Saturday night

Everything is still okay. The aftershocks seem to have stopped.

Electricity is still on, but the city has asked us not to use too much, and in the next few days there might be stoppages. Please don't worry if I don't write or if you can't contact me - it will mean the electricity is out.

SR - thanks for calling! Sorry, the line was cut at the end of our call.

We got gasoline today, and vegetables/eggs from the local farm shop. Supermarkets and malls were closed today.

a.k.

For my family and friends

(Sorry, I'm using the blog for this message to my family and friends.)

Fiona called this morning and I asked her to pass on messages for everyone else. Thanks for calling her. We are okay.

I was out of the office, at a research center for a meeting. We had a pretty large quake on Wednesday (caused by the same area) but no damage at all from that one. So yesterday I didn't bother about another one, but it just got worse and worse and did't stop. I evacuated to the car park with all the staff, then left after the second big aftershock. More shocks hit as I was driving home, and the only thing to do was stop the car and put on the hazards. It was like the car was being shaken by a typhoon.

K was home at the time but the house is perfectly okay. It is only one floor, not double story like most houses here, and we have no neighbors, so no risk of fire or falling things from other buildings. K had gone looking for me, so when I came home the house had no electricity and the cats were panicking. Now there are in their big cage and are in a foul mood because they've been in there all night. We keep getting aftershocks that are as big as a regular quake, so it was difficult to sleep properly.

K came back and said he'd gone to my office which is a mess. The building seems okay, but when I went to check later, I found everything on the floor. The bookcases are standing because I'd secured them against quakes, but the books had flown out. (Will have to think of a way to keep them in, in the future.) My very new 24inch PC monitor is on the floor, no cracks but don't know if it will work. Phone and laser printer are on the floor too. All the windows there were okay, which is good because the whole side of the office is glass.

The electricity was out in parts of this city until after 11pm, so I couldn't contact anyone. The phones were out, too. From what I've heard, Tsukuba is basically okay, but some buildings have broken glass, and some concrete fell. Apparently it was a lower 6 on the Japanese scale here, which is M 5.5 to 5.9. You can read Wikipedia for the levels.

I don't know what will happen from now. I think we are pretty safe here, but it is probably better not to try to phone. The phone is okay, but if more big aftershocks hit, I don't know how they will be. Anyway, it is better to keep the phone lines open for emergency calls. I'll be on email any time I'm at home. (If the modem is working.)

Honestly speaking, there is really nothing we can do. Our house is secure and we should go shopping to get food if anything is open.

But no matter where you are, please go out today and get a carton of plastic bottles of water. You never know when you will need them. Dry food, too.

a.

We are okay

We are all okay, and my house is okay.

Classroom is okay. I turned off all electricity so the phone won't work over the weekend.

I hope everyone and your family are safe.

a.k.

Convenient?

What is the difference between:

convenient              and             convenience ?

convenient is an adjective. We can use it in two ways:

1. After a "be" verb

The iPad is convenient.
Pasmo prepaid transport cards are convenient.
"No-wash" rice is convenient.

2. Before a noun

The TX train is a convenient way to get to Tokyo.
The iPad is a convenient device.
9:00am is the most convenient time for me.


So how about "convenience"? Well, it is an easy word, but not so common. That is we don't use it very much, and often it is in written English. That's because it is a noun, but an abstract noun (not a thing we can see and touch). In writing it is quite formal:

Please reply at your earliest possible convenience. =
Please reply as soon as you can. 

Make an appointment at your convenience. =
Make an appointment when it is a good time for you.

Most people make a mistake with the term "convenience store" :)  In this case we have to use a noun + noun. The first noun acts like an adjective. There are some other common examples in this pattern:

computer mouse
dog house
table lamp

So why do we say "convenience store" and not "convenient store"? That is because "convenience store" is the name of a type of store - we use that name for that special kind of store. There are other examples, too:

department store
gasoline stand
petrol station
police station
football club

If you use the adjective, you mean only THAT store is nice for you:

Kumazawa is a convenient store for me to shop at because I often go to Lala Garden Mall. 

By the way, the word "store" is more American English and the word "shop" is more British English.

Interesting cake ...

Do you remember that I went to Tokyo a few weeks ago for work and for the AED course? On the Saturday night I stayed in Nihonbashi (I'll tell you about the good hotel I always use another day) so I had dinner in Tokyo Station. After an early dinner, I happened to pass by Dairmaru Department Store on the ground floor, near the Yaesu Central Exit of JR, and as I did I noticed ....... NO LINE!

No line of what? People! There is a really, really famous cake shop there and they sell a kind of interesting cake. I know that most Japanese people know what "Baumkuchen" is, but until I came here, I had no idea such a strange cake existed.

(If you are reading this and you aren't Japanese, it is a kind of cake that is cooked on a horizontal pole. The pole is dipped in cake batter that is in a big tray, then the pole is lifted up into a long oven and heated. That first layer of cake is cooked. Then the COOKED layer is put back down into the batter again, so another layer is formed. The pole is rotated the whole time so the layers are even, like tree rings! The process is continued until the thickness is about 5cm. After that the cake is cooled and removed from the pole. It is almost always sold in pieces, not as a big round of cake.)

Anyway, back to the line .... the shop in Daimaru ALWAYS has a line and on busy days there will be 50 or more people waiting to buy cake. Unbelievable. Staff members walk up and down the line to say how long it will take to get served and to say which products have been sold out. (Wouldn't you be annoyed if you had waited an hour and just before you the last box was sold???)

So I took advantage of the rare opportunity and bought two boxes each containing a slice of cake. One was the plain flavor and the other was Sakura :)

Was it worth it? Well, the price wasn't so bad and the wait was less than 5 minutes so that was okay, but to be honest, I'm not a big fan of baumkuchen. I much prefer castella!

And after wondering about the name, I just researched it on Wikipedia and it says the German name for this cake is literally "tree cake/log cake". You can read about it here.

Lost and found

Have you lost anything recently?

Last week I lost my watch. Well, it wasn't lost so much as "stolen" :(  By who? Kuro, I guessed.

I put my watch in either of two places at home, or if I happen to take it off at work, then either on my desk or near my computer. I couldn't find it anywhere, though I hunted about for ages. I even used a powerful flashlight to search under the sofa and in all the nooks and crannies on the floor of my living room. It was nowhere to be found.

Sometimes Kuro likes to try and pull it down from where I put it near my fish tank. I suppose he either likes it shining, or he is just being mischievous. So I thought he'd pulled it down, then hit it about until it slid under something. I REALLY couldn't find it, so then I guessed he'd even picked it up in his mouth and taken it to another room. (You would be surprised what cats do ....)

I finally gave up and bought another one last Friday night. I found a nice one at a reasonable price at a small watch/clock shop on the 3rd floor of Iias Shopping Mall, on the north end. The clerk was friendly and took time to explain the different features of several brands.

As I told him, my original watch was a good one. (I was surprised to see they cost 50,000yen now! I bought mine on sale several years ago for 20,000yen when an electrical shop went out of business.) I don't particularly like the original one, but it is functional. And when I found out how expensive a new one of the same model would be, I was really annoyed at the cats. So as I told the guy, I just needed a basic watch to tide me over until I could find the old one.

You won't believe it, but on Saturday I found it :(  Kuro HAD pulled it off the shelf near the fish tank. But when he did so, it must have fallen into the shopping bag I take to the vegetable store. I'd gone shopping last Sunday, and while I put the veggies away, I'd left the bag on the floor, ready to put it back into the entrance where it normally hangs. When I put the bag back on its hook, I didn't notice it was slightly heavier than usual, but this week when I took it down, I found my watch in the bottom. No wonder I couldn't find it anywhere!

So now I have two watches. (sigh)

Snowing again :(

It is snowing AGAIN! Why, oh why, has it snowed so many times this year?

In December, I made a gamble not to buy snow tires. I thought that 70,000 was a lot of money for a set of wheels and tires if it didn't snow. (Last winter it didn't snow.) Now I regret it because today is the 5th or 6th time we've had snow this winter ...

Snow does make things look pretty; the big magnolia tree at the front of my house looks lovely. (Better in real life than in the picture.) And as you can see, my car already has snow all over it. I'll have to take the other car to work today, because it does have snow tires.

Coming from a hot country that has very little snow, I didn't know if "snow tires" was really English or just a term used in Japan. "snow tires" is okay! They can also be called "winter tires". "stud-less tires" is also fine. The reason for "stud LESS" is that in a few Northern European countries, snow tires actually have small metal studs in them. However, it seems these are banned in most countries because they damage the road surface. You can read all about it at Wikipedia.

Someone is very happy about the snow today - KURO! He's been sitting looking out the window for the past 15 minutes or so. At first he was twitching his tail, but now he is just watching the snow. Perhaps he thinks he'd like to go outside and try and catch the falling flakes?! He is watching them so intently, it is kind of funny. He especially likes when leaves are so burdened with snow, that it suddenly falls off with a 'plop' :)

tire = American English spelling
tyre = British English spelling

A delivery

Dusty and Kuro don't like delivery people. Sometimes they growl when a van pulls up in the driveway, and then run around in alarm when the doorbell is rung. But after the delivery person has gone, they love to see what kind of present has arrived :)

Especially Kuro loves empty boxes and paper bags. 

This is one of the best pictures I've taken of him, don't you think?

Pork and Pumpkin

Here is another easy recipe for you. It can be for any meal, and even to pack into your lunch box.

1. Cut a small pumpkin in half, and scoop out the seeds. Rinse with water.
2. Wrap with damp kitchen paper, microwave for 3 minutes.
3. While the pumpkin is cooking, put a tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick pan.
4. Add fresh chopped sage and thyme to the oil. (Dry herbs are ok.)
5. Heat the oil gently until the herbs are fragrant.
6. Cut the pumpkin into 1.5cm wedges. Add to the pan.
7. Cook the pumpkin until it is golden on both sides. Remove from the pan.
8. If you would like to cook meat, such as chicken or pork, add it to the herb oil.

NOTES:
1. It is easy to microwave pumpkin a little before you cut it, so it is a little softer. It will also cook faster.
3. I always use my non-toxic pan from Cuisinart, but you can use another pan or even grill.
4. Sage is great with pumpkin! Fresh herbs are really easy to grow in a pot. Sage is a bigger bush so you can plant thyme around it in the one pot. They won't die in winter if you keep them out of the frost. If you don't have fresh herbs, buy some bunches from the supermarket. Wash and dry them, and put small amounts into very small ziplock bags from the 100yen shop, then put them in the freezer. 1 bag = for one time
7. The pumpkin will stay warm for a while, or you can keep it under a fish grill set to low, or in a toaster oven.
8. Thinly sliced pork cooked in the pan is nice with the pumpkin.