Making Plum Sake

With the plums we got from our friend, the unripened ones were made into "plum sake". We will see how the sake is going to turn out. Hopefully, we will be successful.

Obento dinner

Instead of cooking, we decided to buy the obento for dinner. The top picture is that of Teriyaki rice set and the next one is Hamburg rice set. For dessert, it was Warabi Mochi with Kinako (roasted soybean flour). Needless to say, they are delicious!
As for the weather, it was a rainy day with the average day temperature of 25c.

Picking plums at our Japanese friends' farm

Our friends invited us to their farm to pick the plums for free. There are just too many plums around and they are giving them away to their friends.
The picking was in the evening and so the pictures are not so good.
My wife and I must have plucked about a hundred of the plums. They are sweet except for the skin which could be a bit sourish.

Food is relatively cheap in Japan

The obento or packed food and fruits are relatively cheap compared to Singapore. In the evening, the they are offered at a huge discount of 50%.
The container of cut mixed fruits is at 99 Yen which is S$1.25c. It was packed on 10 July morning and by evening (expiry date is 11 July) it was sold at 50%.
The same goes for the 3 boxes of fried chicken fried rice set, pork cutlet sesame rice set and pork cutlet sandwiches. They all sold for 199 Yen each which is S$2.50.
The currency exchange rate is 100 Yen = S$1.25c or 80 Yen to S$1.

He is back, Kuro is back!

Finally after a few days, Kurochan made his appearance again. Everybody was happy to see Kurochan again. We fed him some cat food and he devoured it as though he has not been eating for the last few days. He must be hungry.
My dad-in-law suggested tying him to the house but all of us objected to the idea. " He will run away again" my dad-in-law explained, if Kurochan's movement is not restrained. We rejected his idea as it is cruel to tie Kurochan. We told him one way to prevent Kurochan from disappearing again is to give him the best cat food and lots of love. In the end my dad-in-law reluctantly agreed. We shall see in the coming days whether Kurochan will vanish again.

The cute and adorable cat

(Resting in the bed my dad-in-law prepared for him)
This is the adorable "Kurochan" who wandered into our backyard. He was with us for a week and after feeding him nice yummy cat food, he disappeared. Kurochan, a named given by my in-laws has become their "pet". My in-laws were saddened by the disappearance of Kurochan.
Our guess was that Kurochan may not be a stray as he is friendly towards human. He may belong to someone. We hope he will return soon.

Brave Gurkha fought armed robbers

Bishnu was on a train to back to his hometown in Nepal on a break from the army. Presumably he'd had enough of the violence.

The train was stopped and boarded a band of about 30-40 robbers, armed with knives,  some of whom had been travelling as passengers, in the Chittaranjan jungles in West Bengal around midnight.

They started snatching jewellery, cell phones, cash, laptops and other belongings from the passengers. Shrestha decided not to do anything. He was unarmed apart from an army knife. A Khukri.

The dacoits were armed with knives, swords and a few country made handguns. So he did nothing. The dacoits saw that he was a soldier and left him alone.

However, a couple of the bandits grabbed hold of a young 18-year-old girl, a medical student, sitting near him, and asked her to strip off her clothes. She refused- and they decided to rape her in front of her parents and all the other silent onlookers on the train.

The girl pleaded for help: ´You are a soldier. Save a sister´

Bishnu says he thought of his own sister that point. And then he snapped. He whipped out his Khukuri, and attacked the nearest dacoit.
He grabbed one to use as a shield. It was one man with a knife against upto 40 in an enclosed space- which ensured that they couldn't overcome him by sheer numbers.

He killed 3 with his  blade and injured 6-8 so badly that they were still crawling around when the police arrived. He took severe cuts on one arm and finally collapsed due to blood loss.

But by then, after watching 3 of their friends falling within seconds- the rest of the bandits decided that it was smarter to run away to instead of taking on the one-man-killing-machine.

When the intended rape victim's family offered him a large cash reward, he refused it with the following comment: "Fighting the enemy in battle is my duty as a soldier. Taking on the thugs on the train was my duty as a human being."

Harvesting tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and pimans

30 best street hawker food in Singapore

Kakigori and ice kachang

Kakigori or Japanese "ice kachang" from a cafe (S$5.50, ice very finely shaved, enjoyable)

Kakigori or Japanese "ice kachang" from a street hawker (S$2, ice not finely shaved so not so enjoyable)

Singapore ice kachang from a hawker stall (S$2.50 same as the second one in the picture , not so enjoyable)

Curry udon & nikujaga meal

Harvesting the veggies

Harvesting onions

What are we going to do with so much onions? We have given some away and still have the balance as shown above. We could store some for the winter months and eat some but still it is too much for a small family like ours. Perhaps sell them at the wet market?

Bitter gourds & tomatoes

Harvesting cucumbers

It is time to harvest the cucumbers. There are lots of health benefits from eating cucumbers. It can help prevent cancer, constipation, protect your skin from the effects of aging, protect your brain from neurological diseases, help lower blood pressure etc.
To us it is a great delight to see our plants and vegetables grow from seedlings to bearing fruits.

Harvesting, curing and storing onions

Once the onion leaves flip over onto the ground and the neck is soft then it is time to harvest them. We tied them together in bunches of four and hang them to dry. After a few days, we will cut off the stems and stored them in a dry dark place for future use.

Stabbing of Osaka police officer prompts stepped-up security ahead of G20 summit

OSAKA - Police on Monday arrested a man suspected of stabbing a police officer multiple times in Osaka Prefecture the previous day and stealing his pistol, an incident that came just days before the prefecture hosts the Group of 20 summit set to be attended by several world leaders.

Yujiro Iimori, 33, is alleged to have stabbed the officer, Suzunosuke Kose, 26, with a knife multiple times at a police box in the city of Suita, before fleeing the scene at around 5:40 a.m. on Sunday. He was carrying the gun when he was detained in the nearby city of Minoo, police said. Kose remains in critical condition.

Iimori denied the charges, saying, “It is not something I have done,” according to police. “It is because my disease got worse and because the people around me became bitter.”

He was carrying a mental disability certificate, investigators said.

The violent incident comes as police step up security in the nearby city of Osaka, which will host next week’s Group of 20 summit. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday that he takes the incident seriously.

“We will boost security as we are expecting the G20 summit next week,” he said, adding that the incident has left residents greatly concerned.

While Osaka police officials are relieved that the suspect has been arrested, they remain troubled that a police officer had his weapon stolen ahead of the G20 summit, adding that identifying measures to stop similar incidents is an urgent task.

Police departments across the country have been introducing new holsters designed to prevent officers from being disarmed. Since Kose was using an older-style holster, Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura said he will ask the central government to allocate budget to replace such holsters with the new style as soon as possible.

Iimori was put on a nationwide wanted list early Monday.

The gun was loaded with five bullets when it was stolen, but only four were found in it when Iimori was arrested, police said.

No injuries or damage has been reported since the gun was stolen but several people living near the police box where the incident occurred said they heard a sound like gunfire about 20 minutes after the attack. Police are investigating whether it was the sound of the gun being fired.

Iimori was apprehended in a mountain forest in Minoo, north of Suita, at around 6:35 a.m. Monday, after images of a person resembling him were recorded on security cameras.

When found by police, Iimori was lying on a wooden bench with a backpack under his head. The pistol was inside a plastic bag under the bench, according to police.

Authorities had been contacted by Iimori’s father, who said the suspect shown in surveillance camera footage, released by police, appeared to be his son, investigative sources said. The father said his son had been living in Tokyo until shortly before the stabbing.

A man resembling the person in the footage had stayed at a hotel in Suita on Friday, the sources added.

Kose was apparently attacked after two fellow officers left the police box to respond to an emergency call reporting a break-in at a home. Police had received a call at around 5:30 a.m. from a man at a public pay phone at Kandaimae Station, claiming that his apartment had been ransacked by a burglar.

Images from multiple security cameras taken immediately after the call showed a man running toward the police box.

The two senior police officers rushed to the apartment on motorcycles, ahead of Kose. As Kose was preparing to follow the two at around 5:40 a.m., he was stabbed seven times with a 15-centimeter cooking knife. One of the stab wounds was to the left side of his chest.

He is believed to have been attacked just as he climbed onto his motorcycle, not having had time to draw his gun to defend himself. The motorcycle was found overturned close to where Kose was found bleeding near the police box. The reported break-in later proved to be a false report.

One of Kose’s stab wounds showed that the knife blade, which passed through a gap in his bulletproof vest, penetrated his lung and reached his heart, according to investigative sources. The suspect bought a jacket and a pair of trousers at an Aeon supermarket some 5 kilometers from the police box shortly after 9 a.m. Sunday, just after it had opened for the day.

An employee at the supermarket made an emergency call to police after noticing that the customer’s hand was bloodstained.

The stabbing shocked locals, forcing supermarkets and libraries to close and public events, including flea markets, to be canceled.

Police had called on residents to lock their doors and refrain from venturing outside.

Iimori, a resident of Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo, had been working part-time as a cleaner at a golf practice range in adjacent Ota Ward since November, according to his co-workers. His father works as an executive at Kansai Television Co.

On June 10, he applied for leave, complaining of a mental health problem. Iimori initially planned to take three days off, but later told his boss that it would be difficult for him to go back to work before the end of June.

On Saturday afternoon, Iimori telephoned his boss and said that he would likely be able to start working again around June 25.

According to former classmates and a Facebook account believed to be his, Iimori graduated from Komazawa University in Tokyo after studying at elementary, junior high and high schools in Suita.

Between April and September 2009 Iimori had worked as a seaman apprentice in the Maritime Self-Defense Force. During that time he worked aboard a destroyer but never handled pistols while on duty, according to a Defense Ministry source.

In a statement, Takahisa Ishida, head of the Osaka Prefectural Police Department, said, “We apologize for the great worry we have caused local residents and appreciate the information that has been offered to investigators.”

Some locals expressed relief following the arrest of the suspect.

The above story first appeared in The Japan Times.