Came across an interesting brochure a few days ago. You might have also heard about the Honda Insight, which is technically similar to the Prius, it is still a Hybrid (to a certain extent). And it has been selling like hot cakes out here in Japan. I also believe it is a prettier car.  And someone is surely not happy about it ^^

Shown below is the brochure of Toyota Prius. They have tried to explain the working of a hybrid car. And why the Insight is not a real hybrid. They claim (indirectly), that it is a Mild Hybrid. If you believe in this brochure, you’d say, the Insight is cheap, but its cheap for a reason!

It seems Honda was not happy about this stupefying move by Toyota. I’m not exactly sure what happened between the two of them, but looking at another copy of the brochure today, guess what I noticed ?

Only one page had changed !

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of Hybrid Cars. I’ve watched every episode of Top Gear at least 5 times over, how can you expect me to like Hybrid Cars ?? Remember when Jeremy raced an M3 with a Prius, and ended up getting better mileage on the M3 ? It’s more about ‘How’ you drive, rather than ‘What’ you drive.

以上。

Ady

Its so small …. anyway I don’t wanna start complaining now. This was supposed to be a happy post

Compared to the earlier one, my new dorm is at a now a whole 3km away from work! The earlier one was so near, I could be in my seat within 10 minutes of waking up! Not that I ever tried doing that

Anyway, its been one week of commuting, have had surprisingly wonderful weather for the entire week. Used the car just for a day, and till it gets freakin cold I’m gonna stick to my mountain bike for a while.

Caught this wonderful sunset on my first evening in the new place. Wish to see more of these in the future ^^

Anyway, coming back to the main subject, the past few days, commuting to work has been a real pleasure. Day before yesterday, I attached my camera to my bike and shot this video. Should give a nice idea how rural
japan (Inaka/田舎) looks like. But seriously, perfect blue sky, with not a single cloud, this happens one once or twice a year.

this was taken on my new fujifilm F70EXR.

BTW, I did tweak this a little bit in iMovie ‘09. Not much though, just 5 minutes worth on editing. The rendering and uploading part did take a lot more! Will upload this to Vimeo later. Just wanna check the video quality.

Someday, I have to do this with Tokina 11-16 f2.8 on my 5D Mark II. Only problem is the camera costs a little more than 10 times my bike, and I need to find some good way to fix it to the bike. The added weight is surely gonna make it a slower ride

Finally, I’d like to add that my inspiration for this video was this one, shot by Sam from daily dose of imagery. Amazing blog !

Biking with 5D Mark II from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.

Testing the Canon 5D Mark II with a super wide angle lens while biking on King street and Yonge street in Toronto. Unfortunately it started raining and a raindrop on my wide lens ruined the second half of the shot.
This was shot a few weeks ago and was before Canon release the Manual Exposure firmware. It’ll be interesting to test different shutter speeds for this now.

Anyway, bye for now, have a lot to do …

以上

Ady

世界！弾丸トラベラー “インドでタージ・マハルを堪能したい”

by the way these two skinny females are

マリエ (Marie) and 藤井リナ (Lena Fujii)

以上。

Ady

Will add the English translation some other time. Use Google translate for now

＊寝起き＊

ヽ(*´o`)ヾ　　　あくびしてる

(ρ_・).。ｏ○ォハョ　　　目こすりながらおはよって言ってる

＊あいさつ＊

(＾ヮ＾)ノ　　　こんにち「ワ」の口

(ノ^o^)ォ～ィ　　　誰か呼んでる感じ

.:+:.::.:+:(,, ・∀・)ノ゛ぉはょうー.:+:　　　元気におはよう
オハョ━━(。・∀・)ノ゛━━ゥ!

ぉはぁヽ(∀｀*ヽ)(ノ*´∀)ノぉはぁ　　　みんなにおはよう

hello＋。・。・ヽ（о・∀・о）ノ・。・。＋hello　　　普通にあいさつ
ハ―。゜+.ヽ(・∀・ o)ノ ゜+.゜―ィ☆

(*｀・∀・)ノ☆.。.こんばんわぁ.。.☆ヾ(・∀・´*)
゜*．(*´∀｀)ノコンバンワヽ(´∀｀*)．*゜

はじめまして(*_ _))ペコ　　　おじぎしてる

v(*’-^*)-☆　　　ウインク

ぁリがとぅ*(o´∀｀人)　　　手を合わせてありがとう

感謝♪人(´ー｀*)(*´ー｀)人感謝♪　　　あちこちにありがとう

★-(ゝ∀・｀ Thank You!´ゝ∀・)-☆　　　ウインク

(*_ _)人ゴメン　　　ごめんって下むいて謝ってる

(*’-')ノ~。.*・゜　　　バイバイって感じで手を振ってる

＊笑顔＊

( * ^)o クス　　　横向き（右向き）でクスッって笑ってる

o(〃＾▽＾〃)oあははっ　　　いい笑顔

ヾ（≧∇≦）ノ　　　すごく楽しい

(*≧ｍ≦*)ププッ　　　おかしくて吹き出しちゃった笑い
ε=(>ε<*)プッ

。゜(゜^∀^゜)゜。ギャーハッハッ!!　　　涙が出るほど超おかしい

＊うれしい＊

ホッ(^0^*)　　　ほっとした表情

(*´∀｀*)　　　にっこり顔

P(^∇^*)q　　　ヤッタって感じの手になってる

(≧∇≦)　　　すごくうれしい表情

ヤタ━━━━ヽ( ＾∀＾)ノ　ヽ(＾∀＾)ノ━━━━ !!　　　誰かと一緒に喜んでる

わぁいヽ(∇⌒ヽ)(ノ⌒∇)ノわぁい　　　うれしくて踊ってる

o(＞v＜*)O〃ハヤクハヤク　　　ワクワクした感じ

＊イエイ！＊

v(。`・∀・。)v　　　「V」してる
ｖ(o￣∇￣o)ヤリィ

(〃∇〃v)ィェ‐ィ　　　ちょっと照れながらVサインしてる

☆-(ノ●´∀)八(∀｀●)ノイエーイ　　　誰かと一緒にイエーイってしてる

ィェ‐ィ v(´▽`v))))))…….((((((v´▽`)

Today’s subject, Chitose Hajime (元ちとせ). She is JPOP singer with a distinctive style. Ever heard of Falsetto Effects ?

You can find out more about her on here Wikipedia page here.

She is gifted with a one in a million voice  (Come to think of it, aren’t most good singers? Hmm maybe, I’ll just continue writing…) As far a I know, she can do some hard core classical okinawan music, which I cannot stand, even for a minute. But other than that she also does some pop music too, which is very easy on the ears. Actually studies show that  her voice has a relaxing effect. She can belch out frequencies that very few humans can.
Many of you, actually most non-Japanese people, may find her voice annoying to a certain extent. Frankly I don’t care. Coz I absolutely love it!

Here are some of my favorite songs of hers…

元ちとせ　ワダツミの木

元ちとせ – 幻の月

元ちとせ – haru no katami

福耳 / 夏はこれからだ！ (Look for her, she’s there)

Chitose Hajime – Katari Tsugo Koto

Chitose Hajime- Kono Machi

Also recommend seeing this concert of hers. I still can’t such stuff can be done on stage !

There’s a lot more to hear…. Most of it is not on YouTube though

Where/When did I discover her ?

Once, for a change, I was watching Japaneeez TV on a Sunday evening, when I saw 3 females singing the same song. Two of the faces were familiar. The third one…no. Actually, it was her voice that struck me more than her face. Had never heard a human being singing in that kinda voice. This was new stuff.

However, with my toota phoota Japanese, I did manage to google her. It was this video and the other two females are Ayaka (絢香) and Aoyama Thelma (青山テルマ).  Ayaka too has a very good voice, but it’s getting a bit too repetitive now. Thelma…. well she made one good song. And she made it again. That’s it! Frankly, in my opinion, making her sing on the same stage as Chitose Hajime is an insult.

I’d also like to mention, the main reason for writing this post. In the last few months I haven’t been listening a lot of Chitose, but last night, just before falling asleep, I came across this sweet voice. Her name is Kizuki Minami (城南海). Since morning I’ve heard her new single at least a 100 times over. Seriously.

太陽とかくれんぼ

Hajime Chitose seems to have got new competition now ! This one too comes from Amami Shima. Its so small they might actually be relatives.

I’d also like to mention some more other artists in the same genre.

①　BEGIN (ビギン)

A absolutely amazing band from Okinawa. You can listen to their latet single here. They do deserve a blog post of their own. Here are two more songs by them.

②  Rimi Natsukawa (夏川 りみ)

I don’t know a lot about her. Here’s one song by her.

Can’t recollect of any more.

I know there are still many more people I still have to discover. But no regrets. Life if full of surprises. And I like it that way.

And yeah music made one the Shamisen is not necessarily so dull. Check this ⇒ Monkey Majik – Change

Phew… enough music for the day. Gotta work tomorrow

Regards ♫

Ady

(PS: While writing this I was listening to Dhan te nan form Kaminey. I do have pretty weird taste in music )

As I had mentioned before, theres gonna be a lot of Photography involved here !

And yeah, I do believe in the phrase, A picture is worth a 1000 words, so there u go…

Just some Random stuff from the past few days.

Taken by my Toy Cam

生 Ham Caesar Salad

View from my window

Blue sky...love what polarizer does to it

My Keychain (and USB memory)

Weather after a Typhoon

Weather after a typhoon (again)

Need some more hair on that head ...

なんでやねん - thats 関西弁 (kansai ben) slang

Only a 外人 (Gaijin) can dare to wear this ...

phew … this is tiresome. Need to find a simpler solution for blogging. How about Blogo?

Hope to add more words in the future.

Bye for now.

Ady

I do love Japanese food, and can eat almost anything that’s served on the plate. However, nothing beats Indian food, does it ? I also do spend a lot of time thinking about what to eat! So this might come in handy for me too…

Out here I’ll be making a list of restaurants that serve Indian food, in and around the city of Mito, Japan. most of these places are within 30 mins driving distance from me. I’m not gonna go into the details though. Just a one line review. You can check out the links for more.

水戸市 / ひたちなか市付近のインド料理屋をまとめました。一言ぐらいのレビューしか書いてないので詳しくはリンク先へ。。

◆印度屋らんがる (IndoYa Langar)

Well to start with, my favorite of them all, Langar. This is located right in front of JR Katsuta Eki. For the past two years, I’ve been eating here around twice a week. Kind of a second home.

◆ラム (Ram)

This place is run by a Nepali person. Great cheap food. Loads of good memories here. Its located here.

◆カルマ (Karma)

Karma is managed by two sweet Japanese females. (The pic above is an old one. The person in white is a Guy!) This is porbably the only place in Japan where you’ll get to eat Chapati. Again, loads of good memories here.

◆曼荼羅 (Mandara)

This is the second nearest place to me. However I’ve heard stories of friends being admitted in the hospital after eating here. So kinda prefer to stay away. And yeah the food is very oily. very very oily.

◆曼荼羅 　水戸

This is the Mito KEISEI outlet of Mandara. Never been here.

◆マサラ (Masala) （Warning noisy page !!）

Hmm, foods not bad. just a little bit too expensive for the quantity. And this place closes at 9:15 pm !

◆スパイシー タンドール (Spicy Tandoor)

Nice chain restaurant. The 90 minute buffet is good. Food is Okay, but if its quantity you want go here.

◆インド料理 I-N Kitchen (アイエヌキッチン)

Recently opened place run by some nepalis. All rice preparations look like dal bhat !

◆ガンジーインド料理 (Gandhi）

Again a new place, run by a Nepali. Very very cheap. Near Ibaraki Daigaku. Aimed at students.

◆ガンジス (Ganges)

Been here twice. Great ambiance. Check their homepage. They had Pork Samosa’s !

◆ベンガルベイ那珂市花木センター店 (Bengal Bay)

Stay Away ! He serves frozen naan. And yeah, this is walking distance from my place.

◆ベンガルベイ水戸店 (Bengal Bay)

This is their main outlet in Mito. Never been here, never will.

◆スパイス　マハール

Seen this place, but never dared to walk in.

◆Am I forgetting something ?? Will add more as I remember. Gotta have lunch now. At such times this list comes handy.

Ciao

Ady

Hello People.

This is my first blog post. Well after a several failed/given up attempts of starting a blog, I finally have one. I hereby promise myself that this will be my one and ONLY blog, and I will try to update it as regularly as possible. well, that should not be too much of a problem.

About me, hmm, I don’t think its really important to introduce myself here. This blog is more about what I think, rather than who I am. If you’re a complete stranger here’s something to get you started. I’m an Indian guy, living in Japan for the past err….. 4 years.

First, a little about the domain name. it reads FUZA-KERU-NA. Its Japanese slang for piss off / stop bugging me. You can find some more interesting words here. Hmm, I know its a really mean name, but at the moment I can’t think of anything better.

About languages used on this blog, as of now I intend to use English as the main language, but you may find a lot of 日本語 (read JAPANEEZ) posts. And of course, some in हिन्दी or my mother-tongue मराठी.

About the content …. hmm I have lots to say. mostly nagging about something stupid or sharing some interesting stuff I find on the Internet. And yeah, there’s also gonna be loads of “flashback” posts. Frankly speaking, I do regret starting a blog, so late. I should have started blogging long ago. so BEWARE, there’s gonna be a lot of stuff I should have written years ago!

I have been writing regularly on the Japanese SNS mixi. On an SNS, having a limited group of readers, does have its own pros n cons. Out here, I cannot write private stuff . So if you wanna get the inside stuff (which I’m sure most of you aren’t interested in), contact me. umm…somehow.  The sole reason for not starting the blog for so long is that, I could not figure out how to configure Wordpress and Feedburner. And guess what, I still haven’t figures it out. Somethings, just don’t get into my head. (So if you can help, please to let me know.) And yeah till i get this thing right, kindly refrain from subscribing the default RSS feed. There’s a separate feedburner feed somewhere on this page.

Oh, and I completely forgot about one thing. Probably the most important of all. Photography ! Yes I’m an Photography buff. So you might find a lot of that here. I think so. But then there are other, better ways like Flickr, Picasa, etc to share pictures. Everything has its own purpose.

Finally, I gotta write something in Japanese too. Actually I ‘m a lot more comfortable with Japanese, in spite of it being a foreign language!

anyway here it goes…

皆様どうも。

初ブログエントリです。

まずは簡単な自己紹介します。アディテアと申します。少し言いにくい名前なので、アディで結構です。日本に住んでいるインド人です。

今までメインでミクシィをやってましたが、ちゃんとしたブログも作って見ようかなと思って、このブログを作ってみました。完全公開なので、プライベートな内容あまり書けないけど、いろいろと載せたいと思います。

基本は英語だと思いますが、日本語で書くのは結構慣れてるし、日本語の方が楽なような気がする。ミスは多いので、ご自由に指摘してください！

ではでは、ヨロシクどうぞ。

Ady