Snow Grinder

A few days ago, I was mentioning how much it has been snowing in my place, which continued for several days and making the snow accumulating quite high at most places. It got better this morning and this gave the authorities of my hostel the chance to so some snow-clearing work at certain places where the snow is obstructing the way. Initially, there were a group of students from the hostel committee who tried to clear the snow themselves using simple tools like big spade and some trolley-like equipment, but to no avail since the snow was way too much for them. They hardly made any progress in clearing the snow away; in fact, I guess they only managed to clear one percent of the whole area. It is certainly not a simple task when the snow is as high as one meter, and sometimes even reaches the waist level of some people.

The holiday had officially begun at my place today and this is the time when almost all the students staying in the hostel will be returning to their hometown. Bearing in mind that this will be the spring break which will last for seven-long weeks and when they return in a month’s time, most of them will be given a different room, they will take back their entire stuffs home. The atmosphere in these few days in my hostel is like there is a huge shifting carnival going on.

Hence, the thick snow on the road will certainly be an obstruction to the shifting process. The authorities must have known how the students from the committee had failed in clearing the snow using simple tools. This morning, one group of the authorities came with a red tractor which would be used for clearing the snow away. Even using such a huge machine, it took quite some time for them to make a way to the side-door of the hostel. The mechanism of the machine is similar to that of the tractor used when farmers are harvesting the paddy at the paddy field. The ground snow is later released to the side of the tractor. In other words, it is just like a giant ais kacang grinder.

The will be no way out from the door on the top right if they didn't clear the snow away.

Just the suitable machine to use when you are having an ais kacang party.

My Blog Turns One

My blog turns one today.

If it wasn't for the Chinese New Year celebration more than a week ago, I would have forgotten about this. I only recalled it since I started my very first entry in the wee hours of Chinese New Year last year. Since then, I have covered quite a wide range of topics although my main intention when I first started my blog was to keep in touch with my families and friends back home. In this entry, I will take a look and reflecting at a few highlights from the past one year.

I used to get questions like how could I keep updating my blog on a frequent basis, considering the rather hectic daily schedule I have. That apart, I was also asked how could I find something new to blog almost every other day without touching on similar topics. I guess the idea just comes out randomly most of the time in which I will find the most suitable way to present it in my entries. When I first started blogging, the entries were mainly based on happenings and articles which I see from everywhere. But it evolved into something different since I came to Japan when I mostly blog on my daily life here and the different way of life and how the Japanese look at things which I encountered in this new place. That is when I come out with some lame entries which were still well received by the readers, to my surprise. One of it would be the toilet story when I thought that it would be better if I hire PCK Pte. Ltd. to do the job for me then.

At times, some of my entries was labelled as contoversial because I didn't consider about the sensitivity of the group I was poking fun at. The one that I could recall instantly would be the sushi and satay story. Please do not click on the link if you can't take lame jokes. It was never my intention to refer that to anyone but some people have taken it seriously, which is why I have toned down quite a lot since then. On a different note, coming to a new country have let me experience a few new things that I would never get the chance to do so back home. You won't get the chance to be hit by a magnitude-6 earthquake and skiing in the snow back in Malaysia, will you?

How about the amazing fireworks display which is an annual event in Nagaoka? I guess there are not many other places that you can get such an huge and breathtaking night atmosphere. The on-the-sea fireworks in Miyajima was equally beautiful as well. Who would have thought that it is possible to launch fireworks from the sea, isn't it? The harmonic music that followed along every launch of the firework made me run out of adjectives to describe the beauty with my limited vocabulary. Nevertheless, it was just a great experience to see something like that.

In between here and there, I will also blog about my travels around Japan and the short trips we had among the foreign students in my college. During the last summer break, I have gone to a couple of summer excursion which was really exciting and I learned several new stuffs along the way. That is the period when my blog entries were filled with tons of travel logs. Getting myself to the location when the first atomic bomb in the world was relased at Hiroshima was really an eye-opener to me; besides having the chance to visit some famous shrine in the old city of Kyoto.

How the city has changed since.

The second part of my summer holiday to Hokkaido was no less exciting either. Every town and city I went seemed to has different thing on offer. The romantic canal in Otaru, the historical buildings in Sapporo, the lavenders in Furano, the Ainu village in Noboribetsu, and the famous morning market in Hakodate. The best thing that I could take from writing these travel logs is that I will be able to recollect those experiences in the latter stage of my life.

The crab in Hokkaido is damn huge and sweet.

My blog took a different change of dimension late last year, when I returned to Malaysia and getting to meet her. Since then, I guess some of my entries might had made a few of you feel like puking. Yes, they are some who actually came to me and told me personally how they felt about those entries. Ironically, it is these people who will return here every time if they are not feeling well and feel like wanting to puke out. I have no idea whether I should be proud for doing such community service by helping people to make them feel better after coming here and puke out.

Anyway, it will become an endless list if I were to mention each and every single one of you who has been a frequent to my blog and giving their unweavering support until today. I am aware that there are a number of silent readers out there as well who has been following my blog, especially my senpais. That is why sometimes I will be put into a shell-shock when they suddenly quote something from my blog entries to me. Here is just a simple request from me to these silent readers. Hope you guys could leave some short messages once in a while so that I will know who are actually reading my blog. Doumo arigatous.

Putting that aside, I has made quite a number of new friends along the way, in which I has got quite closed to with some of them. It is quite amazing that blogging has made me attached to one of them, while travelling with the another one, with some small meeting ups with a few others. I hope I will get to meet up with more of them when I return home again later this year. Initially, I only wanted this to be a short and simple entry, but I ended up writing so much. I guess that will be all about it on the review of my blog for the past one year. I don't know what the coming one year has to offer but for now;

The second candle was a spare one, just in case an earthquake occurs or a heavy snow fall.

Happy one year-old, my blog.