Clear and hazy skies

The same landscape through a window of my office, showing Sangun and Homan mountains near Fukuoka city.
The hazy view may be due to the yellow sands?

Making Fílefìsh Sashimi!

The filefish, a relative of pufferfish, is very delicious as raw (sashimi) or cooked. We bought a few filefish from a local fish market and enjoyed in making their sashimi.

The thread-sail filefish (Stephanolepis cirrhifer), 3 for 300 yen ($3.5).

The lips and dorsal/pelvic fins are cut off (from a close relative species, Thamnaconus modestus). This single fish costed 250 yen ($3).

Peeling the skin (She said "It's fun!")

Separate the head part from the body, taking care not to damage the liver and testis (They are also important edible parts).

They are ready to be cut into thin slices of sashimi.

 See how thin are the slices! (The gold line of the plate is visible through the slices.)

Ready to eat, with soy sauce and Wasabi (Japanese green radish) or with soy sauce and citrus juice (Ponzu). 

Relaxed

All the clams were relaxed in a bowl filled with artificial sea water made by my wife. They don't know their fate coming next morning (should be cooked in our breakfast soup), but they look happy showing full extension of their feet and syphons.

Let us name them!

Naming is always fun. As a small step of internationalization of Kyushu University, I would like to suggest to name all the streets in the campuses. There are a few streets with their unique names in Maidashi medical campus, but none in Hakozaki campus.

Street names, in combination with building names, would be informative to specify places of various activities such as seminar, meeting, and lectures, if they are properly labeled.

So let us create English names for all the streets in Hakozaki campus as a first trial.

For example, a main street in Agr region can be named as Agri-street or Kaizuka street (since it goes to Kaizuka gate and Kaizuka subway station).

A farewell party

Dr. Tsujikura, technical staff of my laboratory, got a new job in a animal pharmaceutical company in Tokushima Prefecture, and left several weeks ago. He has contributed a lot in identification of carp complement regulatory proteins (RCAs) using bioinformatic and molecular biological techniques. I hope his next success in developing fish vaccines and immunological medicines for animals.

Lonely butterfly

A paper-fold air-craft has flown and landed on such a lonely place, in Ito Campus Center Zone. It keep staying as a lonely butterfly in winter.
Who can save it?

My favorite "Lonely Butterfly" is here.

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