Young Bloods

A recent Facebook communication with a classmate of high school days reminded me this song, which I did not like so much when I was student, but now I love. This may be what's called crying for the moon ?

Young Bloods by Motoharu Sano

Making Rice Cakes (Omochi) in a modern way

　　(Image from http://illpop.com/season_a1203.htm)

(It looks as if he is hitting the partners head.)

Unlike the Japanese traditional way of making raise cake (above), my parents have made rice cake, at least in part, using an electric rice cake-maker, considering that the traditional way needs much labor causing sever arm and back pain and it has some risk to smash the partners hands. Also in this winter, we used the machine, which is already over 40 years old but still working perfectly (proving how good job did a Japanese electric manufacturer in those years and how good was my father's maintenance). This was the best we, 79 and 50 years old guys, could do with a help of wives and a young but beginner.

1. Wash and immerse the rice of an amylopectin-rich strain (sticky rice or Mochigome in Japanese) in a water overnight to swell. (Thanks Mayumi san!)
2. Collect the rice on a colander to drain excess water for an hour or two.
3. Pour the drained rice in a pot of the machine, supplied with a half liter of water, and start to steam in the machine. It will automatically stop by timer setting (45-60 min).
   
   
4. Turn the machine switch to "pounding mode" and run the machine to make them into a dough for several minutes.
   
   
5. Collect the dough (very hot!) on a wooden plate covered by a dry rice powder, which prevents dough from sticking to the plate.
   
   
6. In this case, the dough is made into a sheet of 1.5-2 cm thickness using a rolling pin, and let it settled and harden for a few hours. (If you would like to make round race cakes or the one stuffed with black bean jam, you need take a bit of dough off by hands and shape it, while the dough is hot and soft. In my home town region, we prefer rectangular cakes.)
   
   
7. Cut the sheet into small blocks, and store in cold for several days, or frozen for longer term. They easily get moldy.
   

Would you like to know how the machine works? Mmm, I do not know exactly the mechanism. The chamber only has such a spinning blade (Teflon coated, ~6 cm diameter). You understand?

New Year!

In the new year holidays, I invited Dr. Chowdhury, with his family, and four freshmen students of our International Undergraduate Course to Tamaseseri festival of Hakozaki Shrine. They stopped at my home next to Hakozaki Shrine. It was nice to welcome them with some Japanese new year dishes.

Ginkgo Trees

Now in Fukuoka city, ginkgo trees are beautifully changing their color of the leaves into yellow. Some produce ginkgo nuts. In Hakozaki campus of Kyushu University, many ginkgo trees gave the nuts dropped on the road. Smelling bad, however, the nuts are very tasty. I love them, grilled on charcoal or cooked in Japanese pudding called Chawan-Mushi.

Field trip with international undergraduate students

As a welcome reception and educational guidance, we had a field trip with G30 undergraduate students (1st and 2nd year students) to Kurokamiyama camping site in Saga prefecture. They experience preparation of wood for fire, cooking of rice and BBQ, and strict rules of camping.
I hope those experiences would be encouraging for the students. I definitely enjoyed those activities with students. Camping fire with some drink and discussion was particularly nice.

Beautiful cheering music from Trinidad

Dr. Chris Bayne introduced me the tropical bright music and encouraging messages from Trinidad and Tobago. The Fukushima radioactive situation is still fearing. The northeast people are still under depressive circumstance, I believe. But as a Japanese, I'm very much grateful for these touching activities.
Really thanks Chris!

Hearty messages encouraging us

First of all, Fukuoka city where I live in is perfectly fine, far away from the region attacked by the earthquake and tsunami.
Several of my international friends have sent hearty messages encouraging me. I deeply appreciate them. Thank you very much.

Indeed, several of my friends are there and still to be confirmed for their safe. So I am also just praying their safe. Because of wide range of paralysis of phone/mail system and surface transportation, there is quite limited access to the people in the region. I believe they are fighting and struggling for their immediate survival, so I do not want disturb them by asking even short reply message.

My major concern is now on the situation of the nuclear power stations that failed to calm down. Radioactive cesium and iodine are already leaked out to certain (significant) level. At least two reactors are now considered to be in critical situation of melting-down. Some of them contains MOX fuel containing plutonium.....

Anyway, I would like to inform you my safe personally, and would also like to thank you for your hearty thoughts.

In my family, we prepared a back-pack containing our invaluable things, a handy radio, a torch, chocolates, and several small PET bottles of water, so that we can bring-out in emergency. We also discussed about a place to get together in emergency. This kind of preparation will be effective to minimize harms of disaster and to prevent panic.