Today’s Mt. Fuji from my home.

I live in Hachioji in the west suburb of Tokyo. I open the window and see Mt. Fuji first after get up every morning. Yes, Hachioji is the best place to see Mt. Fuji in Tokyo. and I believe that why I live in Hachioji, I need more than one hour to commute, though.

It's clear and sunny today. and snow-capped Mt. Fuji is really breathtaking.

Parallels Desktop, a great virtualization tool

I installed Parallels Desktop for Mac on my MacBook Pro. Parallels Desktop is a great virtualization tool for Mac, as it allows you to use other operating systems pretty much as if they were native operating systems.

Once you installed Parallels, Installing Microsoft Windows on Parallels is so simple, I don't even have to explain the process. Just insert the Windows Installation Disc, choose Microsoft Windows from the drop-down box of Operating Systems, insert the Windows Key and the installation will take place automatically. It's far more simple than the normal installation of Windows on a PC.

And then all you have to do is just use Windows in the same way as if it was running on a PC. Parallels even allows you to share some folders with Mac OS X, which makes transferring files between operating systems run seamlessly.

Running Internet Explorer and Excel for Windows on MacBook Pro

I installed Mac OS X Lion

I have a MacBook Pro and installed Mac OSX Lion  one week ago.
Initially I was thinking “ok, might be useful”. Within half an hour I was saying “WOW! THIS IS AWESOME!”. I absolutely love it. It’s completely intuitive and I’ll probably be taking it for granted like it’s been available for years. If you’re out there considering a Mac OSX Lion upgrade, I recommend it.

half-made Tendon dinner

My wife is at her parents home from this Monday with my daughter, then I stay home alone. I have to make dinner for myself. I bought Gyoza the day before yesterday and Sashimi yesterday from a grocery. I made a Tendon today.

Tendon is a popular Japanese rice bowl with tempura topping. Everybody like shrimp tempra, but you can use your favorite tempura.

I bought a tempura set, a shrimp and some vegetables,  from the grocery. That why the title is half-made. But I made the sauce. It is easy as following.

At first, put mirin in a pan and bring to a boil on medium heat. Then, added dashi, soy sauce, and sugar in the pan. At end, bring the sauce to a boil. Stop the heat.

A scary experience

Yesterday midnight, I put the end of USB cable into a coffee cup by mistake.
Then the PC  on the other end of the cable said, "this system recognized a new device"

That was a coffee!
I was taking  out the cable in a hurry, then the PC continued,
"You can use a new device"
I can use the coffee? how do it work?

In the morning, I woke up and made a beeline for the PC to check the new device on the device manager. But that disappeared. Was that a dream? If so, it must have been a nightmare.

My Golden Week

How are you spending this Golden Week? I stay home during Golden Week every year because everywhere are crowded with a ton of people.

I think I will read through a book about VMWare, computer virtualization technology, during Golden Week this year.
So I was reading the computer book in Starbucks yesterday and the day before afternoon for 3 hours. But I'm going to one-day trip to Enoshima because my wife want to go to a aquariums.

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary!

Every year we treat ourselves to a nice dinner. We went to a good French restaurant this year.

The dinner begun with a wine, salad.

then served foie gras hors d'oeuvre

We had a lobsterer and beef tenderloin steak for the main course. They both were really beautiful and delicious!

We enjoyed every bit.

We were full! but there's always room for dessert. Yum!

We can't wait to go back when we can enjoy a nice glass of wine!

Mt. Gongen

There are many Mt. Gongen, one of the most popular mountain names in Japan. I went to one of them is located in the northern part of Uenohara in Yamanashi Prefecture.

From Uenohara Station on Chuo-honsen line, I took a bus headed for Youdake. After got down the bus, I found a small sign to Mt. Gongen soon. After a short precipitous zigzag path, a gentle path continued for a while.

There was a small old shinto shrine. I continued to climb up over there.

The weather was not good and there wasn't much to see from the top of Mt. Gongen. but I enjoyed the edge walk for the first time in one month.

Mt. Kawanori, the first visit to Okutama after the massive earthquake.

Mt. Kawanori is located in Okutama, the westernmost area of Tokyo, and getting here requires a bit of time. I  takes over two hour from Hachioji where I live in. From Okutama station you'll need to take a bus (crammed full of hikers) headed for Kawanori-bashi.

The trail up follows a mountain stream, so small waterfalls, river pools, the sound of water splashing over rocks, etc. are with you almost the whole way up, all of which made this one of the more enjoyable hikes I've done. Not all the waterfalls are small either, Hyakuhiro falls was about 40 meters high. Getting a close up shot was almost impossible as the falls were so high that they generated an impressive amount of wind and mist.

Up until Hyakuhiro falls, the trail had been pretty tame, but as we began our final acsent of Mt. Kawanori, the previous gentle rise turned into the climb of death.
To be honest there wasn't much to see from the top. The trees effectively screened out any view except for one small area, maybe about 30 degrees wide.

Hatsumode in Tokyo

I went to Koyasu-jinja with my family for Hatsmode, first visit to a Shinto shrine this year. We call it Hatsumode. It's very important Japanese custom. I prayed for my family good health and happy.