" It’s so cold today." I said, opening the conversation on the lunch table with Z-san.

" Oh, it is. Colder than the normal November." Z-san replied.

" The climate change is really kicking in. It was hotter than usual in summer, and cooler than usual now." I threw the fact on the table.

" Yes. I called my mother on Sunday. She is living in Toyama. She said, she didn’t turned on the pipe heater as it is still November. Usually she has to do it somewhere at the beginning of December. But last week when she woke up in the morning, the tab water didn’t flow. Water frozen in the pipe. The icy water only flow sometime in the noon when temperature climbed up above zero."

" Is she living in a single house, or apartment?" I wonder, as I never experienced this in my Japan’s tenure, in which all of the time reside in apartment.

" A single huge house in the hilly village. A five bed room house and she is living alone"

" Alone? How old is she? "

" Seventy nine. It is tough but she doesn’t want to leave her so heart-connected house and move with the us in Tokyo. I grew up moving from town to town every two years as my father was working for Japan Railway, so once our family settled there thirty something years ago, Mother said she will never move again."

" But in the winter that area is heavily buried in snow. How she manage? "

" She relies only to the volunteers from village office who will help clear the snow from the pathway, from the roof, you know sometime in humid day, snow is so wet and heavy and if too much on the roof, it is dangerous that the house can’t stand the weight."

" Scary. But the volunteer check on it regularly, right?"

" I believe so. My mother only one among so many in this situation. Many old ladies live alone in huge house there. And in the village, the distance from house to house is much more spread. You are not that much accessible from the neighbor. So the village office has the big volunteers team to check on them. Help them with grocery, ensure they are warm in winter, or only to come and say hello and ensure they are fine. Some of those lady aged over ninety."

I imagine that and feel blessed that my parents are alhamdulillah fine. Busy, not alone and warm in the tropical country.

It seems like yesterday when she pop-up to this world, w:3750gr, l:52cm.
Now she is, w:25kg, h:128cm.

It seems like yesterday when all she could do was laugh and cry.
Now she can tell me essay and argument.

Seven years of wonders, I witness.
Seven years of pleasure, I endure.

Happy Birthday Raisa, my forever angel.
Oct 26, 2007

The all pink roses cake as demanded by the B’day girl.

Tokyo Motor Show is a real celebration for automobile-mania. It is a two weeks mega event attract more than 1.5 million visitor from all over the world. Over 230 world’s car and auto manufacturer will fill in their stand and stage with their latest technology, most luxury, king of the wheel. The event started in 1954 and held every year. The opening ribbon always cut by the Emperor or the Crown Price.

For the last eleven years, the show has it home. It is in Makuhari Messe, one of the biggest exhibition center, originally built for the show, a 30 minutes train ride from middle of Tokyo, a two kilometer away from our home.
So, this auto celebration always affect our life. All of the sudden, every Autumn of the year, the neighborhood road will be overly crowded and jam. People sardine-packed in public transportation. All hotel is fully booked. The restaurants around have long line. Many tourist on the street. But surely, as the good citizen of Makuhari, we should not complain. After all, this event generated one the biggest income for the town, and even the prefecture, made the city keep on pampering the public facility.

One way or another, we always get free ticket every year. I should call it lucky to be able easily go to the show, every year without airplane ticket, train ride, hotel stay, whatsoever. Seeing the show for the last four years, we thought we would skip this year. But Raisa got all her class fellow talk about the show and she really wanted to go. With the free ticket on the hand, why not? So off we went last Saturday. The show is huge, it takes whole day to be able to enjoy all presented, but being just recovering from the cold, I just want to go short. Two hours.

In my opinion, unlike the one two years ago, this year show has nothing really out of the box innovation.
Hybrid latest model, super luxury and custom made model were at the top of the stages. To my surprise, the primadona came not from the top brand, but from the shadowing tier like Suzuki with the Kizashi , cute PIXY and its mother SSC.
For me, the ones attract me most is Mazda who present their car, not with the sexy stand-girl (only), but with a really brilliant contemporary dancer. It is really entertaining. Follow with Das Auto who combine the VW with live singer and dance and technology.

People said, the show always be the most wanted event for men, not only for the cars, but for the girl stands beside the car, known as the top porcelain skin, Barbie (or should I say Licca - the Barbie like doll in Japan) body, highly paid stand-girl in Japan, wears "super attractive" costume. But this year, I observed, the costume tend toward elegant business, rather than sexy, except for Lamborghini.

Every year, dear hubby and me will pick one car we like the best, anything fulfill our dream, regardless the price, family need etc.
His pick was the luxury custom-made Mitsuoka-Orochi sport car. The brand I didn’t know before but that surprised him, he said, this is a high-class brand, no mass product, and car made by order with price started somewhere around one million dollar. The place for the real cream society.
For me, I choose Volvo XC90 or XC70. Yes, I think I am getting older and can let go my mind dream fly high having kids and stuff to be carry all the time.

In summary, I would say, in Tokyo Motor show there are two things I saw: The Future and The Past.
The future, no question. Man dream made into the shape of vehicles, with all of the ever imaginable technology.
The past, the super slim, sexy, pretty single girls ( from the eyes of super-plump-no-more-single-rather-tripple-but-still-sexy-lady).

I’m down with cold. The swinging temperature, hot and cold, dry and wet, has put the toll on me. That, plus the tight schedule in the last week. Meetings end to end. Back and forth trip to Tokyo’s office for many times. Night teleconferences. And of course some play around but let me call it a sexy name: social responsibility (like go bowling till near midnight at weekdays, hangin’ around at friends’ home, bad…mommy…!).
From yesterday morning, I sneezed 2041 times if I don’t loose count. Watery eyes. Headache. Sore throat. Consumed six tablet of over the counter paracetamol so far.
Last night I had a tough night breathing from my mouth. I hardly slept.

This morning I sent mail to secretary said I will work from home half day and follow with doctor visit and rest.
So I will now visit the ENT specialist who has became friend as I am his regular customer every two or three months. He will prescribe me the exactly same set of medicine that I never finish. I just need it as my moral booster that doctor has checked me and I will be well in two days. Then after that I will go to have a nice lunch (even I can’t smell the food now) and spoil my self to a 60min massage at nearby parlor.

Nothing special about this posting. I just try to distract myself from the stuffy nose and take this chance to say: Take care you all… don’t let the germ party inside you.

In a coffee break afternoon last week, we discussed the coffee. Then came to the talk of most expensive coffee one’s ever had…

It was a late afternoon in Auckland, NZ. We just came back from the zoo had a great time greet all the koala and kangaroo and thought to grab a cup of latte  before heading back to hotel. There is a Starbucks at Quenn St. on the way back, so we decided to stop by for a quick take-out. As a the transaction won’t take that long,  rather than search the proper parking spot in that busy city center, we decided to just stop our rented car on the available spot at the side of the street. Well, five minutes max. We really want to make this quick as Raisa was tired and due for her nap.
So we ordered and stood in front of the pick-up counter holding our receipt to get our take-away cups ready.
The girls behind the counter move slow and talked to each other. What ever the they discussed, they were really into it. The work interrupted by their hot topics many times. There were no other waiting customer in the line. We were the only one.
Five minutes, the girls still chat while holding the empty cup. Ten minutes, still chat. When I asked them, they seems irritated, as if I really disturb their private moment. Something puzzled for my Japanese customer expectation.
We at last got our cups in fifteen minutes.
In this country, everything moves so slow. Not only coffee.

When we went back to the car, there were a parking ticket stick to the windshield. Oh no!
Sixty dollar had to be paid to the post office. That, plus the fine we got to pay to the car rental company.
At the end, we got to spent some hundred and thirty dollar for two cups of coffee.

In the busy Starbucks in front of my office here in Japan, with many people in the line before me, I never get my cup longer than five minutes.
And here, you get the ten minutes allotment before the officer stick the parking ticket to your car.

As said in posting about new bicycle, this is the picture of it.
My yellow bike with the luggages on it: the boring front luggage and the interesting back luggage(I don’t need ipod, he keeps on singing).