FMD, the next stage

As of midnight yesterday, all restrictions on stock movement in Miyazaki prefecture  ended.  Three months after the first signs of foot and mouth disease and after the slaughter of 290,000 pigs and cattle, there are no signs of the the disease remaining.  Through the coming months and years,  monitoring will be vigilant.  Not enough is known at this stage about why the outbreak occurred, and a further outbreak is possible; however if it occurs again,  a lot has been learned about how to contain it.

Now that the disease is contained, the effort will shift to helping farmers get back on their feet. It's likely to take years, but it has begun.

A rare blooming

The pictures above may not strike you immediately as being particularly significant,  which is perhaps a way of saying when I saw the flower above I was not overwhelmed by its significance.   

 The picture is of an Indonesian titan arum - the flower that famously smells of rotting meat.  Hiro & I biked to Koishikawa Shokubutsuen (Koishikawa Botanical Gardens), in Hongo,  which is easy biking distance from here with plans for a lazy afternoon. We took a tarpaulin to sit on,   brought a book each,  (my book of the moment is on the construction of St Peter's Basilica, Hiro's is about soba noodles).  Buying a cold noodle picnic lunch on the way there, we were set for the afternoon.  

We were puzzled to find massive roped areas  for queue making.  But it it turned out that this titan arum, had started blooming on the Thursday, three days previous.  It was the first time it bloomed since 1991.  It was total coincidence being there. We hadn't realised that the day before there were so many people queued to see it that by late afternoon, they were turning people away.   For some reason when we got there in the middle of the day on Sunday, there were few people around. I guess people assumed it would be too crowded.

   The first photo I took was as we went in.  The second I took about an hour later to email to a friend.   In the hour spent eating our lunch, the centre part of the flower collapsed, the leaves opened later in the day, apparently emitting the foul meat smell, though we were not there to see it. Had I know it would have been such a short time frame, I might have stuck around to smell it.   But what a stroke of good fortune to see it at all :).

Happy Marine Day

The weekend that just passed was Marine Day.  Marine day is a new holiday but the date was chosen because it marks the first time that an emperor of Japan travelled on a civilian steamship.
We took the opportunity to go biking to Chiba, the coastal prefecture east of Tokyo.
The wind was strong and the water not really suited to swimming - there has been extensive flooding and the water quality was less than it usually is here.   But it was a pleasant day.  And it's so nice to see sunshine.



Fishing boats in port

Fishing nets to go with the fishing boats

Looking north from the Choshi light house on Inobosaki Cape

Looking down from in front of the lighthouse

The Lighthouse

Fishing on Kujukuri Beach

Kujukuri beach... I really dont get it why the carpark needs to be built on the beach, same for the steps. According to Hiro it's because it's Asia and Asian people are very practical - I guess lugging picnic baskets 70 metres more takes a lot of energy.... My theory is more like the concrete companies had good connections with local govt....cynical I know...

Behind the beach very wide nature strips - no tsunami washing out houses here.

People take off their shoes as they leave the concrete path and start walking on the sand.  It's endearing but the effort to keep the sand clean strikes me as a little odd when there was litter (admittedly not a lot) left on the beach.... 

Heat wave

Much of Japan is in heatwave.
Last night the official temperature was 28 at 11pm in Tokyo.
It didn't get cooler through the night.
The day time temperature was above 38 degrees in places.

Thank goodness we have NHK to let us know that this is above body temperature.
Fully 15 minutes was spent on last night's news informing people how to prevent heat stress....
Drink water, stay out of the sun, wear a hat.... amazing the things you learn.

The Burmese women in my Japanese class say it's easier to endure 40 degrees in Yangon than it is to endure 34 degrees in Tokyo.  But it is easier to endure 36 in Tokyo than it is to endure winter. :)

Temperatures across Japan at 4am this morning  (22nd July)

Most of  Kanto (Tokyo), Kansai (Osaka) and Fukuoka were above 25 overnight.

Temperatures across Japan at mid day today. Most of Honshu above 30 - Tokyo's average is 27 in July.  It might be time to the Japanese meteorological agency added  35 + to the scale. 

I do solemnly swear

"I promise to obey the regulations and show diligence in my studies at ____ University'

Signed

Prospective Student

Fighting feelings of great irritation at the peremptory attitude, I signed, though I couldn't help adding that at to the best of my knowledge I haven't been issued with the regulations and definitely hadn't read them. 

Madeline rejected the draft of my email to the university in which I pointed out that such a one sided declaration showed a lack of mutual respect, and requested from them a reciprocal agreement, signed by the staff and administrators at the university declaring that they will show diligence in administration and teaching. 


 No doubt she is right, and it does make life easier.... I bide my time.

Easy summer dessert: Japanese pudding (purin)

With the hot, humid weather, and Hiro's  continuing late nights,  easy to digest midnight snacks are on the menu here more often than not.  One of the regulars is Japanese pudding, a Japanese creme caramel which is lighter and less sweet that the French version.  It's quick, easy and works reliably.

In the muffin tin

Ready to eat

Purin recipe


Part 1 is caramelised sugar, part 2 is the pudding.

Sugar syrup
100g white sugar
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/french/classic-creme-caramel.html

Follow Delia's instructions but add more water  at the end.  It should be about the same texture as maple syrup.

==============
Pudding


Heat oven to 170 degrees

2 cups (500ml) of milk
2/3 cup (150g)  sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs (lightly beaten)

Warm the milk, add sugar, still until dissolved.
Add vanilla
Add the eggs slowly, stirring.  Mix thoroughly.
Scoop out any little bubbles that form on the top.

==============
Scoop 2-3mm thickness of sugar syrup into buttered containers.(I use individual muffin tins)
Scoop pudding mixture on top till the muffin tin is almost full.

============
Put muffin tins on a deep tray with 1cm of water in it.
Cook for 40 mins (or until cooked) in a 170 C. oven.

Cool and refrigerate before serving.

+ The pudding part of the recipe seems to vary little between Japanese recipe sites - here is one

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/japanesedessertsweet/r/custardpudding.htm   (with a picture) Delia's instructions for the sugar syrup are much much better.


++ http://blog.gourmetrecipe.com/2011/02/21/homemade-table-syrup-the-frugally-delicious-version/
This also works well - and is much much easier to manage than the heated sugar type.

The rainy season (2): What is the sun?

Updated at 05:00 JST, 06 July 2010

Date		6 Tue	7 Wed	8 Thu	9 Fri	10 Sat	11 Sun	12 Mon
Tokyo		RAIN AT TIMES	RAIN AT TIMES	CLOUDY	CLOUDY	CLOUDY	RAIN AT TIMES	RAIN AT TIMES
Probability of Precipitation (%)		-/10/40/50	30/50/50/30	40	40	40	50	50
Reliability		/	/	B	C	C	C	C
Tokyo	Low (°C)	/	25	24 (23 - 26)	24 (22 - 25)	23 (21 - 25)	23 (21 - 25)	24 (22 - 26)
	High (°C)	31	29	32 (29 - 34)	31 (27 - 33)	30 (26 - 33)	29 (26 - 32)	29 (26 - 33)

10 Sat	11 Sun	12 Mon
CLOUDY	RAIN AT TIMES	RAIN AT TIMES
40	50	50
C	C	C
23 (21 - 25)	23 (21 - 25)	24 (22 - 26)
3025 (26 - 33)	29 (26 - 32)	29 (26 - 33)

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/week/319.html

Hmmm... I am not sure if it fits in the screen but from today (actually from a week ago) till this coming Mon, no sun forecast....it almost makes me want a drier...

Thankful for small (or not so small) mercies

This morning as I was body pressed, very firmly, against seven sweat covered fellow commuters,  face trying to avoid strangers' armpits,  I paused to appreciate the fact that Japan has minimal problems with body odour.

More Manners

Perhaps directed at foreigners as the summer tourist season approaches? Thank you for taking off your oversized, annoying backpack. Please do it again :) (Preferably before you bother anyone else! )

The rainy season

Drip, drip, wipe, wipe, drip, wipe, drip, wipe  ......


The rainy season is in full swing.


Terry toweling handkerchiefs mop sweaty brows, sweat oozes down ones back and front and sides, hair becomes either very limp, or very frizzy, and morning make up has tricked down one's neck by 11 am.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the rainy season began on Mon 14 June in Tokyo, 6 days later than average. (The date of the onset of the rainy season, like the date of the first snow, traditionally seems to assume more importance than one's birthdate.)

Foreigners and Japanese alike moan incessantly about the weather ... a colleague the other day was lamenting the lines of sweat that trickled down the surface of every limb, bemoaning the forests of mushrooms that were growing in every crevice of his body...  (eeeeewwwww...toooo much information.......) Mould grows, sales of "kabi killer"  and dehumidifiying crystals get stacked into cupboards,  the moisture in the air means a futon hung out to dry will come in damper, the washing takes on a certain kind of mustiness that even the 'hang indoors' washing detergents find difficult to combat.
But given a choice between winter and the rainy season, the rainy season wins hands down.  It is warm! No need for 4 layers in the house or 7 layers out,  no need for thick layers of bed clothes.  No skin that parches like a dead camel in the Sahara. We make a breakfast transition from rice to noodles. The trees in the parks are covered in folliage and hydrangeas (ajisai) thrive in the humidity.  Between the Keihin Tohoku line and Asukayama park  at Oji station in a shaded walkway, there is a magnificent wall of hydrangeas that stretches for several hundreds of metres.  The rainy season also heralds the opening of department store roof top beer gardens that high enough to catch the breeze in the evening.   It is hot and it is sticky, but it's good.