Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Religous Japan II

The second temple/shrine was not as crowded as the first one. I just fall in love with the pond located near the entrance. It had many big fishes, koi (if not mistaken), swam lazily and eating some food threw in by the visitors.
 
This is where T*****ga sensei prayed for the second time that day. She had many wishes this year to be fulfilled. Not unlike my dear mother, she too is hoping that her daughter will get married soon. I guess, all mother is simply praying for the best for their children.

While waiting, I just wandered around and spent a nice 30 minutes taking pictures of the temple, especially the pond.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Religious Japan I

Following conversation took place some time on the second of January this year.

Kring! Kring!

Moshi-moshi!

Moshi-moshi! This is T*****ga speaking.

Hait! T*****ga sensei.....

Azurina-san, do you want to go to Jinja? Praying for the new year?

Huh! Errrr.................

C'mon, let's see how religious Japanese are....Hahahaha!

Hahahaha!

Thirty minutes later off we went to the first of the two famous temples near Naruto. The road to the temple was jammed, packed with cars. The usually 30 minutes drive needed another half an hour and yet that was a good thing. It was because if we went there on the night of the new year and during the first day, it would takes more than one hour to reach the temple.

So, she always go on the second day.

Azurina-san, you don't need to pray now because you pray everyday but Japanese only pray one time for the whole year. So now you can tell your Malaysian friends how religious we are. *smile*


Hahaha! Alright, I'll watch from here. Don't be too long.

The place in front of the first temple was like pasar malam with many gerai selling many things. We bought the fish waffles and the salegirl happily practising her English conversing with me. Not bad!


A luncheon


I had invited few friends for a lunch last month at home, trying Malaysian dishes. Glad that they came and enjoyed the food. One of them brought me a bouquet of flowers, an orchid (er...not so sure)....but anyhow the flowers were very lovely. Another brought a dessert, the look and the taste just compliment each other!
p/s The makcik in the photo of three that did not look at the camera was busy watching her favourite TV program, a Korean drama....hikhikhik!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Taste buds are dancing happily

Beside good book, I love good food. Here in Japan, I think their sushi is the best because of the freshness. Nevertheless, I think most people from South East Asia like hot (hot as chili) food. And so do I.

I had been thinking about nasi lemak with sambal ikan bilis for few days and at last, I made a nasi lemak tumis. Coming home from laboratory during the last two nights, I needed to push myself hard enough to go to the kitchen and started the cooking process. The freezing temperature made cooking harder. 

The tumis was the special thing about this nasi lemak because usually I just put-up all the ingredient in the pot and cook using the rice cooker. Anyway, the frying of spice is nothing difficult. Unlike doing the Western blotting. Sigh!

Adding the zest of cooking rice here is the rice cooker, because Japan’s rice cooker is like an amazing thing created for rice cooking. It made all the type of rice that I cook, turn out just nice. No, it was nothing like the one that I have back there in Malaysia. Much more easier, but because the instructions were all in kanji, I can't read and use it to the max. What a waste!

And as much as I love eating Japan rice, I missed the long grain type of rice. So, I bought basmathi rice and there I have a nasi lemak basmathi tumis with sambal sotong and ikan bilis goreng. Ah! Heaven on the taste buds!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Welcoming a new soul

I received a SMS from my brother late last night.

Kak, Yan dah b'ranak. Baby girl. 2.7 kg. Sis, Yan had given birth. Baby girl. 2.7kg.

We, the Ahmad family now have a new family member. She was born at 9.50pm (Malaysian time) and weight 2.7kg. Still waiting for the name though....hehehe!

Welcome and may your life be bless, the third niece!.....(^_^).....

Friday, February 5, 2010

Keep on dreaming!

There are few things that keep me sensible; one of it is the fact that I am a dreamer, to the highest level possible. Do take it literally because I mean it as a dream that one do when they sleep.

I sometime have a dream, which look exactly like the Malay drama. I said so because the dream comes with the real living actors.

I had many before but the latest one was with Ida Nerina as a main protagonist. The dream was about a widow with two children in a village, who live with her parents and brothers. They were not rich.

Then, the not so young, probably late 20’s, and educated man like her but she was also pursued by another man who was in his early 40’s. I was not so sure about the main idea behind the story. After all, the whole dream things were just like few shoots of the whole story; she with her two children, age 5 and 10 in a room of a kampong’s house doing some talking; she talked to the young man; she rejected the older man; she with her brothers and parents in their house.

I can’t remember most of the dialogue but I can made-up the story. The dreams usually were at the most dramatic plots of the story.

The dreams that come somehow diverted the pressure of my life away from me, momentarily, because it (the dream) usually happens during that time.

The oldest dreamt was the one that had both Sofea Jane and Jalaluddin Hassan.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The scorpio in me

The past two weeks had been the very interesting weeks, an emotional roller-coster rides for me. I never thought that I could get very upset and set a stage for my own performances. But then again, I did just that.

I felt very emotional one day and very disturbed with a few persons, as if I was an easy target and easily manipulated. It's either I misled people or people misjudged me; one thing led to another and at the end, my final act, an outbursted where I dropped a few diamond tears in front of my prof in his office.

Kalau orang Jepun tak suka orang asing, jangan suruh orang asing datang sini.

But he had nothing to do with the it. Since I have nobody to let out my frustration, so I poured it on him. Pity him. :)

The last stroke that hit my button had everything to do with mice, anyway! Pity me! Sigh!