Very popular and very local food

We ate out for lunch today. Since every one in my family wanted to have something warm, we decided to go to the "Miso nikomi udon" restaurant.
Simply speaking, "Miso nikomi udon" is a dish of "noodles in a soup based on Hacchou miso "a red-colored fermented soybean paste". "Miso nikomi udon" is cooked in a single serving size clay pan. Japanese broth, "Hacchou miso", some chopped green onions, fried soybean curd, small pieces of chicken and noodles are cooked on high heat in this clay pan for each person. And one raw egg is added as a final touch. Mmmm,perfect!
"Miso nikomi udon" is characterised by its thick noodles. Anyone that tries this dish for the first time will suspect the noodles are served uncooked. However this thick and hard noodles go so well with strong Hacchou miso soup that once you have tried it, you are on the top of the world, hopefully!
There are many "Miso nikomi udon" restaurants here and there in Nagoya So don't fail to drop by one of them and try this special food from Nagoya " Miso nikomi udon."
Here is a link to my favorite "Miso nikomi udon" restaurant. (only in Japanese)
There is a flash site on the top page. You will enjoy it.

Everybody owns cell phones

Late in the afternoon, as I often do, I went out for shopping to the department stores at Nagoya station by bicycle. Since there are heavy traffic around the station on weekends and special holidays, you can hardly find a parking area unless you stay on a long line of cars to get into a parking pool. It's not a good idea to drive there on weekends. So I chose a 15-minutes ride on bicycle and stopped it near the station buildings and headed for the department stores to pick up some fresh meat and fish and some other goodies.
There are full of Christmas decorations here and there and everywhere. One of the huge decorations that we are looking forward to look at every year are set up on wide wall of the station buildings. We had crowds of people taking a look at it, or taking pictures of the Christmas light up decorations. One of the amazing and funny sight I had seen in the crowds, was the same standing pause of people with their arms raised high up above their head trying to get a nice shot of Christmas light up decorations with their cell phones. Of course, I was the one of them. You would be surprised to see so many people from young to old have their own cell phones with built-in cameras.
For Japanese, cell phones are definitly one of their "essential item" in their bags and briefcases.

Now click right here to see those 9 pictures. (Please click an arrow to proceed)

Sunday morning

This is a quiet,warm and relaxing morning in autumn.
I don't have to rush nor care about at what time and who in my family is leaving home for work or school.
So I popped out in our garden and took a picture with my cell phone camera.
I don't think the Blogger doesn't provide a moblog.
So what I'll do first is to e-mail this picture to my computer and then post it to my blog. Right?
It'll be fun, though it will be a bit bothering.
You will see my quasi-moblog now. Here you go!

What a day!

I don't know why I did it this morning. Maybe I needed for a change or something. I took the different route to get to work.
The traffic was smooth and I enjoyed 30-minute-driving. The opposite lane leading to the center of the city was in the middle of the heavy traffic congestion and there was a long line of cars.
"Gee, I am lucky." I said to myself. "I"m glad that my office is located in a neighboring city. Not the city of Nagoya."
So with a good image I took the same route to go home as I did in the morning. It was OK halfway but soon I was trapped in the traffic jam. What the hell is this? My idea was too young to realize that this route is notorious for the heavy traffic jam to go into the center of the city of Nagoya after all. My goodness. It took twice as long to get home. It should have been "Perfect ending for a perfect day! " On the contrary!

Vegetables

Look at the price! A head of cabbages cost 499 yen. Usually it won't cost more than 200yen. No kidding!Owing to the damages the recent typhoon No.23 and No.22 brought about on the fields here and there in the country, the prices of various kinds of vegetables are skyhigh rocketing.No wonder we won't see lettuce in salada at many restaurants.It's the season we enjoy the warm dishes like stew and potaufeu at dinner in the chilly evening. Isn't it disappointing to find no stew or no rolled cabbage from our family dinner menu? I hope that the prices turn to be normal before long.

Getting ready for Monday

Every Friday through Sunday I'm off from work. I can't wait for Thursday coming. Free from house jobs such as fixing and finishing dinner and some more chores late in the evening, I am finally sitting at the computer and spend time without worring about what time I should go to bed or picturing images what to do the first thing in the morning.
And as things go, now it's Sunday evening. I've got to get prepared for tomorrow. Is there any thing left that I haven't done yet? I'm looking aroud the room and staring up in the air....and Yes, there's one I haven't done yet. That is ironing the shirts mostly my husband's. I've kept too many shirts for the weekends. Ironing the clothes. It's beyond my ability. It requires me lots of time and patience. Since there is no one else at home that is in charge of ironing, I've been honored to be responsible for this job for twenty years. What a privilege! Thanks for this, you can count on me for a clean and pressed shirt. Absolutely!

Cute Visitor

Once in a while, we have some visitors at our house garden. They are cats. Some of them are stray cats and others are pet cats.As I make it a rule that we never feed them nor tame them, we just leave them as they like. As we are all different in characteristics, so are these cats. It's fun to watch them playing. Just a few days ago, since I wanted to make a shot of flowers in a vase in the daylights, I put it on the grass in the garden and was about to take a picutre of it. Then I saw one kitty was approaching to the flowers very carefully and slowly and studied them. It is often pointed out that cats shows curiousity to anything. This is it! So here is a series of pictures I took. Just click here to see the 6 pieces of slides show.Click an arrow to turn to next.

Nice excuse

It's threatening to know there are only two flaps of calendar pages hanging from the wall. There you see "November" and "December".
Just think how much did I accomplish my New Year resolutions?
-Not much.
And how many more days are there on my hands?
-Not so many left.
The older you get, the faster the time goes!
Yes, indeed. Time flies!
But I cannot blame time for my grumbles.
I should be happy about it, shouldn't I?
I don't have to make any more new resolutions for the next coming New Year.
I'll just keep going!

As if I were at home

This is one of my favorite spots during the day especially when the wind and the sun are so nice on me like today.
It's in my one box car with a roof window full open. I make the seat flat and there I read a book looking over the sky up in the air. Besides reading, I enjoy listening to a CD, talking with my friends over the cell phone or just taking a nap.
I also have a coffee break in there or read an English book aloud. It's really something special I can feel happy about.
This car used to be a children's room when our kids were small. And now it has turuned to be my own room when I want to do something different for a change.
You can do almost anything here as if you were at home but taking a shower. All you need is just a parking lot for free.

City Park downtown

On my way back home after I dropped my husband in his office, I stopped by at the park downtown. This park run by the city of Nagoya is located next to the Nagoya Castle. It used to be on the premises of the castle and that's why there are so many old but tall and big trees still grown all over, I believe. Indeed, walking along here makes you feel as if you were in the wood. I love to see flowers taken care of by the stuffs here and there along the paths, and enjoy a cup of coffee at a guest house.
This park might be a perfect point of the city that everyone can be proud of only if there aren't so many blue tents where homeless people live in. Where else do those people stay safe, I wonder.

Making it new for the New Year

Today on such a beautiful and gorgeous autumn day, guess what I did ? Well, I worked on the sliding paper door (Shouji). That is I tore off old and discolored yellowish papers especially made for Japanese sliding doors and cleaned the doors which consist of many frames. After I cleaned them with water, here comes the very important process of the whole work. You've got to cover the door consisted of many small frames with new sheet of papers which is as white as snow. It's something similar to working on a wall paper. You should put glue on frames with a brush. Then, before glue gets dry , very carefully you cover a door with a brand new white sheet of paper. Just after you finish the job, you are very surprised to know how bright the whole room can be. This way, we can all celebrate the New Year in a very refined atmosphere. Thing is, however, I feel just exhausted after bending down for hours to glue many door frames. Brightness requires quite a hardworking.

Sweet Potatos make nice potage

A friend of mine gave me a nice receipe for our dinner tonight.It is "potage" made from sweet potatos. This is very new to me.Potatos, pompukins and beans are very familiar and popular ingredients for potage but not sweet potatos.I tried this receipe this evening. Steam sweet potatoes and fry minced onions.Put both of them into a food processor and make it until it gets into smooth paste. Put it into a deep pan and add some soup cubes, milk and cream. Stir until it makes into soft and creamy soup. Very simple, tasty and just right for autumn dish.

What will become of their daily life?

A series of typhoons had brought about tremendous damages throughout our lands from south to north. This is unbelievable. More than 10, maybe 13? typhoons as of now acutually hit the Japanese peninsula. The recent typhoon No.23 called "Tokage" was the most huge one with a powerful wind and rainfall. And another tragedy had hit innocent people in Niigata prefecture. A gigantic earthquake jolted the mountainous area in Niigata and collapsed mountains, rivers, roads, railways and not to mention houses. Things are getting more confusing. Aftershocks never leave people in safe yet.What will become of their daily life? What will become of their housing? I feel like crying out “Stay calm, the earth! Let us live a quiet, peaceful life.”