ひょうてん (Freezing Point)

Fresh Hamachi sashimi in London, I cannot believe this is happening...
___________________________

ひょうてん (freezing point) is the novel of a female Japanese writer, 三浦綾子. As a part-time novelist and housewife, her work had won the highest honor in literature in Japan in 1964. I got the book from Old Ho, he got them over the special sales. Strangely this book was getting popular again because a couple of the website I frequent mentioned this book at the same time. The story reveals the subtle, supressed side of Japanese culture. I highly recommend it for anyone who would like to understand Japanese society.

The story started with a prestigeous doctor's family. The beautiful wife was tempted by a handsome young physician, who works for her husband. There was not real betray and cheating occurring but the innocent daughter of the doctor went out walking along the river by herself while the mother was meeting the young physician. The tragedy unfolded when the little girl went missing and found dead the next day. She was killed by a mentally ill man, wondering around the neighborhood. Devastated, the doctor got suspicious about the secret meeting between his wife and his colleague, he pieced things together and got to his own conclusion that his wife is unfaithful to him. Furious and sad, he decided to avenge his wife by adopting the murdurer's daughter after the mentally ill man committed suicide in the prison cell. The orphan was sent by one of his best schoolmates, who is running the orphanage and was pursuing his beautiful wife before the doctor won the battle.

As story developed, we came to realise that everyone has something to hide, something against the other(s). But no one dare to break the ice shaking the seemingly ok equilibrium. Everyone is trying to preserve the small piece of the dignity he/she thinks he/she deserves and no one yell at each other to bring things out. It is really unthinkable in my world, I cannot bear the thought just to keep these emotions hidden for these many years, perhaps people in the cold north (background as in Hokkaido)behaves very differently from the hot/humid/violent south.

Another question is infidelity. Though the beautiful wife never had any thing physical with the young doctor, she has drifted away from her regularity, she was tempted, she was preparing for an affair, is it considered a more serious crime than actually having it?

Sporting Week with Huen's Family (3)

The next day, Sandy and I set out to the sea in the east coast. The weather turned cold and it started to rain, we were not too sure about jumping into the water but decided to check out the condition regardless. As soon as we got out of the 12k long tunnel, the sky got brightened and there was no rain at all. Putting on the wetsuit, Sandy started to teach me skimboarding. The short and light board is thrown on to the shallow water (sometimes the sand), and you have to catch the board from behind and keep your balance. The goal is to ride the small waves breaking near the shore. Though the distance is very short, but this takes a lot of skills to balance.

The quite seaside had nobody else but 2 of us. It was a bit windy but we didn't feel the chill once getting on exercising. The board can slide very fast and falling over the board was... painful because the direct contact of the sand. Time had flown so quickly, and before we realised we were very hungry, it was already noon.

We finished our skimboarding by soaking ourselves in the communal bath nearby. The natural hotspring eased the sore knees and legs. But I still can get sand out of my ears 3 days after.

Sporting Week with Huen's Family (2)

The next day I met up with Sandy for another workout session, although my back and arms were sore from the swing (not really good sign, meaning I am using my arm to drive the club). We planned to run for 5K then go swimming. Sandy didn't jog before, but her stamina is pretty good, we kept running and running. XiaoHo and Old Ho also joined us, but they are not serious runners. XiaoHo was in high spirit, I am pondering maybe we should train him to run as well.

The weather in Taipei was humid and warm, we ran for about 3K and decided to go for a walk with the crowd. Grace was already 1-finger dilated, still walking around with us. I was really worried if the baby would drop as she walked around. We checked out the ice skating ring, I am again thinking maybe we should train XiaoHo to do some speed skating... Maybe he will let Auntie Joey tag along to his skating practice when I get old.

Sandy and I went straight to the swimming pool, the first couple of labs were not really fun. Perhaps we have tired our leg muscles too much. But it got better and better. We finished our labs and went straight to the beer house. Maybe we should include biking so to make our workout the mini iron man next time.

Sporting Week with Huen's Family (1)

I went to visit Auntie Feng in Taichung one Friday when I was in Taiwan, since she is departing to Malaysia the next day, we won't have chance to meet before I fly out to Tokyo and she return to Taiwan. I like to obsorb the positive energy from her, that's almost becoming addictive to hang out with her and listen to her life philosophy (such as be very nice to yourself, if you don't, nobody else would). She came pick me up from the bullet train station, thank god for the train service, it takes less than an hour from Taipei to Taichung. She didn't really have a Taiwanese driver's license but she drove around anyways (during Chinese New Year, she, uncle Thomas and Sandy drove all the way to Tainan for foods, of course, none of them have valid drivers license. They were stopped by police officer, checking drunking driving. Miraculously they went through alright). After lunch, we went straight to the driving range, where she kept brainwashing me how cool golfing is. I tried different iron clubs, trying hard to recall the little knowledge I had with the swing. Golf swing is very counter-intuitive motion, the more you want to kill it, the worse the outcome. I wasn't doing too badly, meanwhile, Auntie Feng was so excited talking about her coming tournament, the instructor, even a potential family trip to Hawaii just for golfing.

Grand Project and the Pigeon

I was working with my mom on a project since last Summer. The project is to move my dad into a separate apartment. It just seems impossible for my parents to live together at all, since my father is not decisive enough to change anything, my mom took the initiatives and vowed to make her life better.

My mother is a woman with determination. Her plans is rational and reasonable (I don’t remember when her plans weren’t that way since I was a kid). We got another flat in the same apartment complex, closed the deal at first week of 2010. Renovation was done the following week, it is ready to move in. At the same time, my mom rented another flat to move in. The side line of the grand project is to renovate our current flat. We cleaned out the flat for this super make over. Too sad that my vacation is not long enough to see to the move, I am much grateful that they have settled into their apartments alright and my dad will be invited for family dinners every weekend.

I wasn’t too sure about my dad’s life after the separation, really need to make sure things are ok with my own eyes. I flew back in early March to check on them. It turns out that he is pretty cool with the arrangement despite the fact that he wasn’t too happy of it originally (losing face perhaps). He is taking care of himself ok and he is extremely busy with friends gathering and so on. I barely had a chance to dine with him during my stay.

He's now having more freedom to let the pigeon walking around the house. Rumor says that he lets the pigeon live inside the closet, but he was laughingly explained to me that he just tried to hide the bird when XiaoHo and Old Ho (nick name of XiaoHo's dad) visited him for Chinese New Year. Pretty cool, I was bursting out laughing, oh yeah, that is really quite funny, as long as the same joking action is not done by my husband (sometimes I think my mom is lacking a bit of sense of humor, oh well, no one is perfect).

He was even telling me how he walked the dog together with the pigeon with a lot of pride (I figure he thought that's quite innovative and should be complimented). He took the bird into his pocket and took Ilang down for a walk from his 22nd floor flat.

The way my dad walk the dog is that he rides the motorcycle and Ilang sits in the footrest in front (Ilang hops on and off when the motorbike stops. But he is really too old to see clearly, sometimes he gets into the wrong motorcycle). The bird was standing in front of the steering panel that time, occasionally flying around but always came back. I laughed again, it is indeed quite funny. Who would think a pigeon from god-knows-where has become my dad's friend and keeps him accompany?

Run, Run, Joey, Run!

I started my jog really by accident. The service apartment I live in Amstelveen has a gym on the ground floor, figuring it is not so good to stay in my flat, surfing the web and drinking, I decided to take advantage of the gym. I hated jogging because I cannot seem to handle the breathing well, panting all the way through (sometimes I feel my lungs are about to burst) is not my idea of fun. In addition, it is hard to find the right timing to do it. Before the meal you feel hungry, after the meal your stomach hurts.

I started to use the climbing machine in the gym, I can control the rhythm alright and get the cardio exercise done (heart beat can go to 184 per minute). The daily routine is very addictive until one day both of the climbing machines were out of order. I had no choice but to run on the treadmill, well, in fact, it wasn’t too bad at all. I found that I can breathe alright even if running at 10k/h for half an hour. After a couple of weeks on treadmills, I challenge the outdoor run.

Running on the treadmill is very different from running outdoor. I prefer the outdoor run, you feel the wind, see the scenary, knod to your fellow runners, calculate your next footing, it is a lot more fun than being a hamster. Once getting over the wall (the discomfort associated to running), my legs are just like a well-oiled machine, I kept thinking I can just run like this for another hour or so. Made the big mistake last weekend, I ran for too long and got really really hungry all of sudden. As if the power has shut down, it took me long time to make my way back to the apartment.

During the jog, you experience all kinds of pain and discomfort, leg muscles, ankles, and short of breath. However, the fun is positively correlated to the pain. I ran for 6 or 7 K this morning, now thinking about the pleasure, I guess I will go for another run tomorrow morning.

Disaster (Small)

I am generally not a clumsy person, unless I pretend to be Sometimes I am giving people an image that I am too strong head, opinionate and sharp, my silly idea to soften this image by pretending clumsy. Oh well, it worked better when I was in my 20s. Nowadays, no matter what I do, people fear me.

But recently I have caused quite a few damage to my hands. One time I was playing pool with Jean-Louis, who is obviously not very experienced with pool, as I enjoyed the victory by giving a powerful direct shot, my right hand ran into the pool table rim. A piece of skin was flipped and blood ran. This took a while to heal, meanwhile, I can only shower and shampoo with my left hand while holding my right hand up high.

I love avocado, I always remove the seed by striking the knife into the seed (in the half open avocado), make sure the tip is secured, then twist the knife together with the seed. This way, we can get the perfect second half. I must be very unlucky that day, the knife skid from the slippery surface of the seed, and ran directly into my pawn that was holding the fruit.

Disaster (Midium)

It doesn't seem to be the best month to me. A number of small incidents occurred. Not as deadly as losing my beloved laptop (tears), but annoying enough.

My bicycle was not behaving to its best in this month, first of all, the fender in the back had broken into 2 pieces (I have really no foggist how this could happen), the bike is still rideable, but I had to be careful not to push my bike backward when getting out of the parking space and the noise is really irritating.

One night, I was on my way happily biking to the best steak house in the city to meet with my colleagues. Despite the light rain, my spirit was high because the steak is really really yummy (the restaurant carries foods that are solid honest and never pretentious). One of the bungee cord in the back fell and got tangled into the back wheel gears, no matter how hard I tried, I cannot pull it out. A man came to my rescue, but this is obviously hard to solve without proper tool. He ran home and returned with a pair of scissors, we cut off the portion of the cord that was visible, the bike seemed ok to ride. I thank him from the bottom of my heart (I hate to miss the steak), bid him farewell and continued my journey. Strangely, the back tire was flat after the incident. Driven by the steak dinner, I rode on, thinking there should be a way to find an air pump in the steak house.

Difficult ride it was, it was worthwhile. To my disappointment, the steak house staff had no air pump. Our team finished the dinner and they all walked me to pick up my bike. As I calculated my options since it is virtually impossible to ride another 30 minutes with this condition. My colleague, Bill, found there was a air pump strapped to the back of the bicycle just right next to mine. We borrowed the pump, quickly fixed my tire. Thank god I can ride back home with it again. A small luck after the disaster.

P.S. My bike started to behave strangely after that night, when the back wheel spins, it touches the frame at one point. I suspected the ride on flat tire has bent the wheel.

P.S.2 Duck tapes fix everything, I taped the broken fender, good as new!

Disaster (Large)

I spent the whole Feburary in Amsterdam, just flew back to Tokyo on the 26th. The winter in Amsterdam is very unpredictable, the temperature dropped below freezing point, snow came at any minute. Freezing rain followed, sometimes fogs was so thick that you cannot see the building across the street.

I managed to bike to and fro work, but spent most of my time after work in the gym in my apartment. There is not point going out, IT IS FREEZING COLD everywhere you go. As my assignment comes to an end, my colleagues were all eager to grap the last chance to party with me (strange that they want to drink with this ill-tempered and not-really-socialable me, I guess that's because I bake cookies for them from time to time). Just before the Friday I am flying out, I agreed to go drinking with my team in a college bar nearby our office.

We played fool's ball (it is quite funny to see a couple of 2-meter guys tweaking the small machinary and got emotional when losing), pool and, of course, drinking the lethal Belgium beer, Le Chauffeur. As I made my way to the door, my manager called me and stuff me another glass of Westmaller. Ok, fine, I can have another drink. After that, I insisted to go, I wobbled to my bike, strapped my laptop in the back of the bike with the bungee cord as I alwasy did for the past 10 months and started my journey home.

Not until I got home then I realised that my computer was not where it is supposed to be. My spine was chilled, how could this happened? How am I going to live without a computer? How about all those personal data, bank information, stock shares records? Never mentions the work-related files, I have got a number of banks' customization , risk management system design documentation. I was nearly at the edge of breaking down, as a consultant, you are dead if you don't have your computer with you.

Cannot think too much, I turned around and traced the route I came from, hoping that we can trust Dutch people's integrity if the computer bag had fallen over my bike on my way home. I biked up and down the route for almost half an hour to no avail. I finally gave up and got back home, pulling out a sheet and writing down steps of damage control. It took me a couple of hours to really calm down, after all, it is as if I have lost my life for the past 2 and half years (not really like I have had life but ...). It is when you start to kick yourself really hard thinking what kind of idiot you are not backing up your hard drive on weekly basis.

Luckily I flew back to Tokyo in that vary weekend, I can have a spare laptop to use. Later I was informed that there were a couple of losing cell phones and laptops in the pub that night, I suspect the criminal must have followed me outside to my bike and pulled the computer bag (which just slipping through the elastic cord very easily) while I was riding away. Now I understand why Dutch people never strap anything in the back of bicycle except a case of beer.