さくらんぼ

That is the cherry from my sakura tree.
It is not the same as those you find in shops. This is the uncultivated kind. It is smaller and bitter. Not sweet at all, even though the seed from the original fruit is sweet.
It must be something in the ground that is different and do not produce the same result.

But proud to say this is the first lot of sakura fruits or sakuranbo or cherry from my own garden.

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借りぐらしのアリエッティ

 As I mentioned in previous entry, this island is going to some weather transformation. The winds doesn't know which way to blow and sometime get confused over the season. I avoid going out at this time.
Sometimes I do get stuck over plotting and story lines. I guess this is a good time to explore. Explore for me is not going into abyss blue lagoon under the sea or struggling over thick iceberg on the Himalaya. No, those are too much suffering.

There are many novels and comic books that are adapted into drama series and anime in Japan. Some of these novels are historical and some educational. Mostly those novel adapted in movies are block-busters and written by famous writers.
I will write down some of the movies and anime as we go along. Such a waste to let people out of Japan to be ignored.

If you see the screen up there, the title is Karigurashi no Arriety or Arriety-The Borrower.
This animation is from Gibli Studio which made Tonari no Totoro. The story is about a community of small people living underground. They survive by borrowing (actually taking) food from houses like lump of sugar or tissue papers. They cleverly hide but live peacefully without betraying their existence in this world.
I was studying the screen. I see every grass and how the winds blow those flowers, nature brought out so real and alive, though just anime or graphic drawing. One can never compare the talent of those graphic artists from Gibli Studio. 

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三寒四温

Spring is reluctantly leaving but not before making a great announcement of its departure. The Japanese give an appropriate name for this kind of weather.

三寒四温　or sankanshion that means a cycle of 3 cold days followed by 4 warm ones. So the island is going throught this sankanshion. A few days it will be like 24 c and then it dipped down till 17c.
I'm always caught in between these changes, actually my nose. Sometimes the sneezes get on longer but most times its just a short bout.

Anyway, here I am. Resting under the table heater. Maybe a couple of days would do me some good.

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Mentaiko

I have to finish up the collection of haiku and tanka by end of February but couldn't catch this date line. So for the past couple of weeks, I was adding up to this collection and editing it every night, way pass my sleep hour.

On top of all this activity, I have to find time to write and writing is a sitting down job. I hardly have time to leave the house other that doing some ferrying. I know my health is not so up to par now and I told myself I need to do some movement out of the house.

So I choose to walk to the supermarket. Since I need to suffer a bit, I walk to the shop farthest down the road about 2 km round trip. All this extra hard activity makes me head for the bed. I took the advise of Japanese peopl: when tired, just sleep it off.

That's what I did today. End up getting so hungry almost at lunch time. So I had this lunch with the breakfast that I missed. It is salted fish egg, mentaiko. Some mentaiko are hot like in spicy hot chilli. Adding this I washed some fresh salad and mixed it up with my own sesame dressing.

 Last night I ordered The Tales from Genji from Amazon. jp. Its not a new book but books from Amazon are still clean even though the status is second-hand. The best bargain I ever had. It is only about US$1 and the handling charge is about US$2.

US$3! I can't believe my big fortune.

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