There is a time for everything.

I lost a friend today.

Why? Because there are just so many thing in life that are out of your control.

You try your best to be as true and as patient you can be to you friend. Especially when you are patient, you compromise to avoid matters escalating from bad to worse. However, that could sometimes be misconstrued as a tacit admission of something, usually of wrongdoing. 

One day, that patience reaches a limit. You want to let your friend know you feel, that your feelings have been hurt by your friend's overprotective and inconsiderate actions, as much as they may be well intentioned. But your friend has turned cold towards you, treating you as if you were a mere acquaintance.

Still, you want to salvage the friendship, as someone who cherish the bond of friends. So you walk up to your friend to ask for some time to talk. But you get those few cold words, "there is nothing to talk about, no need to talk" and you are left standing by yourself, wondering what on earth you did to deserve this type of treatment. All this time I had been true and patient. 

It was really a 180 degree about turn from just a week ago. 

And for what? For something that was not even a concern of my friend nor sometime that will affect my friend's quality of life. Perhaps my friend no longer wishes to be associated with me because I am thought to have made a stupid mistake. No matter. I cannot please everyone. Neither should I suffer fools gladly.

Therefore, I made the decision, and lost to lose a friend today.

Some home cooking

Whilst enjoying my life here there are times when I am struck by homesickness. One of the things I miss most is my mother's home cooked food. She has a penchant for fatty pork and I guess it runs in the family. I decided to give the 2-in-1 fatty pork dish a go to ease my homesickness somewhat.

First I simmer the fatty pork in water to make the soup stock. 

Once the pork has softened remove from pot and cut it to bite size pieces.

Put in vegetables to make vegetable soup. Add salt if desired. I found the soup tasty enough without adding the salt.

Cook pork in low heat with salt and garlic until garlic turns crispy. Be careful not to overcook the garlic as it will turn bitter.

 And there you have it.

My mother's 2-in-1 garlic pork with soup.

The little pleasures in life ^_^.

September is here!

       This picture kind of captures my feeling of my first few months in Japan. Alone and lost! Hahahaha.

It is the first day of September! It had been nearly 8 months since I arrived in Japan. slowly but surely I had settled down on my new life here. Today began with an early morning of aikido session followed by another which ended just before noon. I wanted to push myself to take a third class before the rendezvous later at night but I decided to stop at 2 because I seemed to be getting alot more bruises on my calves this week than normal. I did practice some tobi ukemi. I still suck at it and I am sure that has a great bearing on the cause of my bruises for these week *resigned grin*. Moderation is key...

Unexpectedly took an afternoon and after that it is to the station to meet up for dinner and movie! We took a liking to this all you can eat syabu-syabu restaurant because of its reasonable price and the dim sum option. The funny thing is, we always end up at the same table! As usual we were very audible and animated while stuffing ourselves silly. We had ample time and met up with another classmate at the cinema. I wanted to take a group picture of us at the cinema and approached a lady to help us take pictures but she looked frightened, waved her hands and said she is not doing it. Oh well…

Avengers wasn't so bad a movie. There was a build up to the action as the characters went through a teething period before getting their act together. we were greeted with rainfall after the movie and everyone hurried home after bidding a hasty goodbye. 

It was a good day.