In historical novels and fantasy novels there are frequent mentions of how heavy swords are. But it looks like they weren’t heavy at all!

Check out this link — What did historical swords weigh? It turns out that most swords weighed less than 5 pounds! O dear. Now I have to go back and revise my ms to delete any references to heavy swords should there be any. (I can’t remember)

And take the fantasy novelist’s exam. It’s hilarious.

This is probably the most famous delicacy from Hiroshima: oysters. Hiroshima produces 25K - 30K tons of oysters each year. They’re exceptionally large, juicy, and flavorful. Hiroshima oysters are highly prized, and they’re only consumed in winter, starting mid-November. The best time to try them is December and January. In addition, in January and early February, many places in Hiroshima Prefecture host oyster festivals.

They’re best when fried or grilled with butter, salt, and pepper. Yum yum! I just had them for the past two days. I highly recommend them to anyone visiting Hiroshima in winter.

The other delicacy I want to talk about is green tea. Most people drink green tea in teabags. I used to be one of them until I converted to real tea (as in leaves). The flavor can’t be compared.

There are many different kinds of green tea in Japan. The first one I tried is called matcha. It’s the famous frothy green tea used for the tea ceremony. I bought it in Kyoto, where one of the Japanese tea ceremony masters lives. It’s powered, and the tea is deep green. You drink it with two sweet soft candies as its flavor can be a bit overpowering to those who aren’t used to drinking strong tea.

Matcha is the highest quality green tea you can buy. As such, it’s really expensive. For the top grade tea, you’ll end up paying over $20 for mere 50g.

Then there’s sencha. It’s the common green tea. Despite the name common, it’s actually high-grade. Sometimes you can get it mixed with matcha, which will increase the price you pay for it quite a bit. Sencha is quite flavorful and has lovely light green color and delightful fragrant. I personally prefer it over fancier matcha as it’s more affordable, and you don’t need the soft sweet candies to drink it or need a fancy whisk to make (you’ll need one for matcha).

The last kind of tea is genmaicha. It’s green tea (mostly sencha, but sometimes with bancha, which is lower-grade than sencha) mixed with toasted brown rice. The addition of rice gives it a very mellow and nutty flavor. The color’s yellowish green or light yellow / gold. It’s a bit sweeter than sencha or matcha. I like it although I prefer the deeper flavor of sencha. Some blends also have matcha, which enhances the flavor. Genmaicha’s also known as “popcorn tea”. Unlike sencha and matcha, it doesn’t disturb sleep at night as its caffeine content is quite low.

One thing — when you brew green tea, you must never use boiling water. This is true, especially for matcha because boiling water will ruin the flavor and destroy the valuable nutrients and amino acids of the tea. Also it can sometimes turn your tea brownish. Utterly unappetizing if you ask me.

Here are some variations on Bizen pottery.

Goma:

The ash of the pine wood used for the kiln lands on the pots and is melted by the high temperature. It looks like sprinkled sesame seeds — hence the name goma, which means sesame seeds in Japanese. Pots near the firemouth and wher ethe flames flow tend to become goma. When the goma drips, it is called tamadare or dripping ball.

Sangiri:

This effect occurs when flame and air cannot reach the piece due to the excessive ash in the kiln chamber, resulting in blue and grey colors on the finished piece.

Botamochi:

A spot of different color in various shapes may be seen where a flattened piece of high refractory clay is placed against or laid on a pot.

Hidasuki:

Pounded rice straws are wrapped around a pot, resulting in various red and red oranges where the straws touch the pot. I personally like this color a lot.

Aobizen:

Gas surrounding a piece in the kiln can result in blue coloring of the pot. This isn’t very common.

Fuseyaki:

This variation occurs when two pieces are stacked. The spots where they touch and don’t touch acquire different colors.

Since there are many hurricanes, I figured I’d blog briefly about the naming convention.

Only the storms reaching tropical strength winds exceeding 17 m/s or 38 mph) are given names. This is to faciliate insurance claims, warning people of the coming storm, and to show that these are significant storms. Names designated to particularly destructive storms are retired (such as Andrew, Camille, Edna, Diane, Cleo, etc.).

Trivia: Did you know that Alex replaced Andrew when it was retired after 1992?

Initially, hurricanes were named after the saint’s day on which the storm struck. However, Clement Wragge, an Anglo-Australian meteorologist, introduced a new system. Until 1979, all hurricane names were feminine because of English language convention of referring inanimate objects such as ships, trains, etc. as “she”. However, given complaints that this was sexist (most hurricanes are destructive), the National Weather Service changed the list.

Trivia: Did you know that the names may be of English, French, or Spanish origins only because these are the three dominant languages of the region hwere the storm typically form?

The gender of the first storm of the season alternates year to year. Odd-numbered years starts with a feminine name, and even a masculine one. Six lsits of names are prepared in advance and reused every six years. However, five letters (Q, U, X, Y, Z) are not used. Therefore, each list contains twenty one names only. If all twenty one names are used, then Greek alphabets are used, such as “Hurricane Alpha, etc”. (Let’s all hope this never happens!)

Trivia: Did you know that the name “Camille” was added to the list by John Hope, who worked for the National Hurricane Center, as a high school graduation present to his daughter, Camille, in 1969?

I watched Deep Blue Sea last night. I can’t decide what was worse: the sight of mako sharks or the fact that it used my fear of the unknown monsters lurking beneath the deep dark ocean out to eat me when I’m innocently swimming!

It’s kinda ironic that I found this movie so scary despite the cliches in it because I have swum with sharks before in Berlize, and I was fine. Okay, except for getting my thumb bitten by an overly excited nurse shark. The professional divers / guides totally freaked out and dragged me out of the water immediately because they didn’t want to excite the other sharks. I didn’t have much skin left on my left thumb, but it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been my right thumb.

I don’t know why I’d gone into the water to swim with the sharks in the first place back then. After all, it’s not like I’ve never seen Spielberg’s infamous Jaws. In addition to the movie, I’m not a great swimmer, I don’t like the idea of getting eaten by anything or bleeding or any number of unpleasantness that could happen in the ocean.

I must admit though, what made me fear the mako sharks in Deep Blue Sea are:

1. They can jump up to 20 feet above the water surface. That’s right. So even if you’re Superman (as in you can fly), if you’re too close to the churning ocean, they’ll eat ya. Yum.
2. They’re extremely aggressive. Some people catch them for sports, and if they somehow got loose in the struggle, instead of running away, they’ll come back and attack your boat with impunity.

   If that’s not bad enough, they also eat other sharks. Well, why not become cannibalistic when you weight close to 1.5 ton, huh?

3. In the movie, they were genetically engineered to be smart — really smart. Scary if you ask me. Why couldn’t the scientists in the movie left them dumb. But then if they weren’t smart enough to hunt down humans, I suppose there wouldn’t be any story, however implausible it was.

So there you go — my abject fear of scary sharks. Strange how I’m so fascinated by them though.