Fishing in mid-summer in Japan...

Am enjoying the second last day of a week's holiday from work...

Had planned to work in the potager...

But the weather was simply too much to bear...

After working for an hour or so under the summer heat, I'd be all drenched up in sweat...

My body then tells me...

'Go to the sea!!' 

I was too feeble to fight this 'order'...

So, for the past few days, I was sea-bound...

I snorkled, I swam, I fished...

And can you believe that yours truly pulled out this colorful fish from the Japan Inland Sea?

The fish is called 'kyusen' in Japanese, and 'multicolorfin rainbowfish' in English...

I think the above specimen is the female version of the colorful male in the previous picture...

Near to the rocks I poked the fishing rod...

And woah... rockfish ('kasago' in Japanese) came a-biting...

Their big mouths mean that they normally swallow the hook wholesale...

And the rockfish turned into boiled fish during dinnertime...

Absolutely lovely with home-made loquat liqueur...

While not snorkeling or fishing, yours truly went hunting for shellfish...

Harvested twenty one mussels on one of those days...

I regretted taking too much as our self-imposed 'quota' is five mussels per person...

My partner casts her magic wand onto the shells, turning them into exquisite pasta...

We 'lengthened' the eating pleasure by spreading the meal out into two dinners...

Why... as we did not want to 'hurry' by over-consuming all the mussels in just one meal... 

Our quota: five mussels per person per meal...

The drums almost always make me cry...

It is not just the rains...
But I really don't know what spell this 'wadaiko' (Japanese drums) thing has on me...

Each time I witness a live wadaiko performance...

I'm almost always moved me to tears...

By tears, I mean, tears that continue to flow and flow throughout the course of the performance...

For the past 13 years, I have had the good fortune of being requested by the Japanese folks at a neighboring town to bring a handful of international students for a cooking event...

This year, I brought seven students from five countries...

They cooked up four lovely dishes while the Japanese folks presented us with some delicious local noodles and mixed sushi, all cooked from scratch...

After consuming the sumptuous meals, the town folks usually invite some group to provide entertainment...

This is third time I think, that the wadaiko troupe 'Man Ten' was invited...
Now, 'Man' does not mean 'man' as in you and me, but 'Full'...
And 'Ten' has got nothing to do with that number of fingers you may have...
Rather, 'Ten' refers to either the 'Heavens' or the 'Sky' depending on the context...
My preferred interpretation, however, of this amazing wadaiko troupe name would be 'Heaven Full' of Stars...

For 'stars' the drummers all are...

Throughout the one hour performance, they bang and slam...

They smile, they yell...

They swing, and they fly... 

Man Ten started off as a family outfit...

There was just mum, dad, and two cute little daughters...

Years down the road, the membership ballooned...

That day, I think about twenty drummers performed... 

I stood as I snapped...

The faster the tempo, the more rapid the snaps...

All the while, tears flowed on...

Look at the expression of the drummer second from left...

The smile, the features... rather clear...

Now, look at the other three drummers in flight...

The stage literally shook, blurring almost all images except the smiling drummer's...

In the final act, as in previous occasions, the leader of Man Ten invited the seven international students to come forward...

Mere minutes later, he had the students gleefully banging in unison on a 3-3-7 rhythm...

As he spruced the routine up... dancing, Japanese fan in hand...

Exhilarating just to watch... I must say... 

Oh yes, the food...

This is the mixed sushi with compliments from the town folks...

There is always so much food there that I normally choose to bring this home to be consumed the following day... 

Cambodian style stir fry vegetables with beef slices...

I couldn't control myself as I headed for multiple helpings...

 

The mabo-tofu, Szechuan style...

Was too engrossed with eating that I forgot taking shots of the Tomyam soup and the Vietnamese curry...

I certainly looked forward to being part of the event again next summer...

Scuba diving the seas of Sulawesi...

I have always considered myself to be lucky...

In the sense that, my 'suweeto haato' shares the same passion for scuba diving as I do...

We particularly enjoy diving the seas off the east side of Sabah... 

And what more, we don't have to go far to enjoy the thrills of being underwater...

Here, my suweeto haato was having a good time observing a school of rabbit fishes just below the jetty... 

Can't remember the name, but these little fishes are such a joy to watch...

They normally position themselves in the rock crevices....

which naturally protect them from the currents as well as being preyed upon by their bigger cousins...

At Mabul Island's Paradise One dive site, we were pleasantly surprised to find a moray eel sharing its abode with cleaner shrimps...

Their relationship is somewhat symbiotic in that the shrimps clean the teeth of the moray eel... and I imagine the moray eel 'protects' the shrimps from being eaten by bigger fishes... 

While I was taking pictures, I could sense the shrimps climbing over to my hand...

This cute little puffer fish...again, I have to look up its name in the books...

Was following its movement for several minutes...

Really enjoyed watching it darting here and there...

And can you see the rock 'face' with the left arm up-stretched, index finger pointing upwards, 'kissed' by that little cutie?

These little fishes, chromis I think... their colors... so crisp and brilliant...

Ooh, it feels like heaven down there...

At Paradise Two dive site, there are a couple of these yellow trumpet fishes...

They have this habit of swimming head down... ever ready to snap at an un-suspecting prey...

The giant clams...

They come in several different colors and I think the bluish-purple is the most pretty...

These clams are huge and they are a delicacy in Okinawa and I think, the Philippines...

They are harvested for their shells as well, which I think is rather sad...

At the Sunday Market at Gaya Street in KK, there was a stall that specialized in selling only shells...

And people were buying them in droves...

Did a check on them and was very surprised to learn that they have the ability to cultivate plants in their body tissue...

They apparently feed on the plants themselves...

Fleeting moments at Kota Kinabalu...

Just returned three days ago, from a few days' rest at Sabah...

Had always been quite attracted to the charms of Kota Kinabalu city...

She is compact enough to discover by just walking around, which is what I like..

Being a coastal city, the breeze comes in thus making the walks quite pleasant...

We normally take Malaysia Airlines for our flights back to Malaysia...

At Kansai International, we caught a glimpse of the cabin crew scurrying away...

For the past few years on our travels, we have been asking for vegetarian meals...

Not just any vegetarian meal, but Hindu Vegetarian, that is...

The main course consisted of grated coconut with okra, curry chick peas, and flagrant rice...

KK, short for Kota Kinabalu, is quite well known for its food...

For example, the seafood Tuaran fried noodles...

I have heard about how good it is and was happy to be able to try it at a supposedly well known shop just behind the Meridien Hotel...

The taste? A little bit greasy, but not too bad...

Also tried the seafood tom yam noodles...

The dish looked very spicy, but it was ok....

The other thing I like to do while at KK is to walk around the market at the waterfront...

When the sun starts to go low, the hawkers set up shop...

Seafood (again) laid out over a net...

Would have liked to try these but dared not take the risk of having to dash to the toilet....

Sitting next to the hawker stalls are the vegetable vendors...

The different types of mushrooms caught my eye...

The mountain of tomatoes... 

Fresh veggies of the leafy kind...

and bitter gourds...

A kid helping out his dad to carry watermelons...

The salt fish market... not surprising as KK is a coastal city...

There are loads of stuff being sold here... 

Such as shark fins... they still sell these in broad daylight?

And sea cucumbers...

Later on, when we went scuba diving, there was not a single sea cucumber to be seen in the dive sites... guess we know by now where they all ended up...

And finally, stole a shot of a worker processing dried shrimps...

Solidarity with Bersih 2.0 on July 9th 2011

Update #2: Am so happy that the demonstration turned out so well although we must not forget the people who were injured or killed during the event.

Update #1: As expected, there goes the water canons and the firing of tear gas at un-armed citizens.... this is what the Malaysian police is good at, that is, hitting the people while getting paid by the very same people...calling the Malaysian police mere 'rascals' seems too much of a euphemism...

Today is a really hot day here in Japan...

Had been working in the potager all morning, planting sweet corn...

But my mind keeps thinking about what is going to happen in my beloved country, Malaysia...

For today, Malaysians, cutting across ethnic lines, are going to tell the corrupted and inefficient government that we have had enough of their antics, their arrogance, their stupidity, and their contempt for the citizens... 

Since 1957, Malaysia has been ruled by a single political coalition.

This coalition is headed by big-brother UMNO, who calls all the shots...
Little brothers MCA, Gerakan, and MIC in particular, they are merely in the coalition as puppets...

Imagine, for more than 50 years, these political rascals have grown to think that Malaysia is their private property.
They seem to think that they can just dictate to people whenever they feel like doing so...

At this moment, they are behaving like third world politicians, treating citizens like cattle. 

Imagine the Japanese police trying to stop people from entering Tokyo...

Maybe this can happen during the days of the samurai when roads to Edo (Tokyo) were few and you had to travel by foot or horse...

Imagine Japan channeling her resources onto the police force to try to stop citizens from demonstrating for clean and fair elections...
Imagine the Japanese police arresting anyone who wears a tee shirt with a certain color...

What stupidity...

What arrogance...   

They re-routed the bus lines into KL city, they closed down train stations, they set up barricades on certain trunk roads, they banned almost 100 individuals from even entering KL, they have arrested hundreds of people on flimsy reasons such as plotting to overthrow the king....
Malaysia, my beloved country... you do not deserve this... you do not deserved to be run by these despots...  

And to think that these are the very same people who want to attract back overseas-Malaysians to the motherland...

Yes, with only one condition, that is, we replace you first... we kick you out first... we want you, the whole bunch, out of the government... then, we talk.... 

Meanwhile, on this historic day, I salute the steering committee of Bersih 2.0 for bringing us all to this point... 

And I really hope that the Malaysian police would not be as stupid as they have been... doing stupid things like blasting water canons on demonstrators and such...

But then, I must be dreaming to even hope so...