17 Years Later

17 Years Later, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

Now I'm in mid-40s. I speak better English than I was 17 years ago, I hope. I have a job and I do buy what I want at a supermarket now. I take tubes rather than buses. I have an iPhone, which I love, and I have a few friends to make a call to.

One thing I am not sure is 'Am I as free as I was in 1995?'

No need to argue.

Mulranny, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

When I moved to London, I listened to the Cranberries so often as my flatmate was a big fan of them, and in the end I was addicted to their music, too.

In the same year, I went to Ireland fist time in my life. The moist air with smell of turf was something I would feel in their music.

Nowadays, I rarely listen to the Cranberries any more but when I see those scenery of Ireland with very heavy clouds, I still can't help looking up their album with a little nostalgia.

1995

1995, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

I was still in my 20s. I wasn't able to speak much English at all. I left work and had no job. I had to be aware of how much I spent on food everyday. I tried to get buses rather than tube as it was cheaper. I had no mobile phone but I had no friends to call any way. I did not belong to anywhere or anybody. I didn't know much about the town I lived then.

Nevertheless, I was quite happy. Everything was new and I was absolutely free.

The distance from where I used to belog to.

Not me not you, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

There is absolutely nothing still in this world. Everything is changing in some degree.

After quite a many years, I left the country, where I was born and brought up, I feel more distant when I come back there rather than when I am away.

It is not too easy to justify the feeling but you find your own country inside yourself when you are away from there. However, when you are back there, you find it not as confortable as it used to be.

Little by little, I loosen my grip and I am getting away from where I used to belong to. That is a little sad, but it would be totally natural.

Kids' perception towards photography.

Bristol Balloon Fiesta, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

As far as I remember I was given my first camera by my dad when I was 14 before my school trip. The camera was not new. It was something my dad used to use A LOT.

At the school trip most kids had new cameras with AE and AF but my old camera did not have AF, so I needed to set the distance at each time, which was so UNCOOL.

How come, I don't know, now I love doing something which I felt so uncool 20+ years ago.

A Sunny Day

My favourite profile, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

I don't really care who you are, what you've done good or bad, how many people admire you still now on...just a truth is you looked so real and beautiful under the blue sky.

Not even a storm in a teacup

a little wind in a coffee cup, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

Never worry it is just a little wind in a coffee cup.

Something which will come, will come and something which will go, will go.

Cheese!

Smiley House in Thaxted, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

Even a house can smile. Why can't you?

Sea like a velvet.

Fethiye 02, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

Water is a great illusionist, even greater than Houdini.

I'm not in love.

EF, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

I just happened to be given a very old unused APS film (expired in 2001). That is only the reason I searched my husband's very old APS camera and purchased batteries to function it.

The prints are real dream so nostalgic.

No, no, I am not gonna actively look for old films, no no.

I'm not in love, so don't forget it. It's just a silly phase I'm going through...

Most of stuff I like is not something I want to own.

Kaya Koy　02, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

I genuinely don't want to own stuff. They look beautiful but I like to look at them somewhere else rather than in our own flat.

Owning is a responsibility and quite often I can't stand it. That is probably just because I am an irresponsible kid.

I am not on holiday but just on the way to supermarket.

I am not on holiday but just on the way to supermarket., a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

I took this pic not anywhere by the sea, but just in North London where I live. It was unusually nice lovely weather for London on the day and the white wall was very misleadingly located there.

Anyway, it looks like a holiday pic, doesn't it?

She waits, I Wait.

Fethiye 08, a photo by gezkaz on Flickr.

She waits for somebody to give her food. I wait she gets a bit still and shows her best expression.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

In English, 'Hot' can be temperature hot but can be spicy hot, too, whereas in Japanese those 2 words are different.

However, I once had a proper experience those 2 words really came together.

It was summer in 1997, when we had friends from Germany, Holland, Turkey and Canada, so it was a fairly international party at home.

Those people all had Turkish link, so I was trying to make 'Yogurtlu Kofte' from my Turkish cooking book. But I had never dealt with fresh chili peppers especially green ones before so I had no idea what they could do to me.

I was innocent and ignorant so I opened them one by one with my hands and got rid of seeds inside, yes, one by one with my hands.

My food was actually lovely, everybody complimented but by the time people started to say 'it's beautiful', 'really nice!!' etc. my hands started burning.

It was a real burn, at least that's what I felt. While people are enjoying the food in the living room I was in agony putting my hands in running water in the kitchen.

I thought, our Turkish friend may know how to cure because I got this through Turkish cooking. So I asked him what to do.

He told me that put good amount of yogurt around my hands. OK, so I did.

That seemed be working for the first 20 seconds but as soon as the yogurt gets a bit warmer, it was the same so I had to put more yogurt every 20 seconds.

In short, yogurt does only work as good as running water and you can not touch anything with this smelly white stuff on your hands. So basically, it's no good at all.

I still wonder how people deal with chili peppers? Is there better solution than yogurt or running water?

One is sorrow, two is joy...

My husband always looks for another magpie rather religiously if he finds one. 

It's a bit like kids in Japan hiding their thumbs when they see a funeral car, well at least when I was a kid, all my friends did it.

I know it sounds quite weird but it is/was believed if you do not hide your thumb when you see a funeral car, you will not be with your parents when they die.　Well, there are quite a lot of 'you can not be with your parents when they die' in Japanese superstitious and this one was one of those. I kind of understand the theory behind it. In Japanese, thumb is called 'parent finger (Oya-yubi)' so if you hide your parent fingers, they are not taken away by the funeral car...

As a kid you don't really know what it is like 'you can not be with your parents' thing, but all my friends religiously hide the thumbs.　

I guess 'one is sorrow, two is joy' seems to be rather simple and innocent.

It is not a holiday suites.

Following the Umeboshi story,　I am going to talk about rice.

When I'm going to buy rice, I usually take suitcase since I usually buy a packet of 10kg of rice and it is quite heavy to carry back hanging from your arm.

Japanese rice in UK are usually imported from California or very few of them are from Italy. They are not something you can buy at any supermarket and you really have to go to Oriental food store so I prefer buying a big packet rather than getting them every couple of days.

Japanese students in UK, who automatically believe that buying Japanese rice in UK is totally decadent, tend to buy pudding rice as substitute. I don't know where it has been started but by word of mouth pudding rice is the closest to Japanese rice among those you can buy in a normal supermarket.

Now I have to clarify to all Japanese students in UK.

Pudding rice is nowhere near Japanese rice. And rice ball made of pudding rice is pretty disgusting. Also pudding rice is quite expensive compare to proper Japanese rice you can get in oriental supermarkets.

So DO NOT buy pudding rice unless you are making rice-pudding, which I think generally is disgusting, too.

Packman Return

My love for Japanese food is sometimes too much and quite often too overwhelming.

Quite a many years, I made Japanese rice everyday with my Japanese rice cooker and ate it at least twice a day with a couple of 'Umeboshis'.

Umeboshi is authentic Japanese pickled plums. I was quite fussy about the quality so I always calculate the number of Umeboshi left in the fridge and try not to eat them all till next visit to Japan.

One day, a friend of mine brought a bucket of damsons from their garden, so I decided to make my own Umeboshi.

It is really a painstaking job and takes several months to complete the process.

Sometimes they need to be in special alcohol, juice or salt, and sometimes they need to do sunbath. If it rains, they need to be taken in the house. I wonder if it may be easier to have a cat.

Anyway, after all sorts of hassle, here you are, Umeboshis are done!

The taste...mmmm...it's just about OK.

I think I will go back to my old counting Umeboshi life, yeah, I think so.

Wat's cider?

I know what cider is now but I didn't know 16 years ago.

In Japan, 'cider' is lemonade and 'lemonade' is proper lemon juice.
So I didn't dream that cider is alcoholic drink.

Who and how people decided to call lemonade 'cider' in Japan but if you order 'cider' you will get sweetened sparkling water in Japan.

But at the same time, I wonder why English people decided to call the sweetened sparkling water 'lemonade'? It tastes million miles away from 'Lemon'.

OK, then you may ask what we call cider in Japan.

We call cider 'apple alcohol'!

Could it be any clearer? Perfect!

A Reserved Seat...

Recently, I had a friend from Paris visiting me.

He loves taking pictures around and he wanted visit somewhere not too touristic. So I took him around the places I love.

First of all, we walked through 2 woods near our flat then went into a path, which used to be used as a railway.

It was incredibly nice day and in summer time, the path is generally covered with full of green.

So it was a bit of surprise to find this chair all in sudden.

What is it for? I don't know.

But in any case, it was brilliant contrast of this white in the deep green.

Hope the chair is still there, even if it is totally meaningless.

The very first water melon in UK!

I've lived in London for nearly 16 years and it is probably the very first water melon I have bought in UK.

How lucky! I found a little heart in it!

It may be weird to the Westerners but Japanese people actually put salt on water melon as it makes the natural sweetness stand out better.

It really works! Try it at home!