Back at my "hometown"

A business trip last week to Bangkok sent me to nostalgia overdrive.
Taxis still smelled of pandan or jasmine or that minty nose inhaler which is surprisingly still around 10 years after I have left!

Get a whiff of the countryside with fresh pandan car freshener!

I am forever hooked on "Cha Yenh" - this is really sweet strong tea and nothing compares to the one sold on the sidewalk, since the tea is brewed by hand and hawkers do not use the powdered ready mix stuff that one can also buy at supermarkets.

Here's a jumble of photos I took from work...
Really, there was nothing of interest to post here except for these warning signs I took from the machines that were on exhibit. I thought I might get myself into trouble from standing too close to these signs, like getting zapped or clobbered by some machine part. Shows how bored I was, huh?!

Almusal

Kape sa umaga! I had to try this, one of several pasalubongs I got from a friend in Manila, hand carried by her über-cool daughter who is visiting Tokyo. This was my first time to taste Kalinga Coffee, so I was a bit careful about the brewing. Turned out to be a tad weak, but at least I did not come into office bouncing like a spring bunny.

Pananghalian

I had lunch at my desk last Thursday, it was my turn to stay at the office at lunchtime - to answer phonecalls, etc. - dakilang receptionist. Maliit lang kasi opisina namin kaya kami-kami na rin ang janitor, gofer, atbp.

Of course in season ang salmon so I got this really good combo of salmon "toro" (fatty salmon meat scraped off the bony parts) , okra, pickled kabu, and freshly grated sticky potato as in raw "gabi", topping with fresh steamed rice of course! Hindi pa tapos, there's a poached egg (on the left) that you have to mix as well and then drizzle with toyo - wasabi !
KAINAN NAAAA!




If you look closely in the middle, there's some precious "ikura" (salmon roe).

Hapunan

Last summer, unagi was the fish in season. It's supposed to ward off "natsubate" - that lethargic feeling that one feels in the hot months, here in Japan. Hmmm, wala naman akong naramdamang "lethargy", (bakit kaya? hehehe...) pero kain pa rin ako ng unagi after a long day. Of course may kasamang chilled beer lagi! (walang yelo ha!)


This autumn, "sama" (Pacific saury) is in season. Sarap nito, freshly grilled, drizzled with freshly squeezed lemon juice, tapos sawsaw mo sa toyo, sabay habol ng mainit na subo ng bagong saing na "koshi hikari"!

Salmon is also fatter this time of the year, and I saw "harasu" salmon belly w/ skin at the supermarket tonight! My fave pulutan! Yun nga lang, grilled over charcoal tastes so much better than my dinner tonight, which I grilled in our range. No fun... buti na lang may nihonshu.
Ps. the "new" Nissin Miso Noodles also suck.

fresh "harasu"


my uneventful hapunan, save for the
super-sarap na nihonshu (hakkai-san)
served in a "bizen" cup which I crafted myself

function follows form

Floppy CD?! That's what the designers told me their product is. The designmart area at Tokyo Designers' Week is one of the most interesting to visit, you get to chit-chat with the designers themselves and buy their products too!

this is a floppy alright

but it goes into the CD tray!

function follows form

His dying wish

I usually read the morning paper on my way to work and get a pick-me-up from Dilbert and other interesting articles. But last Tuesday morning, one particlular article tugged gently at my heartstrings, touched and lola nyo, so to speak.

This was about the survivors of a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll and that they recently marked the 50th year of that incident. There was this guy, a radio operator of the doomed Japanese trawler whose entire crew were irradiated by the bomb test, who died at age 40 and whose dying wish was...

"Please make sure that I am the last victim of a nuclear bomb."

I guess my visit to Hiroshima and the A-bomb museum 2 summers ago made me more sensitive to this person's dying wish. What happened at Nagasaki and Hiroshima should never be repeated but the threat is just getting more real than ever.

One moment you are enjoying listening to your fave music at iTunes, then time stops at 8:15, your seated body disintegrates into charred dust and leaves a "shadow" on the last remaining piece of concrete that stands among the ruins. Just like the shadow I saw in the museum, of a woman seated on the steps of bank waiting for it to open, at ground zero in Hiroshima.

Grass

I am not talking about the XTC song, this is more about the smell of freshly-cut grass.

Just in time for Araw ng mga Patay, and in case you are in front of a salad bowl and are about to munch on some healthy leafy greens...read on!

From the yahoo Q&A, "Why does grass smell only when it is cut?" comes a very interesting answer from "glutamate" :

According to botanists (plant scientists), the smell of cut grass is caused by gases emitted from each injured blade. Chopped grass releases a long list of volatile organic compounds, including methane (swamp gas), acetone (as in nail-polish remover), ethanol (grain alcohol) and acetaldehyde, a chemical similar to the toxic preservative formaldehyde.

Plants produce the volatile compounds within seconds of being cut. Some also produce the chemicals when they are damaged by frost.

Botanists are still studying why wounded plants give off a burst of volatile organic compounds. One reason, they suspect, is that the chemicals have an anti-microbial action, protecting the cut part from invasion by microbes already teeming on the leaf surface.

Some scientists suggest thinking of cut grass as a kind of chemical polluter. Volatile organic compounds from wounded grass react with nitrogen oxides in the air, helping to form more ozone near the ground (where we don't want it). And grass sheared off and left drying on the lawn releases even more volatile organic compounds -- up to 10 times as much as the cut grass still rooted in the ground. So mowing the nation's lawns may be a significant source of air pollution, scientists say -- even trumping the pollution belched out by gas-powered mowers.

Still, most scientists say there's no reason not to enjoy the cut- grass smell on a summer day. When we bite and chew raw vegetables, they point out, the veggies release their own small burst of compounds -- just as grass, clover and other plants do when a hungry horse tears off a tasty mouthful.