Hot-pot cuisine

In winter season in Japan, hot-pot cuisine, termed Nabe in Japanese, is especially popular. The followings are very good TV program introducing the Japanese hot-pot in English explanations.
The series of program, Begin Japanology, provides excellent introductions of Japanese cultures, even their historical background, and is quite informative even for us Japanese with easy-to-listen beautiful English narrations by the caster, Mr. Peter Barakan from London.
Unfortunately, not all the past articles of Begin Japanology are available in YouTube, but other topics opened in YouTube from the Begin Japanology are all interesting. The others may become available in NHK-on-demand service through the NHK web site, but must be charged.

A salted king salmon

The 60 cm-long salted king salmon (chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is an annual gift from one of my best friend. This year, fortunately, he stopped by my house just after it arrived, so I could taste the fish with him. Though the fish was much salted, the meat inside is not so salty, but quite well fatty with much flavor and taste. As the last night dinner, a hot pot with blocks of the salmon meat, head, and fins, in soy paste soup, was quite delicious and warming for us in this season. This morning, we enjoyed salmon steak too; very nice.

Lab Party

We had a farewell party for Dr. Val Smith in our seminar room. It was also to welcome Mr. Yin (Visiting Fellow from Chinese Academy of Fisheries Science, Wuxi) and Ms. Charlene Fon (undergraduate visiting student from National Univ. Singapore). Students cooked several dishes, including a hot-pot (Nabe) with much vegetables and meat balls, spicy fried meat and vegetables, and Chinese-style dumplings. I served fried octopus dumplings, which are ball-shaped dumplings containing a piece of octopus and small pieces of green onions, red pickled ginger, and small pink shrimps, with source flavored with powder of dried bonito and green sea weed (Ulva).
We also enjoyed several kinds of drinks such as Japanese sake (rice wine), plum-flavored liquor, and beer.
Finally, some sets of cakes were served with a name tag (edible one written with chocolate) of the above people.
I hope their enjoyable trip back and the stay in Fukuoka.

Visiting Kyoto (pitty) and Osaka (great!)

With Val, we visited Kyoto, the most famous historic city in Japan with much temples and shrines. Moreover, this season is the best for Kyoto, because of beautiful Japanese maple leaves turning in red in many streets and hills. However, in turn, this season may be worst in a sense of being congested by tourists like us. We made a 40 min line of waiting a cloakroom in Kyoto station. We had a much traffic congestions making our bus tour behind time, resulting in a very short stay in each temple/shrine. And it was raining....
Next day, on Monday (a national holiday), we got a beautiful sunny day and visited Osaka castle. It was very nice with nice view of yellow ginkgo tree leaves and magnificent castle. In addition, we came across a outdoor concert of Japanese taiko drums played by two high school teams. Their plays were quite nice and vibration of taiko sound stroke us pleasantly.
When we considered social events after the 12th ISDCI congress (in Fukuoka), Osaka and Kyoto may be a candidate for some after-conference tour, though it'll be in hot and humid summer.


The Japanese garden in Hei-An Jingu


Ginkgo trees in Osaka Castle Park


Osaka Castle Museum


Taiko Drum by a high school players in Osaka Castle Park

Lab Excursion to Nagasaki

As a lab excursion, we visited Nagasaki Biopark (a zoo) and Iou-jima (a resort island) in Kyushu. It was 22 years ago when I visited Biopark with my wife as a honeymoon. Most of the animals there were fun to see. The funniest one was a kangaroo looking like being hangover.
Iou-jima was also fine with nice hotel and beautiful view of sea and other natures.

Hiking to Mt. Tateishi

After visit to Ito campus (a new campus of Kyushu Univ), I went to Keya district at the west coast of Itoshima Peninsula and walked up to the peak of Mt. Tateishi (210 m altitude) from Keya beach, which is popular for swimming, fishing, and surfing. Though it is a small mountain, I enjoyed a beautiful view of the sea, Keya beach, and Himeshima Island.

An old-fashioned local hot spring (public spa)

This public spa, Teraono Onsen, was extremely nice. Though the bath is separated into men's and lady's space only by a thin wooden partition, equipped with no soap, shampoo, or shower, this is well maintained by local people in Oguni Town, Kumamoto Prefecture and made me relaxed with a slight sulpher (perhaps H2S) smell, at a minimum fee (only 100 JPY).