiting another neighbor in the adjacent hamlet...

After some brief niceties, we resumed our walk...

And oops, bumped into each other again a few minutes later as she was returning home on her bicycle...

Why not take home some tomatoes? She offered...

It was not for us to decline a good offer...

Pretty soon, we were standing at her vegetable garden, watching her harvesting the tomatoes...

Would you like some green peppers too? My husband dislikes eating them and told me not to cook any dish with peppers... she said...

And how about some pumpkins? They are a bit small but they taste very sweet...

Oh, there's okra too... here, take some...

Hmm... what can I say except that it is so nice to reside in this hamlet amongst such generous neighbors...

And my, their vegetables are of a different class compared to the 'mini-mini' ones that I could only grow at my potager...

Gifts in the deep of summer 2012...

Summer is in full swing here in Japan...

Temperatures hover around 35 degrees and it is quite stifling, actually...

The vegetable gardens in the neighborhood are thriving...

And, my sweeto haato continues her walks amidst the neighborhood gardens, meandering herself along the paths in the hills... 

And once in a while, she receives some nice gifts from the farmer-neighbors... this time, cucumbers, zucchini, green peppers...

For the past few years, the local Honda car salesman had been sending me a pot of (normally, tropical) flowers for my birthday...

I had purchased our Honda CRV from him years ago, and had been sending the car to his workshop for maintenance all the while...

Each time, the plants die out when the cold comes in...

With this pretty hibiscus, think I'd plant it somewhere and hope it will survive the cold...

Was invited by our next door neighbor to visit her maternal home in another part of town...

Purpose was to pick up some firewood but there wasn't much...

Was an old farmhouse with orange grooves, rows of blueberries, vegetables patches, an irrigation pond...

Ate some watermelon (yellow and red)... and was offered these asparagus by her younger sister whose husband is a professional asparagus farmer...

These asparagus were huge... over 30 cm long... and they tasted good...

Wood stove cleaning...

These are not very exciting pictures, so to say...

But just for the sake of recording the happenings with the wood stove...

  

Yes, we called in the professionals to do a cleanup some days ago...

We have been using the wood stove for just about a season and a half... and this is how the insides of the chimney looks...

Wrapping one end of the chimney with a plastic bag, the insides are cleaned with a steel brush...

It cost quite a bundle to hire these professionals... 

As they were doing the cleaning, I made sure to took note as I intend to do the cleaning myself next season...

Hiking boots...

I am really poor at throwing away old stuff...
Especially stuff that I have grown to love... to cherish...

And this pair of hiking boots is certainly one of those 'difficult-to-throw-away' stuff, even thought it is worn out...

These boots had accompanied me to Mt. Fuji, twice...
I walked many a hill, most often than not, solo, at Nagano, Gifu, and Aichi Prefectures when I was a graduate student at Nagoya University in the 1990s...

My sweeto haato says, 'you cannot bring them to your grave when you kick the bucket... better to off-load one's belongings as we age... go light-weight...'
Good advice, no doubt... but still...
Perhaps I can try to be imaginative and convert them into 'flower pots' for my garden later on...

Man's cooking?

Once or twice a year, my sweeto haato visits her mum and stay for a few days...
I am always happy to see that they enjoy each others' company during such occasions...
For those few days, I am left to my own devices with regards to food...
The shot below shows yours truly trying to steam some stuff...
Brown rice and sauteed daikon (radish) which was actually pre-prepared by my missus...
And fish, yellow-tail... with vegetables at the far left... my 'original'...

During one 'lonely' weekend, attempted to cook some soup...
The lazy way, actually, where I can literally throw any ingredients I wanted into the iron pot (dutch oven)...
I did this outside, in the garden...
I put in too many ingredients... tofu, mushroom, carrot, garlic, potatoes, onion... more than 10 different types...
(When my missus returned and saw this picture, she couldn't help exclaiming hidoi... iro ha nai... oishiiso ja nai...   (translation: terrible... no color... doesn't look delicious...)

And while sorting out the photos, I can across this shot...
Yaki-meishi kai ankake... or fried rice with bamboo-shell clam gravy...
Cooked not by me but by my sweeto haato...
Compared to the rather bland concoction in both taste and appearance that I had churned out, it is times like this when I am reminded of my lucky stars to have someone cook so well for me...

Trip to Pulau Tenggol...

Heard quite a bit about the scuba diving in Pulau (island) Tenggol, off the coast of the state of Trengganu on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia...

Made a trip there in 2009... and found out that the diving was not much to shout about...

Furthermore, my underwater photos were totally washed out as I was trying out to figure out how to operate the (then) new camera...

So, it was not surprising that the pictures above the water was better...

This peanut-nibbling squirrel came really close to us when we were relaxing in the bungalow... perhaps about a meter away?

Don't really know the name of this flower...

It was quite big, and the tree was thriving at the sandy beach...

After dinner one day, we strolled along the beach...

The scene from this distance was not too bad...

On the return leg, spent a whole day at Kuala Trengganu city...

The interesting parts of the city was within walking distance from our hotel...  

The shot above is the city market... 

I was, as usual, looking for durians...

We had enough time to take a ferry to the other side of the Trengganu River...

The specialty of the folks there were fish cakes and shrimp paste aka 'belacan'... 

My missus suggested that we try the fish cakes...

Tried we did, and almost immediately, I found myself groaning... serious diarrhea attack... ooh... 

Praying mantis hatching...

Was chopping wood when my suweeto haato called out happily, pointing to a log that I had used as a stool for our guests in our outdoor gatherings...
Baby mantises, looking quite a bit like ants, were hatching off a nest that their mother had laid on the log...

Was the first time for me to observe such a scene...
There were about 30 of them, each measuring about one centimeter...

Was quite amazed to see that they already had their 'claws' at the time of birth...  

And it didn't take long for them to quickly disappear... 

They must have been very vulnerable then, as there are many geckos and frogs in our compound that might prey on these babies...