Nano Block Post Card

I checked my mailbox today and found myself very happy as I received a New Year's card from my family in Japan. In Japan, the first days of the new year are the most important occasion for relatives gathering. But, since I've been outside of Japan, I've not been able to join this event for past several years. So, a postcard from my family in this season always makes me feel warm.

The card I got included a toy called "Nano block", which is a Lego-like block toy but much smaller in size. In Japan, the year 2012 is the "Year of the Dragon" and 2013 is the "Year of the Snake" based on the twelve Chinese zodiac signs. Accordingly, I got a set of Nano blocks to make a dragon last year and the one to make a snake this year :P

By the way, some people may think Nano block is a copy of the Lego block. In fact, you may find that it's not likely if looking into the history. The Nano block is a variant of a Diablock sold by a Japanese toy company Kawada. In 1955, the company was given a whole bunch of dead stocks of funnily shaped pencil tip protection caps, which has two caps connected together as the inventor thought that would be useful. The company turned the failures into into toys for kids to be locked together to build things, and they found that children really liked the toy. Following the positive feedback, the company spent years to improve the product to develop the Diablock and started selling it in 1962, which is also the year when Logo block was introduced into Japan! This is an interesting coincidence :)

Manga Culture of Japan

In Japan, Manga is everywhere. The origin can be traced back to the eighth century in the Heian period. Then, the modern style of Manga, which we see today, was firmly developed and became very popular after WWII especially as a means to entertain young people. Nowadays, more than 10,000 Manga are published annually.

Unlike other kinds of comic books, the target of Managa is not limited to children. There are Manga for boys, girls, young adults, ladies, gentlemen, etc. I think the common genres are pretty similar to those of novels, like adventure, SF, love romance, etc. But there are also many educationally oriented or intellectually stimulating manga as well. For example, I have manga of Metamorphosis by Kafka, Karamazov brothers by Dostoevsky, Biochemistry, ancient Roman history, Russo-Japanese War, etc. So, it is not at all a strange thing that even older people read manga in Japan.

I like to read books, but every once in a while, I really miss reading manga. Compared to reading books, the way you read manga is rather passive and very visual. So when I get really tired but still want some entertainment, manga is a great thing for me. I think this feeling is kind of like the feeling that other people have toward movie movies. Last night, I was in something like that mood, and so I read manga. Only the problem was, I could not really stop reading manga after I had started. When I finished reading the series of manga, it was already six in the morning. I was exhausted, but at least could sleep very well.

Croissants and Japan

One of my favorite breakfast staples are croissants. I really like to feel the texture as my teeth penetrate the soft but somewhat crunchy layers of the bread. I always enjoy the rich butter flavor coming out and filling my mouth. It goes very well with a hot dark coffee. That's perfect!

The origin of croissants, kipferl, can be found in the 13th century in Austria, and croissants were a variant of kipferl that became popular in France in the 19th century. Even though it became a breakfast staple in France at the end of the 19th century, it still had remained a luxury type of bread in other countries due to the great deal of time and effort required to bake it.

Surprisingly, the breakthrough was brought about by the Japanese company, Rheon, which was established by Mr. Torahiko Hayashi in 1963. He introduced applied science of rheological engineering into automated food production to mass produce high quality "manjuu", a traditional Japanese sweet. Later, in 1968, he established a way to apply the same technology to bake various kinds of modern complex breads like croissants, and he established branches in the US and Germany. Following the introduction of the technology, not only bakeries but also many supermarkets became able to stock croissants without needing a great deal of time and effort. The company's machinery is still very popular all over the world, and it is producing various kinds of traditional foods automatically in 112 countries today.

Sadly, nobody even in Japan would recognize his name or his success. However, I always deeply respect the silent forces behind the scenes. I hope one day, I can be someone like him, who secretly brings a lot of happiness to people all over the world.

End of the Year Parties

At the end of a year, people in Japan typically hold end-of-the-year parties called "bounenkai (忘年会)", which means "forget-the-year party". Usually, class mates or colleagues gather together to relieve their stress from the past year at the party. Today, I joined the party hosted by my Japanese friends.

A kind of hot pot, which we call "nabe", is one of the most typical Japanese winter dishes. Usually, we set a big electric pot filled with a boiling soup on a table and add various vegetables like carrots, cabbages, mushrooms, etc, and various kinds of meat like chicken, fish, sausages, etc, into the pot. We like to eat this dish, especially on a cold day, to warm our bodies up. At today's party, the host cooked "kimuchi nabe" by adding kimchi into a typical miso-based soup. I usually cannot eat spicy food, but this dish was so yummy that I could not stop myself from refilling my plate :)

Also, it was very fun to talk with other Japanese people in the university. I don't usually have a chance to talk in Japanese, as there are no other Japanese people in my lab. Even though I'm getting used to communicating in English, it still consumes a lot more of my cognitive resources than speaking in Japanese. So, this was a good and refreshing moment for me :)

Hair Cut

Just before I left Japan, I went to a barber to have my hair cut shorter than usual so that I would not have to cut my hair for a while. As a result, it had lasted for 3 months. But it was finally the time; I really needed a hair cut! Once I finally noticed this, I could not wait any longer. An annoying thing is, the growth of this feeling is not linear but rather traces something like the Sigmoid curve, of which the feeling suddenly pops up after a threshold. I started to notice that something was wrong yesterday, and I realized that I was on the threshold today. lol

The problem was that it was just right at Christmas season, and seemingly there was no barber open today. So, I had no choice but to cut my hair by myself. I've done this several times before, but this time, I did not have special scissors for hair cutting. Instead, I had to use my small toy scissors, which does not work very well even on papers and strings. I did not have a big mirror, either. But I did it.

Well done, I've just finished. It turned out to look okay from the front. Even though I have no idea about the backside, I don't care because I cannot see it, haha. Well, my mom or my girlfriend would care, but, fortunately, they are both in Japan. So I can confidently say that there is no problem at all :D

Upside Down Tree

I went to a morning service for Christmas day at a church today. At the event, a speaker talked about the origin of Christmas trees that people nowadays decorate on Christmas day. The tradition came from Germany in the 15th century. What interested me the most was the historical fact that the tree was originally set upside down and hung from a ceiling! Usually, trees point to the heaven in nature. However, on Christmas day, trees were decorated upside down as symbolism of the incarnation. This means that the way we normally do may not make sense at all!

My friend at the church invited me to join a Christmas lunch afterwords, and at that time, it was so funny that his son asked him that "Daddy? Can I make our tree upside down?" Yes, if I were him in 15 years ago, I would have asked the same thing as it wouldn't make any sense anymore :P I actually saw trees hung upside down at a shopping centre, Clarendon Centre, several days ago and thought it was an very interesting way to decorate the trees. But, I now know that the seemingly strange way was actually the way it is supposed to be. It is always interesting to know origins of things :) Anyway, I hope you all had a happy Christmas.

Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve

It apparently seems that Christmas is a very important day for people here. After I finished my work for the day, I went out for a dinner with my friend, but most of the restaurants were closed in the City Centre. What amazed me was even chain stores like Starbucks and Costa were closed by six pm. I knew they would be closed on Christmas day, but it seemed the day before was the same. We walked around it for half an hour and finally managed to find an Italian restaurant and stayed there for several hours talking about many random things.

I then went to the Christ Church Cathedral to join a midnight mass. This was my second time to visit the college, but it looked very different from the last time and even more beautiful in the midnight dark. When I applied to the University, I had no idea about the differences between colleges, so I did not put any preferences. As a result, the college I'm affiliated with is one of the newest colleges in the Oxford, so we do not have such a traditional chapel. Even though my college is a very nice college to live at, I sometimes envy those old traditional ones. It was a very nice experience to attend the mass.

I hope you all have a happy Christmas :)

Tenchosetsu: Japanese Emperor's Birthday

Dec 23rd is a holiday in Japan to celebrate the Japanese emperor's birthday. This is the national day of Japan, which is to celebrate the nationhood of the country, like the Queen's Official Birthday in England, Independence day in the US, Canada Day in Canada, etc. Every year, on this special day in Japan, the inner grounds of the Imperial Palace opens for the general public to permit people to see the Imperial family.

This day was used to be called "Tenchosetsu (天長節)" after a word of an ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu (老子), "天長地久", which is an analogy of forever lasting things like the heaven and the earth. Japanese people have been feeling this way for so long that the lineage of Japanese Emperors is now traced back over 2000 years. The succession still strictly follows the Japan's traditional order of succession, and currently, he is the only reigning monarch with the title of Emperor remaining in the world. Unfortunately, the name "Tenchosetsu" was forced to be removed under occupation after we lost the war, but the way people feel for the Emperor seems to still remain the same.

This is not at all a common thing to do, but I carry around a key ring that has a crest of the Imperial family, the Chrysanthemum Flower Seal, embedded in it. I know this sounds very nationalistic, but I'm not trying to be. When I go outside of Japan, I easily get intimidated and become very cowardly because of many things like different languages, different cultures, etc. I just feel that the Chrysanthemum Seal encourages me to be more confident by reminding me that I'm a representative of the country. As a Japanese person, I would like to celebrate the "Tenchosetsu" today.

A Great Place to Call Home

When I say that I went to a school in Arkansas, everyone asks me why. I wouldn't blame for them because when I decided to go to the University of Arkansas, even I did not know why I was going there. However, it turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.

There were many things I really liked about the place. The weather is always nice with a clear blue sky. There are many trees and small animals like squirrels, rabbits, deer, armadillos, turtles, etc. Also, people are generally happy and smile at each other even if they don't know each other. A robber did not break into my house even though I often forgot to lock the door, and many friends kindly offered me a ride to an airport which is hours away. Sometimes when I feel tense, I watch the youtube video titled "The University of Arkansas: A great place to call home" and think of and miss those great days.

The school was a very nice place to study at as well. Headquarters of many big companies like Walmart, Tyson foods, Acxiom, and JB Hunt are located in the state and support education, so the school had plenty of money to make me engage in the research as I wanted. All the professors are very helpful and are genuinely nice people; when the earthquake hit Japan in 2011, many of them immediately sent me emails to make sure if everything was all right. One of my friends who only visited NY told me that his impression of the people in the US were generally not very nice. I traveled to NY and confirmed the very big differences between people in the city and the countryside. Of course, nice people is everywhere, so maybe the city was just so busy that I could not get to know people very well in the short trip. But I think this difference may be observed anywhere in the world, and I just like such countrysides.

Another cool thing about the school is when you graduate, your name will be etched into a sidewalk called senior walk in the campus. This has been a tradition since 1876, and the sidewalk, where 150,000 names are on, now reaches 5 miles. Someday, I would really love to go visit the school again to see my name left in the small town :D

Yuzu Bath on the Winter Solstice

In Japan, we take a bath every day. It literary means not just taking a shower but soaking your entire body into a tub filled with hot water. This is one of the happiest moments in a day, being released from all the exhaustion from a long day, which give us a good night sleep.

On the winter solstice, we traditionally put Yuzu, a type of citrus fruit, in the bath. This custom has been around since the 17th century in the Edo period as people believe this would prevent the cold. Winter solstice in Japanese is pronounced Touji (冬至), and the hot water therapy is also pronounced Touji (湯治), thus people decided to take Yuzu bath on the winter solstice :) This effect of the Yuzu bath had actually later been proven in science; after you take a Yuzu bath, noradrenaline release, which excitates sympathetic nerves resulting in increased heart rate and blood pressure, becomes four times more than after you take a normal bath.

After I came back from the lab today, I decided to take this kind of special bath. As I cannot find Yuzu in Oxford, I used Mandarin Orange instead this time. I put peeled skins of 5 oranges into a net and threw the net into a tub filled with hot water. The bath room became full with the oranges' smell, which I really like. It was a very good time to relax myself. When I came back to my room, I felt my blood was running pretty fast. Well, I don't know if the Mandarin oranges really have the same function of Yuzu, but I felt this may have worked as well :P

Very Expensive Living Fee in Oxford

I'm currently staying in a college accommodation where I have my own bed room but all others like a kitchen, bath rooms, etc are shared with many other residents. The view from my room is actually pretty nice. All the utilities and as well as Internet access are included, and the location is pretty good as I can commute to the lab that I work at in 15 minutes on foot. I'm pleased with all those facts, but the thing is, the accommodation fee is quite expensive; it costs me 648 GBP per month!

When I was staying in a countryside of the U.S., I had quite a big room, my own bath room, and a kitchen shared by four suite mates. It was a new complex and even included a gym, two swimming pools, washing machines and dryers in each room. This was actually one of the most expensive places to live around the school, but it costed only 490 USD (= 300 GBP), which is less than half the price compared to where I stay now in Oxford!

In the last summer, I stayed in Tokyo as I worked internship there. I think many people would imagine that living in Tokyo is very expensive; however, even there, it is actually not too bad depending on the situation. In Japan, we do not have a tradition to share a house with other students, so each usually rent an ensuite room and live by oneself. In that case, the price can be pretty expensive. However, in a place like Tokyo, where many international students live, we can also easily find a shared house. The place I stayed in last summer was right at the center of Tokyo but costed only 49,000 JPY (= 360 GBP), which again is still a lot cheaper than the place I stay now!

I've just started to look up a place to stay next summer after the current contract expires. I hope I can find a good deal for the next three more years. Without doubts, 648 GBP per month is too much!

Workin' like a Hog

I'm currently far behind schedule in my research. I think I have been spending too much time reading about politics recently. There have been too many things going on in the past week. North Korea, having successfully fooled us, launched the missile on the 12th. After the incident on the 14th, gun control has become more serious an issue in the U.S. than ever before. We had an election on the 16th, and South Korea has elected the first female president in the country today. As you can see, there've been several topics on my mind lately. Well, to be honest, I listed them just to justify the delay in my schedule.

There is something that I have really wanted to achieve by Christmas day in my research. I thought I could finish it by the end of November, but it was not that easy. The thing that makes me sick about it is the fact that in theory, the thing I've been trying should work just fine. Because of this, I've recently started wondering if the problem was due to some fundamental misunderstandings or simple mistakes. In that case, the day-to-day effort I've spent so far could have just been a waste of time. I'm just crossing my fingers.

Another thing that makes me anxious is the lack of knowledge in the field in general, as I just jumped into it. I still cannot be certain about the thing that I should start out with. I've been reading text books in the field to give me the overall ideas, but it's not like taking undergraduate courses where my main focus tended to be what I'd be tested on the exam.

In the department building, many people seem to be gone for Christmas making the hallway very quiet. I see this is a good chance to catch up. Go Hogs! Yes, I'm an alumnus of the University of Arkansas :D

Bits of Knowledge about Different Kinds of Teas

I drink tea every day. Since I bought an appliance called a French press, which is supposed to be used to make coffee, I have been using it as a tea infuser to make tea. I usually make about a liter of tea in the morning and drink it throughout the day. For now, I have three kinds of teas: black, green, and Oolong. I pick one for the day and drink them in a rotation.

All of the three have distinct smells and tastes, and their colors are different as well. Green tea is green, as it says. Oolong tea has a yellowish brown color, and black tea has a dark brown color. However, one thing that I've noticed was that these teas all eventually get to be similar dark brown color by the end of the day. I looked up the cause of this phenomenon and found that it is because catechin contained in teas is oxidized as time goes and becomes darker in color.

In fact, these different kinds of teas are actually made out of leaves from exactly the same plant called Camellia sinensis. The differences are only due to the different duration spent for their fermentation, which makes them be oxidized. So, basically, if the leaves do not get fermented, they become green teas with the lighter color. If the leaves get half fermented, they become Oolong teas with a little darker color. Finally, if the leaves get fully fermented, they become black teas. Aha, that makes sense!

Well, actually the tea I like the most for a daily drink is roasted barley tea, which is the one I grew up with. Today, my friend from Hong Kong told me that he likes to drink Goya tea, which is made out of a bitter squash. Hmm, I assume it is supposed to be pretty good for one's health. I may look for it! Anyway, it is interesting to know what kind of tea people from different places love to drink :)

Confusions When Exposed to Different Languages

One problem that often happens to people who stay in foreign countries is forgetting their native languages. Today, I was writing a postcard to my family in Japan as we traditionally exchange New Year greeting cards in Japan. However, the problem I faced was, I had to stop my pencil so many times to look up Kanji (Chinese characters we use in Japanese) that I have forgotten. It was so embarrassing because the Kanji I looked up were often very elementary. I think this is kind of like spelling in English, where you can read a word with no problem at all but sometimes forget the correct spelling.

Another interesting phenomenon that I noticed was that I sometimes get confused and cannot tell if I'm speaking or listening to either Japanese or English. This happens especially when I meet with people who only can understand Japanese and people who only can understand English at the same time like when I translate for them. This is a very interesting feeling as I realize that my brain becomes really confused.

This confusion happens also when I see films in English, which contain scenes where Japanese is spoken, like "Lost in Translation". I do not usually realize that Japanese is spoken in such scenes until my friend asks me "what did he say?". Pretty interesting, isn't it? I think (and I hope) that this means that my English has improved quite well. The only thing is, this happens only when I'm exposed to American English. This could be because I still have a difficulty capturing all the words spoken in British English. Therefore, maybe if I start experiencing this phenomenon when exposed to British English, that would be the time when I can say I have become use to it :)

Japan Election: the LDP Came Back

It was a very important day for Japanese people to decide the future of Japan; the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won a decisive majority in Japanese parliamentary elections today. On the other hand, the current dominant party, the Democratic Party (DP) lost most of its seats. Some people may feel a sense of deja vu from the election in the summer 2009 but the situations of the LDP and the DP were altered. There should be a lot of opinions, but I would like to welcome the comeback of the LDP led by Mr Abe.

Perhaps the interesting thing for people outside of Japan may be the fact that the LDP is actually not a liberal party like the LDP in the UK. They are rather conservative. I read several BBC articles about the election, and most of them seem to be very anxious about Japan's turning to the right. However, I would strongly argue against that claim.

In Japan, people can be easily labeled a nationalist with a negative connotation just by hanging the flag. So, we rarely see our flag in schools or work places except on a very special occasion. At school, children are usually taught only the bad things we had done in the past especially when talking about the war. Also, many teachers, who are supposed to be models for children, refuse to stand up when singing the National Anthem and to bow to the flag. How the children who grow up in such country could ever learn affection for Japan and work hard for the future of Japan? I just think these things have been insane.

In 2006, Mr Abe of the LDP became the prime minister of Japan. He claimed that he would lead the country "Towards a Beautiful Country (美しい国)". This did not mean that Japan was not beautiful, but he wanted to make people in Japan proud of being Japanese by making them realize the many beautiful aspects of the country. That was the time when I first went to the US, and I still remember the day I bought his book in Seattle and dreamed of the graceful future of Japan. However, Japanese media made fun him instead. Some people even read the phrase in backward, "憎いし苦痛", meaning "hateful and painful", and laughed at him. Due to a health problem seemingly caused by the stress from the nonsense criticisms, he had to resign the position only in a year. And, in 2009, the LDP recorded a historical lost by giving away the majority of the seats to the DP.

I would never say that there was nothing to blame for the LDP, but the incapability of the DP was so obvious from the beginning as they had long been the opposition party, always just rejecting the policies that the LDP proposed and never really coming up with alternatives. But it was the choice that Japanese people made to give it a try with the DP.

As a result, that became the three-years and three-months long nightmare for Japanese people. This view seems to be a consensus as the DP lost 2/3 of its seats at today's election. At least the good thing was, the LDP learned from the lost and now are more refined than before. Mr. Abe had been expressing his remorse over having thrown in his role in 2007, which he believes eventually resulted in causing this nightmare. This became the reason he challenged this role again. He sincerely promises that he will never give up again. I trust such people. I hope he can really make changes for the country.

Umbrella Use in England

The weather in England is unpredictable. Even if I see a clear blue sky in the morning, it often rains in the afternoon. So, I usually carry my umbrella around and, seemingly, that is what many other people do, too. But I noticed one peculiar trend that people exhibit in this town. It seems that people do not really like to use an umbrella if the rain is just a drizzle. Some people even look at me like they are looking at a strange creature when I use an umbrella in such weather.

I don't like to get wet. Especially in Japan, I believe everyone would open up their umbrellas once it starts to rain regardless of the hardness of the rain. For me, it is a pretty normal thing to do, and I don't actually see the point of not doing so if one has an umbrella in his or her hand. At least in Japan, I would say that people out in the rain without an umbrella are seen as rather miserable, and other people may feel sorry for them. This may be partly because Japanese people tend to care about their hairstyle and clothes too much.

Just like other normal days in Oxford, it drizzled this afternoon. As I got bored, I decided to try walking in the rain so that I could possibly figure out the reason why people do not use an umbrella. It was actually a pretty good feeling as I didn't have to be anxious about getting wet by raindrops, car splashes, etc. In fact, when I got back, my clothes dried up very quickly due to the warm and dry air inside of the building. The only thing was, as my hair is wavy, it became like sea weed at the end of the day.

I think I should use an umbrella.

The Incident

At the end of a long week, as I just posted the entry about a silly cooking story, I heard about the horrible incident in Connecticut.

The news said that 27 people were killed including 20 children.

Christmas is almost here. I can easily imagine that their parents have already started preparing the gifts for their children, thinking of the adorable smiles they would see in return, expecting the happiest moment in the year.

How on Earth can a person think to do such a thing?

This incident made me feel so depressed and so sad. There is nothing I can do but pray for them. I seriously hope that this kind of thing will never happen again.

Baking Cake in a Rice Cooker

I have no idea what I've just cooked.

Several days ago, I read an article that introduced a way to bake a yummy cake using a rice cooker. Since then, I have been thinking to try it out. As I went to a supermarket today, I remembered about it and bought things that I thought I needed for it.

But when I came back, I realized that I had forgotten to buy butter! Also, I didn't have cups to measure ingredients or an egg whisk either. I should have postponed the cooking until I got everything that I needed.

But I didn't.

I usually strictly follow recipe just like when I conduct an experiment. But this time, I actually wanted to try something different!

Using my chopsticks, I stirred the eggs, aiming to make them into a paste.
I used to belong to a cross-country team so I thought I could do it.

10 minutes passed. There was a guy who ran out of steam.

Well, but the thing is, I'd already started. It was too late for me to stop. So, I decided to skip the step.

I poured sugar and flour into the bowl and slowly mixed them together. I now encountered another problem. The dough became too sticky, apparently lacking moisture compared to the picture in the recipe. So, I secretly added some water as a solution.

Then, I was supposed to add melted butter, which I forgot to buy. There were two choices as an alternative. That was either vegetable oil or mayonnaise. I thought for a while and then chose mayonnaise as I thought both butter and mayonnaise have saltiness to some degree.

Then, I set the unknown white thing in my rice cooker and pressed a button to start baking.

While waiting for it, I was looking at the image in the recipe.

Doesn't it look very yummy?

I thought I smelled something like mayonnaise from somewhere but didn't really care.


40 minutes later, it was finally time.
I opened the rice cooker.

Well.
I hope I can enjoy eating this.

Energy Drinks: NOS and Relentless

When I was an undergrad in the U.S., I used to buy an energy drink called NOS almost everyday. I first tried it just out of curiosity, but it turned out to work pretty well as I could focus on studying for a longer duration, thus becoming a habit. Of course, that could be due to the placebo effect, but I didn't really care as long as it made me more productive as a result! In addition, the energy drink was not very cheap, so that seemed to enhance the self-fulfilling prophecy.

In fact, this price-induced satisfaction has actually been reported as a people's general tendency in various experiments. Suppose there are 5 different bottles of wines, of which each is labeled with a different price. Experiments show that most people tend to rate the taste better if the price is higher despite the fact that these wines are actually the same. Even more interestingly, the brain activities that reflect satisfactory taste are also correlated with the price label. This indicates that only the beliefs based on given price information actually can change our physiological reactions!

It seems the energy drink NOS is only sold in the US, so since I came to the UK, I've started drinking another energy drink called Relentless. I tried several different brands, but this seems to have the most similar flavor to NOS, which is neither too sweet nor does it smell artificial. Maybe it is because both energy drinks are Coca-Cola products even though the ingredients are quite different. But the thing is, the price of Relentless is much cheaper than NOS. It is a very good thing for my wallet, but is maybe a pretty bad thing for the productivity that I can get out of this :P

I cannot Live without Rice!

One thing I've noticed since I came abroad is the fact that I cannot live without rice. This is not an exaggeration at all; I am very sure about this!

Traditionally in Japan, we eat rice a lot, and I grew up in the traditional way. For breakfast, I usually ate rice along with baked fish and miso soup. For lunch, I used to bring a lunch box to a school. The lunch box had two tiers. My mom usually put salmon flakes on top of rice in the bottom tier and various side dishes like potato salad and meat balls in the top. Then for dinner, I again ate rice along with a main dish. Yes, that was how I grew up.

In the first year at university in the U.S., I lost almost 20 pounds in weight even though I was eating typical American food, which made most of my friends a little bigger lol. I don't really know the reason, but once I brought a rice cooker from Japan and started eating rice at least once a week, I got back a normal healthier look. I don't know if it was really because of the lack of rice, but after all, I started to believe that I cannot really live without rice!

Accordingly, the first thing I did when I moved to the UK was to buy a rice cooker and Japanese rice :) I bought a 10kg bag of rice at the beginning of October, and it just ran out yesterday. The 10kg of rice should provide more than 60 servings, so I think I've been doing a pretty good job hehe

The nicest thing is that I actually feel heather than ever, which makes me smile more each day :D

Christmas Carol Service

It was freezing cold today in Oxford. Even though I was wearing gloves, they didn't seem to work so well.

On such a night, I had a very good experience as I joined a Christmas carol service at the ancient Normanchurch in Binsey village. We gathered together in front of a pub in Oxford and did a candle-lit walk from there to the church. We walked on a quiet narrow path beside the river in a dark for a while. The coldness made the candle fire look very beautiful.

When I started to really feel the cold, we arrived the church. The church was very small. The priest explained that it dated back from the 12th century. There was no heating equipment installed, so it was still very cold inside. Likewise, there was no light in the church. Instead, numbers of candles were set so that we could see faces and read the words of the carols.

While I was listening to the priest, I just imagined that people in the 12th century had also been praying in the church in the coldness and in the darkness. I felt like I was sitting right next to people in old days, and then I broke out in goosebumps. I wasn't sure if that was because of the coldness or some spirituality. Anyway, that was a really good experience.

At the end of the day when I came back home, I started coughing. I hope it won't get worse.

Average Faces of the World

It seems to be very difficult for people to tell the nationality of a person just by looks unless they are from the same country or places around that country. I never thought of this fact when I was in Japan, so I clearly remember the day when one of my American friends asked me if I could tell the difference between Japanese people and Chinese people. I said yes, but he doubted me and took me to a computer lab to take an online quiz where I was asked to tell whether a photo of the face shown on screen was Japanese, Chinese, or Korean. I was about 90% of the time correct, and he was really surprised. I was surprised in a different way, too.

When I traveled to Heidelberg in Germany, there were many Chinese tourists. Among those people in the distance, I saw a family who looked Japanese to me. Just out of curiosity, I went closer to hear what language they spoke, and my assumption was confirmed. The funny thing was that they started talking to me to ask "Do you know what this building is" in Japanese without even asking if I was Japanese.

Then, I was not quite sure about the answer so I decided to ask the people around us. The white person to whom I first talked did not speak any English. The second person I talked to was German and did not speak English very well. And finally, I found a person from the US. Then, I suddenly realized the fact that I couldn't tell differences of European people at all, and understood why my American friend could not tell the difference of Asian people :P

Today, I found a pretty interesting article that shows "Average Faces of Women of the World".  I could immediately tell which one is Japanese and some other Asian people, but I completely failed all the others. Maybe this would be a good set of pictures to memorize to give a useful clue when I meet people from all over the world :) 

What will be the next Skype?

I talked with my family through Skype this morning. Because of the time difference, we always have to check what time works best for both of us. Maybe the best timing would be in the morning in the U.K. and in the mid-afternoon in Japan. Today, we started talking at 8am here and 5pm in Japan.

It seemed that they were having a good family afternoon. I kind of miss them, but I should be aware that if I were here only a decade ago, I would not have any means to talk with my family for free for so long like this. I am really thankful for the advancement of the technology.

We never know, but maybe in the next several decades, we may be able to travel back and forth between anywhere in the world very quickly and for free :D In that case, I can send my children abroad easily but can call them back whenever they start feeling homesick.

The downside of the technology would be if my future wife (or maybe me) is doting on them too much, she (or I) may force them to come back every night for dinner or for any occasion, which might be pretty annoying for them :P

Stonehenge

I woke up very early in the morning today and went to visit Salisbury, where the famous Stonehenge is located.

Whenever I travel to somewhere for fun, I usually spend a good amount of time studying about the destination prior to. Since I was ignorant about history of England, I decided to read the book Sarum: The Novel of England by Edward Rutherfurd, which is about 1500 pages long! Even though this is a fiction, the stories were generally based on historical evidence. The story covers several thousands years of the history of Salisbury, so in fact it is still a fascinating job that he managed to fit everything into the ONLY 1500 pages.

Everyday, I woke up at 6 and read the book for 3 hours, and after I came back from the lab, I read it for about 4 hours. As a result, I eventually finished reading the epic in a week! Actually, this was the longest book I've ever read in English, but this fact actually shows that the book was very exciting and interesting :P

Since the book had the stories of the construction of the Stonehenge and the construction of the Salisbury Cathedral, when I visited those places today, my visions about the places in old days were so vivid and exploded in my mind. Fortunately, the weather was very nice today, everything in the trip was so perfect.

The more you know, the more you can enjoy something. I'm glad that I read the book ;)

Curry Rice

I don't really like to cook, especially when there is nobody to eat the meal with me. But, just to save money, I often have to cook.

I usually put cut up onions, carrots, and pieces of beef into a pan, and then cook them with soy sauce and sugar. I eat pretty much the same side with steamed rice every night.

But this time, I made Japanese curry. My mom usually puts potatoes into it, but I didn't have them this time. The taste was a little different from what I remember, but it was still a nice dinner.

I miss Japanese food. :.(

Cotswolds Region

I visited a small village near Oxford city called Charlbury last week. A family living there invited me to stay at their house over the weekend. That was a great opportunity to experience the real life in the U.K. Even though there were problems of flooding everywhere in the south Oxford on the weekend, they tried to do whatever the things they could to make my stay enjoyable.

I enjoyed a traditional English dinner and breakfast. They also took me to the cities of Burford and Bourton-on-the-water, which are known as a part of Cotswolds region. Most of the houses in those regions are made out of Cotswolds stones which have a honey-like beautiful yellowish color, and have been there for several hundreds of years. The landscape was just like what I used to imagine when I thought about England. The problem was Bourton was actually almost "under-the-water" though.

We also went to a world heritage site, Blenheim Palace. I heard that was only a "palace" that non Royal Family owns. Anyway, that was the best weekend I've ever had since I came here.