tuberculosis

Cats or dogs. Which do you prefer? A statistics shows that 63 % of the Japanese prefer dogs, while only 26% cats. The rest, 11%, give other answers such as ''neither of them'', ''I equally like both'', ''I don't know'', etc.

I'm not sure how accurate the figure itself is. But, I think the qualitative feature of the data, the Japanese preference for dogs, is likely. There are lots of good stories or tales about dog's loyalty. A typical story is like dog saves its master's life or something. On the other hand, cats often play sinister roles. These tales probably have shaped Japanese preference over animals.

Me? I like cats, of course.

rehabilitation

According to COBUILD English dictionary, if you say that something is at the end of the rainbow, you mean that people want it but it is almost impossible to obtain or achieve. I didn't know the idiom.

beautiful dreamer

Good morning. I sleep almost half a day these days. It's not because I'm lazy. I dream so exciting dreams everynight that I can't get up. I don't want to wake up before the stories end. However, when somebody disturbs me, I have to wake back to the reality halfway through the story.

The drawing describes the setting of the story that I couldn't know its end. I am staying at the hotel by the river. On the other bank, there is a mine. Perhaps, a copper mine. Many mine workers were killed in accidents like rock falling or something like that. There is a rumor that the hotel is haunted by ghosts of the victims. I am at the building A of the hotel to see the ghosts.

In the dream, I stayed up until midnight. But I saw nothing. I called to hotel staff and complained about the no occurrence. The staff told me ''I'm afraid that you are at a wrong place. It's Building B." I quickly packed my stuff up. And I was walking to the B building... Then I was disturbed.

You know, it's extremely difficult to see the continuation once we get up halfway through dream. It's really elusive. If I ever dream the next twist of the ghost story, I'll blog about it. Hopefully somenight.

golf

Michelle Wie is now in Japan. I didn't know that she can speak Japanese until she spoke the language on TV this morning. It was good. But one thing I can't understand about her is her website. http://www.michellewie.com/ The website does nothing more than collecting email addresses. Can anyone tell me what will happen after submitting adresses to the site?

magnificent

Taking a cursory look at the last post, I found the two consecutive ''v''s in ''Savvy?'' looks like a ''w''. Savvy and Sawy. I don't think you're savvy enough to see the difference. I won.

reprimand

I don't think they are poaching. Just recreational anglers. I decide to forgive them. Savvy?

comparative

This is a patchwork by moss and stone. The white parts on both sides of the pathway are top-dressed with white granite sand. I took this photo in the eastern Kyoto, where is granite terrain. Local people used to use the local granite sand to decorate their gardens. Now China is a main source of sand because Chinese sand is much cheaper.

Back to moss, well... I don't have much to say about moss.
It is absolutely obvious that most of the beholders of my blog have more interest in granite than in moss. That's all for today.

superlative

Japanese gardens are very mossy. Moss is the most commonly used gound-cover plant. Virtually any Japanse garden uses it to cover its ground. It is just of the same style that western garden uses lawn as a coverage. So, for me, moss is a very Japanese plant, while its distribution is global.

The smaller photo magnifies the moss. It looks like a cedar, doesn't it? Indeed, its Japanse name is ''Sugi-goke''. Sugi is a Japanse cedar, and goke (or koke) means moss.

Next post will be again about moss.

vandalism

The first snow in my district was reported this morning. Not around city, only high-elevation parts, though. It came out eight days earlier than in an average year. Given dismal news on the global warming, I'm really glad at the earlier advent of winter. The snow, however, won't stay long because the cold air mass is getting weaker. I stole the snowy mountain pic from a today's newspaper. Forgive me.

texaco

Cell phone. In Japan, it is difficult to find out somebody who doesn't have one. I finally bought mine a few days ago. Until quite recently, I was in the extremely slim population of the cell-phone virgins.


A whole bunch of advanced technologies are cramed into the tiny box. Literally, it's a great feat of electronical engineering. However, I found some of the functions equipped in Japanese cell phones totally unnecessary. For example, videophone function. I think it weird to talk through the screen on the phones.

Unlike the complicated function package, designs of Japanese phones are pretty simple. I think mine is among the simplests. It looks like a big eraser.

zoology

A farmer found the poor deerlet stuck in the bog. The legs sank deeper into the mud. My father helped the first saver help the animal. I didn't join the rescue team because I was afraid that my clothes might get dirty. Anyway, they pulled the deer out from the leech-infested marsh.

mathematics

So sorry for this snail update.

Did you know SHINJO had retired from baseball? He was not so great as a baseball player, but was extremely memorable. His last game was Nippon Series, Japanese equivalent of World Series. His team, Nippon Ham, won the series for the first time in forty four years. He closed his career with the big victory. He commented on this impressive ending ''like a fiction story in cartoon''. I think so, too.

This is weeping SHINJO. I took it. I did it. I took the photo in the last inning of the last game. This pic has to be extremely rare because he has never stopped smiling and entertaining people. Many people must have been surprised to witness the scene.