from nagaoka with love

It is sakura season here now in Parit Raja...I don't know what is the name of the tree but it looks like a sakura tree in Japan. Well, Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms, the small, delicate, pink flowers seen during spring. Cherry blossoms are known as the flower of spring and have become special flowers showing that spring is officially here. These flowers make spring one of the most beautiful and colorful seasons of the year in Japan. I wrote about sakura in Japan before and you can read it here . I just want to share some photos of us during sakura season in Nagaoka. and this is sakura in UTHM, Parit raja 

Asyik melihat sukan olahraga yang rancak ditayangkan di TV, di sebalik wajah-wajah berkilat atlet berkulit hitam yang kelihatan gagah dan berkuasa, terselit wajah asia berkulit cerah dan bermata sepet. Dada bersungguh-sungguh menyokong. Ganbare! ganbare! ganbare nihon! Gembira bila atlet bermata sepet itu menang dan kecewa bila atlet negara yang disokongnya itu tertinggal di belakang. Sambil sekali sekala dia mengupdate perkembangan terkini pencapaian atlet-atlet jepun kepada saya. Patriotik sekali dia seolah-olah dia rakyat jepun. Pepatah ada menyebut, kita menjunjung langit di mana bumi kita pijak. Yelah tu agaknya. p/s: bak kata ari chan " mama orang mesia, adik orang jepun!" ngehehehe

Undoukai or sports day that held in many schools/kindergarten here is much much different compared to the one we have in Malaysia.  After 3 times joined the event, i'm truly speaking that the sports day here is more meaningful in a way: to develop student's mind and attitude, of teamwork, of determination and of whole school involvement. The event is as simple as any other event that took place.  Here i listed down the things that distinguish us from them: pelajar-pelajar dari pasukan rumah merah dan putih there is only 2 teams involve which is white team and red team there is no khemah provided for each team, students just sit on their own chair according to their team. there is no purposely shirt for sport, every student wear their usual track suit. only the cap that differentiate whether they are red team or white there is no prize for any event, so there is no prize given ceremony during the event except for the closing. involvement of all student, regard...

Orang kata, kalau kita mahu melihat orang lihatlah tandasnya. Orang juga kata, kalau kita mahu melihat negara lihatlah pemandu teksinya. Tandas kita macam mana? Tandas-tandas awam di stesen-stesen bas, taman bunga or stesen minyak? Selain bau hancing dan tidak sempurna tahap kebersihannya, dinding-dindingnya juga diconteng dengan luahan perkataan yang tidak sepatutnya.  Lebih teruk lagi tiada bekalan air dan sampah sarap juga terutama diaper anak-anak yang dibiar bertaburan.  Mungkin tidak semua, tandas-tandas awam di KLCC misalnya jauh lebih baik dan moden.  Disebabkan itu, ada tandas-tandas ini dikenakan bayaran kerana dikawalselia oleh pihak swasta yang mana pada hemat saya masih juga jauh jika mahu dibandingkan dengan kualiti tandas-tandas awam di sini. Di sini, di mana-mana ada tandas, percuma lagi. Semua kedai n tempat yang saya pergi ada tandas.  Tahap kebersihan tak payah cerita sebab saya sampaikan boleh bersembahyang di dalam tandas yang dikhaskan untuk o...

saya sebenarnya sangat suka dengan dishware, tableware, kitchenware  atau pon kata lainnya pinggan mangkuk.  Suka sangat-sangat sampaikan kalu pergi ke supermarket, kitchen and utensil section la yang saya duk merayau lama, walaupon x beli. kadang-kadang tak beli baju, kasut or handbag baru tak pe, yang penting nak beli pinggan.  Dulu masa kecik2, my mother used to hold a tupperware party kat rumah, kalau pon bukan kat rumah sendiri party tuh akan dibuat di rumah jiran2 lain yang jugak kawan-kawan mak secara bergilir-gilir.  So, memang sejak kecik saya dah didedahkan dengan minat yang sebegini and may be because of that i followed her footsteps until i grown.  Not only me my only sister and even my sister in law too get involved in this habits. Lebih teruk lagi, mak pernah guna tupperware dia untuk bagi ayam makan, selamba tak selamba nyer orang tua itu! Since i been here, nak la jugak membeli noritake barang seset dua. And menghabiskan tahun terakhir di ...

actually during the chaos caused by the earthquake and then followed by the nuclear radiation leakage last march, we took a chances to travel to the southern area of Japan as a way to chill ourselves.  One of the place was Hiroshima which ironically is the first city in history to be destroyed  by nuclear weapon in world war II.  It has been 66 years since the first atomic bomb which dropped by the US Army, Hiroshima City now has developed dramatically and you will see no sign of suffering of the blast.  Except for the only building that was preserved as a memorial to the people who were killed in the atomic bombing tragedy in 1945. It is known as Atomic Bomb Dome.  The building was first named as Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition, before the bomb detonated almost directly above the building. There were large numbers of people died from the effects of burn, radiation and other injuries compound by illness. if 66 years ago, they faced the thre...

have you ever seen this kind of machine? Actually it is a vending machine for selling baby diaper.  I was very attracted to it when i was first time saw.  But you could see the machine everywhere here, in fact there is other machine that sell bun, cigarette, ice cream beside selling drinks which commonly we have in Malaysia. These vending machines are placed everywhere and they are in good condition and well maintain. I was away for sometime, and may be i missed something but i guess they are a step ahead in technology and a very highly civilized society.

as everybody knows, sakura or cherry flower is synonymous with Japan and it is regarded as a national flower here. So, the arrival of cherry blossom season is something that is awaited for many Japanese. It also indicate the beginning of the new fiscal year in Japan's calender. However the flower is so fragile and have a very short life span. So, they pay close attention to the forecast and turn out in large number in park, shrine or temple with families or friends to hold the flower viewing party or they called it hanami. picture from google.com Normally they would have some food and drinks, sitting on the mat under the sakura tree and chatting together while enjoying the beauty of the flowers. as far as i concerned Japanese people appreciate the nature so much that they wouldn't miss every single bit of it which comes only once a year. This scenario is something that not exist in Malaysia, furthermore with the hot and humid weather all year round, we can see any flowers...

it has been a year and now comes the time to say goodbye.  I joined the class purposely to fulfill my leisure time and now the time has become less since dada enter the primary school.  She will be at home around 3 and i want to be there to welcome her home. I gained a lots of knowledge of water color drawing from the class and surely expect to apply and continue drawing when i have time.  For me, drawing is some kind of mind therapy and i put myself into it when i draw and it really makes me feel free and light.  Actually old folks here love to attend these kind of class as a hobby and one of their way of socializing. There is variety of classes including calligraphic, dancing, language, flower arrangement, music, sewing, aerobic and knitting. That is why i'm the youngest in the class. if you have followed this blog over the last one year, you may recognize this picture below. this is my very first drawing of the class and i named it otte dori a...

i dont want to be fat. it is because it will make me feel lack of confident in something i do and the most important reason is i want to be fit to run the responsibility as a mother.  while we went back to Malaysia recently, i saw my mother, grandmother and almost my family members who are women are big in size and i then realize that i will inherit the gene if and only if i  neglect the exercise and not keeping the proper diet. my family tend to have dinner late at night which is after isyak or may be later than that. After dinner they will go straight to bed.  Thus as we know food that we eat needs several hours to be digested and the food that not digested properly will assemble into fat.  Worse come to worst many malaysian like to have heavy supper at mamak stall while watching the football match on the wide screen provided.  This is really not a healthy eating pattern. While we in Terengganu for about a week, we had this nasi dagang,...

my very own, humble, yet a special  project dedicated to my sweetheart. The very tough one, took almost 5 weeks to be completed, and i think the eyes is the most important part to make the subject at least similar to Nurkhaleeda.  And i know mine is far from perfect, but my heart is always blooming each time i'm working on it as if i see my own princess in front me. jishin/earthquakes updates: Alhamdulillah, kami sekeluarga selamat.  Diharap kawan-kawan lain di Jepun juga di dalam lindunganNya especially Kamalia, Ita, Umie dan Hanis, insyAllah.. 

Ongaku Happyoukai or Musical Concert is an annual event of the school and was held on February 20th, in Lyric Hall Nagaoka City.  This was the last performance by Dada and her class(Bara San), the most senior class as they are going to primary school by next April.  Beside sing and dance, this time Dada had a chance to play vibraphone and keyboard. Dada plays vibraphone I was very proud and happy each time i watched them on stage, and i'm pretty sure every parent would feel the same.  They really performed well as they were doing it wholeheartedly.    As previous year, the parent of Bara Class will be participate in one special performance as a tribute to the school for the good collaboration all these years.  We were singing two songs,  Namidakun Sayounara and Believe.  For the second song, though the tittle sounds English, it only has four english words in it. We did practicing it several times before the day, but some of pa...