Matsutake Gohan - rice cooked with matsutake-mushrooms

September 13th, 2005

I had some rice cooked with matsutake-mushrooms. It called "Matsutake Gohan" in Japanese. Gohan means cooked rice.

Matsutake is very expensive mushroom in Japan. We can't breed it if we could use all of the latest technologies.

Most of Japanese like a lot Matsutake, but the other country people never have it. I've heard that it's popular only in Japan. That's strange....WHY ? It smells terrific !

By the way, fall(autumn) is coming soon. There are several exciting festivals in Sensyuu.
Sensyuu is located in the south of Osaka prefecture and near Kansai international airport.
The most famous festival is Kishiwada Danjiri festival hold on September 14th and 15th.
In my city, on October. Many people are busy at the preparation of the festival. :D

SOGO department store in Osaka city.

September 12th, 2005

At Shinsaibashi in Osaka/Japan, A big department store reopened.
The name is SOGO - one of very famous department stores in Japan. You know ?

One of my e-mail friends, who lives in Tokyo, has opened her temporary shop in the department store.
The shop looks like Japanese old style shop, kind of antique shop.
She's a great artist of knitting rattan, and has published the book which is written how to knit rattan. I went to SOGO to visit her shop yesterday. She promised to send me her book with her autograph. :-)
She isn't so famous and the rattan art isn't too. But I get interested in the art. I've decided to try it. Of course, I'm a old type Japanese man, so I'm not good at knitting. :-p

Anyway, all artists can make their own art. An artist is ONLY ONE person. All creation they created are only one each in the world. So we hold admiration for them.
I was very happy to see her arts in my hands. :D


As I told on the previous post, I want to change my image and lifestyle. Her arts are fresh to my tough brain( stubborn ).

The figure(looks like a cat) on the right is one of her creations.
That's a good-luck charm. :D

I'm going to grow ..... ?

September 11th, 2005

I've decided to grow beard and mustache. :D
I want to change my image. I haven't tried to do it before.

What ? Why do I want to change ?

I'm getting old...ha-ha. I'll be able to refresh if I could change my image.

But my wife said to me, "You look a little dirty with your growing mustache and beard, like a bear...."
I was shocked to hear that...
And she got angry a little and continued to talk, "If you would actually grow them, I would dislike you." I didn't realize she dislikes a man with mustache and beard.
I might stop growing it....My life is really scary when get angry. LOL


By the way, I'm 42 years old now. What do you recommend to change my image ?

A Traffic Accident

September 10th, 2005

There was a traffic accident near my house the day before yesterday. A boy on his way from school was hit by a car.

He is my eldest son. Yes! My eldest son was hit by a car !

But he luckily escaped with a minor injury. All his bones weren't broken. And the result of CT scanning was good. I felt a sense of relief.

The policeman, who has investigated the spot of the accident, told me.
"The front of the accident car got dented terribly. I guess the dent was left by your son's bag. His school bag fortunately acted as cushion to protect his body".
Most of Japanese elementary school students carry their school bags on their backs. The bags are called "LANDSEL" in Japan. Should I call it "satchel" ?

Thank you so much ! >> The LANDSEL ! (SATCHEL?)

The driver of the accident car is the young girl who lives in the same district. When I got to the hospital that my eldest son was taken by ambulance, she was apologetically crying... She said to me, "I'm so sorry, sorry ,sorry...." again and again... I felt sorry for her reversely...
So, I said to her, "Get a grip.(Chill out.) Don't worry. My son will be fine soon. Thank you for calling an ambulance quickly after the accident. What's done is done. It's important to think what you should do after that. You are really a honest person."
I guess I was able to say composedly because my son wasn't seriously injured.

Be careful when you drive.

Why do you have the blog ?

September 7th, 2005

"Why do you have the blog ?"

I've been practicing my English on this blog as for me. And I wanna communicate with people of different nations. After that, I'm much happier if I could make friends from all over the country.

On the other hand, I have another blog written in Japanese. If you can browse the web sites written in Japanese, browse it.
I deliver several kinds of information on it. For example, English tips, sushi, and joke. :D
I sometimes receive spam trackbacks and spam mails on it. I show my Gmail address "prowler7010@gmail.com" on it and this blog. The Gmail service is very convenient for spam mails. Gmail automatically categorize whether received mails are spam mails. But it sometimes categorize correctly. :D Oh well, All the programmed process are not perfect. I know why are not because I used to be computer programmer. :-p

By the way we got to invite 100 people to Gmail service.(50 people, before) What does it mean ? I don't know why they increased the number.

typhoon season

September 6th, 2005

I sincerely feel sorry to hear the news of Hurricane Katrina.
And I thought that we should prepare for typhoons. Many typhoons will hit Japan from now to October. It is said that about 80% of storm and flood damage in Japan is caused by typhoons.

And we have to do something for global environment. It is said that the frequency of abnormal weather is increasing nowadays and it's caused by worsening global environment.

A Different Culture - new school year

September 4th, 2005

I went to take some English lessons yesterday. The female teacher, who is from Canada, asked me, "The summer holiday for kids ended. Your children have had a opening of a new school year, haven't they ?" --- Maybe she said like this. :D

I was really confused. The opening of a new school year is in April.

I figured out why she told such a thing. That's just a different culture !
In North America, The opening of a new school year is in September, you know.
That's all ! ha-ha...

Also, she asked me, "Do you know why the opening is in April in Japan ?"
Um... another student and I thought for a couple of minutes. And we replied !

"In Japan, there are so many cherry blossoms in April."
"It's the best season to open a new school year. The blossoms smell so fresh to us."

I was really tired from the thinking. :D

I'm confused about "Let me know".

September 3rd, 2005

I often login mixi, Japanese SNS. SNS stands for Social Networking Site, you know.

I sometimes see the awful topics which have abstract topic title. For example, just "Let me know."
I really cannot expect the content of the topics by just looking the titles.
If I want to ask someone something, I would name the title to describe the content. For example, "I'd like to tell me about ....."

I've decided to ignore such topics. I want to spend my time effectively.

Would you like to do SEO ?

September 2nd, 2005

I gave my factory's website SEO today.
You know, "SEO" stands for "Search Engine Optimization".

When I was doing it, I had a telephone call.

The calling person said, "I was wondering if we could build your website. Of course the cost would be cheap."

I replied, "No thank you. I've already built myself my factory's website."

He continued talking. "I understand, sir. Also, we would be able to deliver SEO. After giving your site SEO, the rank of your site at any search engines would go up. For example, Google, Yahoo...."

I additionally answered, "I've already done it. And my site is displayed as No.1 at Google, but not No.1 at Yahoo. So, I'm doing it myself for Yahoo right now. No thank you, SEO. By the way, I used to be a computer system engineer. Why don't you send me e-mails as the approach ? You're computer system company, you should approach it on the Internet. That's the ordinary method as website developers in my opinion. Anyway, I really hate such sales approaches by phone. Because, phone calls sometimes interrupt my time without thinking a convenience. I've decided not to buy anything approached by phone."

He got off the line after replied in a small voice, "I'm so sorry...."

After that I thought I had to say, "Thanks to your providing the idea of this diary." LOL

What do you think about telephone sales ? :-)

A strange(?) British custom

September 1st, 2005

I've heard a strange(?) custom about beer from a British before.
Most of the British who likes beer request barmen to pour beer with a bit of foam or without foam.
They want to drink beer as much as possible...

In my opinion, foamless beer tastes bad... I prefer beer with about 20% foam to foamless.
The foam matches up well with the bitter taste of beer. The harmony always makes me feel happy.

It's not too hot in Osaka, Japan nowadays. I'll decrease opportunity of drinking beer. ha-ha.

Wow ! I have to make out bills for August. I'll start EXCEL.....