Golf, Sex & Leadership

Today, we have a guest lecture Joseph Lee who is semi-retired, Professor in Drucker's Grad school & is a partner of KPMG.

A funny guy, he pulls a lot of jokes in his lecture. "After this class, you may not remember most of the lecture, but you would remember me as the guy who told that unfunny joke".

Here is part of the lecture which I find very useful and I will remember

What do golf, sex & leadership have in common?
1. People who often talked about it are often lousy in it.
2. Many books were written about it, but people who read it never improves
3. It takes other people can tell whether you are good at it or not.

Niigata Bust Pudding

Only in Japan.

On our way to Kanazawa for Sakura viewing, we stopped at a few rest area for toilet break and for some shopping. At the first stop, I had just woke up from a short nap. Still blur, I went to the toilet and then to see what are the things they sell at the store.

Most of the things sold in the store are very normal, nice looking candies, pies or cookies. However, suddenly my eyes fell on this item.

It says "Niigata Bust Pudding". I was wondering, are they misspelling the product (they often did in Japan). However, they even have a sample of the box opened, which is the same below.


Open the box, you will see a woman with big bust, wearing pink bra.



Then, you can unhook the bra from the front.


And ta-da!!!! 2 nice looking pudding for you to enjoy. Yes, you can eat or taste that pudding.


Fully opened box, with 2 real pudding, spoon & honey!!!!


All these are just for 347 yen, or RM10 :P..... worth it!!!

Prof John's Stories: Foot Injury

Prof. John told me that his feet has a fractured bone. Therefore sometimes when he walk, he will feel an acute pain between the ankle & the balls of his feet.

He relate the incident back to few years ago when he was in Tokyo. He had to give lecturers in Tokyo, therefore he had to wear formal attire with leather shoes. And so happen he walked almost 1 hour back & forth to find a shop. When he reached back to his apartment in Tokyo, his feet started to complain, calling out in pain. He ignored the pain.

However, nothing much happened until recently when the pain at the same position kept coming back to him. When he went to doctor & took X-ray, he found out that there is a small piece of bone fractured at his feet, therefore causing the pain.

Now, he wear sports shoes most of the time, always cautioning people of walking too long on cement with formal shoes.

Spring Color

Spring is here. Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. Everything is supposed to be colorful and so should be the hair color, not just black. That's why I've decided to color my hair.

Saloon in Japan is so EXPENSIVE. Haircut costs 4000 yen (RM120) (with discount 2000 yen or RM60). The cheapest in Japan is 1000 yen (RM30). Around my school, the cheapest is 1600 yen (RM 50).

With all these exorbitant price, I've decided NOT to cut my hair and color them in Saloon. I bought a box of color from Jusco and with help of friend, colored my hair brown.

And it turned out so good that many people say it looked nice on me. Ben, Charles & me, 3 MBA guys colored our hair this term.

When they asked about my hair, I always replied, "It's Spring Color".

Sunset, the Golden Moment

My room is facing west. This means, everyday, I am able to enjoy the magnificent view of sunset.

Now I understand what is the golden minute that all photographers talk about. The most beautiful moment of every single day last justs 4-5 minutes a day. People traveled for hours from cities and paid hundreds of dollars to see these sunset.

Now I have the privilege to enjoy these moments everyday. These are what they called the golden minute.

Click on the images to enlarge






Sunset in the autumn

It's Spring

Few days ago, birds start to chirp, waken up from hibernation. Insects start to fly into my room.

Winter finally ended. The peak was almost 2m of snow. The whole walkway from dorm to classes were covered in snow. I was looking at the autumn pictures and the scenery is so much different. Winter is so beautiful and I'll miss it.


To this one




Soon the confinement would end and I'll be able to cycle to Koide and all the other places

Malaysia General Election

March 8th is Malaysia's General Election. Being so far from Malaysia, it is almost impossible to get the latest information 5 years ago. However, Internet changed everything.

I know that it would be election when my friend MSN'ed me at 12pm, just minutes after the announcement were made. Many of my Malaysia friends didn't even know about it at that moment. The geographical distance from Malaysia was made so small.

Days before the election, news, commentaries, articles, predictions and rumors appeared in blogs, news sites and political party websites. Even though heavy censorship and news blackout happened in mainstream media, all news are available online.

On that night during poll count, me and a few friends started MSN chat starting at 10pm. Soon, many more people got online, and we started a 10 people online conference chat. We have people from UK, Japan, China, Penang, KL, Taiping and Ipoh, all discussing about the latest news, all of us scurrying around websites updating each other on the latest results. We were the same group that used to chat face-to-face in mamak in Section 17 when we studied in UM. The only difference now is that we cannot see other's face, but the quality of conversation is still the same. I could imagine listening to each other's voice.

Soon, I've started another MSN group, with 8 of UC's ex-staff. We have people from Sabah, Penang, KL and me from Japan and continue until 3am.

Condolences

Our economics Professor's mother has passes away, and today he flew back to Sri Lanka to attend her funeral. Over the weekend, Manisha made a condolences card to be passed to him when he come back the next week. I was the 2nd person to write on it.

We used the passing method to distribute the card to everyone. Once you get it, sign it & find another coursemate who has not signed & pass to him/her. Soon, the card reached back to me again in the kitchen & I passed it to Yoichiro, a Japanese.

We struck conversation, he was quite surprised that we made the condolences card. According to him, Japanese would not send such card when someone has died, because it shows disrespect to the person whose family member passed away. I explained to him that in the west or other countries, it is courtesy to send the card to show that we cared for such person.

Such a difference in Japanese culture.

21st Century Family

This is Manisha, the modern mom in our university.




We went together to the Muikamachi Snow festival with several others. On the way back, we asked her why we haven't seen her son who's staying with here in campus for so many days. She said her son went back to her country in India.

On our way back, her phone rang. "Hi Elish". Her son called from India, "Mom, I don't know how to do this homework, can you teach me?". "Ok, show me the question using the phone (3G Camera phone). It's not clear, point it upwards. OK, this is how you should do it... ... ... Do you need that book? I'll order it through Amazon and have it sent to you."

Her son Elish has been traveling alone from Singapore to Japan, Tokyo to Urasa, Tokyo to India all by himself. We ask if she's worried if her son get lost. She said no, because her son can always call. Furthermore, using location based service, she can know her son's exact location at any time.

Here in Japan, everyone is using the latest technology to its maximum potential and I'm surprised how an ordinary parent in Japan has been using the technologies so much, Internet, video call, GPS etc.

Prof John's Stories: Fall into snow

In the gym, Prof John was telling us to be careful during winter. Every year, someone will surely fall down to drain and die. In the winter, snow got so thick that it's almost impossible to differentiate drain from the normal flatland.

2 years ago, they found a body of a local people in the Urasa river. John said that the people must have drank too much, and then when they go piss, they went far away from the rest of the group, ventured to loose ice on river bank and fell into the river when the snow collapses.

Therefore it is always a good idea to stay as far away from river banks as possible.

Prof John's Stories: Cross Country Ski

Prof. John is an athletic man. He said that he used to ski a lot in the winter. Not just normal skiing. He did Cross Country Ski. That means he opens up new paths in the snow, up & down the hills, make sure the snow are compact enough to for support.

Try opening ski path in places like this.

Those who have ski would know how hard it is to open a new path or going uphill. And John would do this everyday in the winter, same path, during the lunch time, alone. It is very dangerous to divert away from the path you created because you might fall into deep places which couldn't be seen in the snow.

One day few years ago when it was almost spring, he said he has diverted away from his original path that he made over the winter, and then suddenly fell 2m down into a well. Luckily the well still have snow inside it. If not it would be a 5m fall.

He got out with only some bruises and no major injuries.

Prof John's Stories: IUJ was underwater

Came back from Urasa's supermarket in IUJ Bus & was sitting beside Prof. John. He was started to tell stories on how the spring is about to come, where birds would be singing.

When we almost arrive in IUJ, he started to show me a patch of black trees in the middle of the fully snow covered, white mountain. He mentioned that it was one of the very first Buddhist temple site in this area.

Why do they build it so high?

Well, simply because last time, the whole Urasa & IUJ was underwater. That's why a lot of ancient buildings were at the higher ground. That's why there are some places called Prawn Island, this Island, that island still exists around these area.


Everything in the pic was under water!!!

He added that if we go near the hills, we are still able to see the shoreline now. OK, i'll go search for those shorelines in the spring.

Prof John's Stories: People die falling from roof

It was almost the end of winter. Workers were seen today clearing the ice that has been accumulated on top of the roof.


In gym, John told me that every year without fail, there will be people die falling from the roof top while clearing the snow in around Urasa, Muikamachi and Koide area.

Considering the small population in all these area combined, it's interesting to see the high death rate for such a unique kind of accident. He added on however, that the locals have been clearing snow from roof for ages.

However, the only difference is that now people fall into cement to their death, while the last time, people fall into soil and survived.

Professor John

This is Professor John,Welfield. We call him John, because he's not our professor.

I first heard of his name when I jogged & talked to the locals on my 2nd day here, they asked me whether I know John-san or not. They said that he always go and chat with them.



We can be certainly sure to find him in the gym everyday without fail at 6pm. Everyone who goes to gym knows him. Everyone who eats in shokudo knows that he specially orders butter toast for lunch.

However, what I will remember him is his stories. An Australian, he's been in IUJ for 15 years. He knows many stories that were untold and unknown stories to many of the students here, which I will post up in the future.

Chinese New Year

First time celebrating Chinese New Year away from family with mid-term exam the following week!!!


Around 20-30 Chinese in IUJ from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, US, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and others, came together to have reunion dinner in SD1 lounge.


Charles from Taiwan, me from Malaysia & Chin Yung from Taiwan/HongKong/Singapore. I just forgot that I was not supposed to wear black.

Each of us came with our own country's dish. 30 of us came up with 25 dishes

I made the famous Malaysian Bak Kut Teh. Just put in pork, garlic, some mushroom & boil with the essence and it's ready in 30 mins.


We have snacks, mandarin oranges, beer & soft drinks, just like what we have back in Malaysia.


One thing that I learned is that in China, making dumpling is a tradition. And the dumpling is made after the dinner, where everyone is supposed to help roll the flour into thin dumpling skin, put in some meat & wrap it.

This is how we make the dumpling's ingredient before the party started.


Of course, everyone helped and tried even non-chinese. Many were first timer.


And we found a way to punish those who wore black.

IUJ Ski Day

What's that....
IUJ's student society, called GSO, organizes the IUJ Ski Day every year. For ski, normally there are 2 things we have to pay for, the ski pass & the equipment rental. GSO negotiates bulk discount from the ski operator & from the equipment rental. I paid 2500 yen (1500 for ski pass + 1000 for ski rental).

On that day...


IUJ bus took us to the Hakkai-san ski resort, which is just 10 minutes away. However, Ben drove us there instead since the first bus left earlier than we thought.


Reached the ski-area, I immediately go to the equipment rental shop to get my ski equipments, buckle up & started skiing.


Start Skiing...

We take the ski lift to reach the top. The lift here takes much longer time than Urasa's ski to reach the top. The first difficult part of the ski is to get down the ski lift, since we are supposed to start skiing to get down the lift.

Actually we were quite a nuisance for other visitors, because we don't know how to get on the lift, occasionally the workers have to stop the lift to let us get on & stop again when we fell while getting off at the top of the hill. Our incompetence created such a long queue for those who wanted to get the lift up.

The Hakkai-san ski is supposedly to be easier than the ski-area in front of Urasa station, where I ski the first time. True enough, the slope was gentler and the view is much nicer. First 2 rounds, practice rounds. I fell many times over. Anyway, after 3 rounds, I stopped falling and able to ski all the way down. Completed around 20-30 rounds the whole day.


Ski is not easy. It takes at least 2 times just to get the hang of it. So many of the first time students they were just practicing whole day at the bottom of the ski resort, without taking the ski lift up.


One student, first timer, went up without knowing what to expect and took 2 hours just to get down, when normally it takes us 2 minutes to reach the bottom and have to queue to get up again.


More pictures here

Ski Day

Things to do in winter

There's nothing much to do in the winter. Roads are blocked, weather is freezing cold. The activities in the snow are different from other season. Here are some of the things that we can do here, such as

1) staring at trees


2) trees,


3) and more trees


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4) or write in the snow


5) or unsuccessfully make a snowman


6) sleep in the snow


7) or make your own ice kacang

Snowshower

Urasa 浦佐, where IUJ is located is known for heavy snow. Even though the temperature is just 1 deg C, snow is heavy. Everyone's bragging there's an unbelievable 3m of snow 2 years ago, a record in many years. However, there's only 0.5m of snow last year, which is almost equivalent to no snow.

This year, I prayed for more snow, hopefully 4 or 5m. Then I'll just climb out from my friend's window from the 2nd floor.

Last week it was snowing non-stop and the snow went up to 1 meter high, covering almost everything.



The roof of our dorm was totally covered with snow

and so is the whole university

From outside ......................................... From Inside

Even cars ...................................................... and bicycles


This is how it looks like in the middle of the snow