3:37 p.m. I finally ordered a smart phone yesterday.

After pondering what to choose for several months, I decided to get Torque SKT01 from Kyocera. I didn't think I could stand dropping the device and having to see the display shattered again, after I'd had my iPad mini cracked, so toughness priored to spec. I've ordered it yesterday through a web shop of an electronics retailer, and the device has arrived in the morning! What a quick delivery!

I've set the battery pack and am currently charging it to start the settings. Though unfortunately, it seems I'd have to wait a few more days for my SIM card to arrive. I've ordered it yesterday, too, but it's taking more time possibly, because they're processing my credit card account.

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Caterpillar

4:58 p.m. Nadeshiko has made it to the finals!

The game finished with a dramatic ending of the England's defender trying to clear Kawasumi's pass but leading to an own goal. I think Laura Bassett did her best to clear the ball which was definitely necessary at that point, as if she hadn't, Kawasumi's cross ball might have lead to Ohgimi's shoot. It's just that she was barely able to touch the ball with the tip of her toes, and that wasn't enough to control the ball. The problem was rather that England had let Kawasumi hold the ball and pass before their defence line got back. So I think Ms. Bassett shouldn't be personally blamed.

England has fought well and Nadeshiko have been suffering. In fact, Nadeshiko was losing their own rhythm in the last half. Still, they didn't give up and that probably lead to Kawasumi's pass. I'm sure England would come back four years later, much stronger and tougher than today. Good luck to you, ladies, and we will do our best in the finals to prove that you were a tough team to beat!

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Caterpillar

4:07 p.m. E-mail has arrived from the SIM company, that they have sent out my card on delivery.

According to the message, they have sent my SIM card out yesterday evening to the delivery company, so it shall arrive by the time I get home. The only problem is that I might get home to a notice instead of the SIM card, because I doubt if JoOusama would get the door and sign it for me.

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Caterpillar

12:08 p.m. I returned home to a disappointment. There has been nothing delivered.

What's taking them so long? I mean, the SIM card has been sent out on Thursday, and it's not delivered by the end of Friday although the delivery is only inside Tokyo? What kind of pretty cat is Kuroneko chasing around? Perhaps I should have put out catfood at the door so they would come right away?

I've been checking the tracking service logs nearly ten times since yesterday, not to mention just now. And now I see a "delivering" on my tracking chart! The time the log was entered says 8:07 a.m. I lingered leaving the house until 9:10 and the black cat is "delivering" now? Humph.

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Caterpillar

5:39 p.m. I've finally got my SIM card!

As I got home yesterday, JoOusama said rather crossly, "I've got your package for you." I said thanks, and carried the awaited package up to my room, but I didn't open it yet because I was very tired.

I'm going to set up the SIM card from now so I could start using my Torque. Also, the analyzing for my spring season horse race is going well so far. I'm trying to adjust my ways of calling so as to win more races, and I've called today's Radio Nikkei-sho for testing. It worked quite well. I would have won 75,100 Yen if I'd bought my trifecta.

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Caterpillar

4:25 p.m. 4 goals in the first 16 minutes was too tough to beat. Nadeshiko lost the final against the U.S. by an embarrassing 5-2.

But this is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Nadeshiko will have to accept it as it is, and start re-building themselves. After all, we've only won once against the U.S.

Each and every member of the team should realize that they are not strong enough to beat the U.S. 5-2 is the reality they have to face. And they have to think, "Why did we lose?" "What lead to those 4 goals in the first 16 minutes?" "What can we do to stop them?" "What can we do to earn more goals?" "How can we do that?" And there'll be no more depending on Sawa or Miyama when they search for answers to these questions. Each and every member of Nadeshiko must think and find answers to their own. Start moving on for the future. And their road to the future has already started, today.

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Caterpillar

1:31 p.m. As I was sitting at the desk-top organizing my thoughts about what to write, Cow has sneaked up behind to kindly perform the well-worn joke of Kasuga, a comedian from a unit called Audrey.

Just when Cow burst out with a call of "Toooosss!" spit flew out of his mouth spattering on the keyboard. And a bit on my head, too. He laughed out loud and began to wipe it all off with tissue paper, when three letters "tyu" suddenly popped up in the address bar on the top left corner of the browser.

He laughed even harder saying that it was a miracle, while I sat mumbling left out on the fun. It's not any miracle you see, t, y and u are next to each other on the keyboard. And I've just got spat on, you know?

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Caterpillar

3:30 p.m. Raining...again.

But the good news is, we're bound for some sunny weather this weekend, yay! I've checked the amount of water left in Yagisawa dam which is the main source of water for Tokyo yesterday, and learned that it was over 90&37; so we wouldn't have to worry about water shortage for the coming month.

I've also discovered yesterday that Softbank has made an announcement that they're going to provide free wifi service for foreign tourists. Make a call to their Free Wifi Passport number using Softbank roaming from a foreign mobile phone (your device needs to be able to use UTMS network) to get your log in passcode. By logging in to FREE Wi-Fi PASSPORT from your device's wifi settings, tapping in your phone number as user ID and the formerly obtained passcode as password, you can gain access to a free wifi service from Softbank access points for 2 weeks. It seems like a test run from 1st July, 2015 to 31st March, 2016 before moving on to full service by 2020. For more details please refer to: FREE Wi-Fi PASSPORT

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Caterpillar

5:19 p.m. There was a ranking of favorite Manga on today's Yahoo! News which Cow has told me to take a look at.

According to the 2015 first 6 months' e-book ranking, the top 3 in men's favorite manga were; number 3, Nanatsuno Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins), number 2, Kingdom, and number 1, Shingekino Kyojin (Attack on Titan). As for the women's, number 3, Aoharaido (AO-HARU-RIDE), number 2, Ore Monogatari!! (My Love Story!!) and number 1, Chihahafuru.

Interesting. Pity Arusurahn Senki (THe Heroic Legend of Arslan) wasn't in top 3 in both categories, but well, I agree with Kingdom and Ore Monogatari!!

By the way, there was also an article on Ore Monogatari!! that it's going to be released as a film with Ryouhei Suzuki playing Takeo's part. He seems to be doing a good job as far as I can tell from the trailer:-)

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Caterpillar

4:11 p.m. The rain was supposed to stop by afternoon but it went on raining way after six yesterday. I dropped by a supermarket to buy winter melon for today's lunch.

There was a familiar young man at the cashier and as I paid for my winter melon, he handed me my purchase in a plastic bag saying, "I tied the bag so the content won't get wet in the rain." How thoughtful of him! I was caught off guard and all that came out of my mouth was the usual "Thank you," but what I really wanted to say was, "It's very thoughtful and kind of you to put yourself in my position, thank you very much." I wish I could have conveyed my feelings, though I was too shy, and my thoughts always come stoo slow.

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Caterpillar

2:12 p.m. You meet a lot of weird people when you get on public transportation such as busses, trains or subways. Yesterday I was met by a businessman reading some sort of text book lined with highlighter, loudly passing gas clear enough for the whole subway passengers to hear, but still keeping his cool as nothing has happened. Later on a train, a young man in his early twenties sitting next to me, has added a ripened durian flavor wafting on the wind coming from the air conditioner.

This morning, it was a pair of French tourists in their early twenties. There was a young father sitting next to one of the tourists, holding his baby girl (about 1 year old) on his lap, with the mother on his other side. As is often the case on subways and trains, the baby started to get cranky after a while. It was then the young French tourist started making funny faces at the baby, with occasional gorgeous smiles in between. To my surprise, the baby girl started smiling back at him.

I nearly burst out laughing at the scene. So that's how you comfort and settle a baby in France! He's done quite a good job, too.

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Caterpillar

10:33 p.m. When my smartphone was delivered the other day, of course there were shock-absorbing air cushions in the box together, to protect the content inside. I'd put one of the air-filled plastic bags over my ear and pushed it toward my face without much thinking. And discovered that it shut out nosie! Not to mention, my thought formed into an idea; if these air cushions can reduce noises, perhaps I can sound-proof my room from the radio noise made by JoOusama!

So I tried putting this idea into action this afternoon.

I've prepared some long plastic bags found on rainy days at entrances of buildings to put your umbrellas in, to fill the gap between the top of my closet to the ceiling, because this gap was the most suspected to carry the noise from the next room. I blew air into the bags to blow them up like balloons, tied knots to seal their openings, then attached half-inch wide rubber bands to the ceiling and the edge of the closet with pushpins. These bands are supposed to hold the hand-made air cushion steady and pushed against the gap. I've already discovered when I opened my smartphone package that the cushions must be attached frimly to reduce noise effectively.

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Caterpillar

3:27 p.m. And how did the noise reduction experiment turn out?

Well, speaking from the result, I think it worked pretty well! I haven't filled all the gaps yet because 1/3 of the gap was above my bookshelf where I couldn't reach. Still, the air-filled umbrella bags have succeeded to reduce the radio noise to a murmur! Before the experiment, it always troubled me to get to sleep as I can hear clearly, every word the radio show host was speaking when introducing a song, not to mention the song itself which very often turned out to be old Showa songs, with clarinets and saxophones emerging through my ear plugs. But now I can only hear a faint murmur despite the remaining gap!

I regret though, that I should have downladed a noise level meter app beforehand, so that I could have provided a more objective result of my success.

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Caterpillar

2:39 p.m. As I was chatting with my client, the topic took its course towards summer vacation. My client seemed to be wondering what her kids should do for their summer research assignment.

Speaking of summer research assignments, I remembered the time I did mine when I was in 5th or 6th grade. I was in an after school science program and assigned to a free research during summer vacation. It was my first time doing a research and as I didn't know where to start from, I turned to JoOusama for advice to which she ordered a research on how washed clothes dried.

I thought that might be interesting and recorded the weather, temperature, humidity, and how fast our washed clothes dried. According to my research, wet clothes dried faster in fine weather and high temperature as expected, but not so fast when the humidity was high. I couldn't win any awards with it though, as my research lacked another important factor, wind. If it had the observation data of the directions and strength of wind, along with my consideration, my research assignment might have been more valued.

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Caterpillar

2:17 p.m. Have enjoyed an interesting meeting with foreign friends yesterday evening.

My friends both speak a bit of Japanese and they're still learning, and one of them told me that it was quite difficult to read or pronounce Kanji characters. As you might already know, Japanese Kanji has basically two ways of reading, On-yomi and Kun-yomi. On-yomi is based on the original Chinese pronunciation where the Kanji characters came from, over the course of several hundred years. Kun-yomi, on the other hand, was made by linking the Kanji characters to spoken Japanese language through their meanings. And the problem for my friend, is that there seems to be no clarified rule as to determine which way she should read the Kanji, On-yomi or Kun-yomi. It is very confusing for her and although she can understand what meaning they present, she's not sure how to pronounce them which gets her both frustrated and embarrassed.

Hmm... interesting. As a Japanese and having crammed all those Kanjis in my head while I was still young, I never realized there was such difficulty in reading. To us, it comes so naturally that we don't even stop and wonder which way to read. Perhaps it's something like the German articles? They're so natural and easy for Germans to use, that they don't need to stop and think which article to use for which noun.

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Caterpillar

5:49 p.m. One of our clients have been coaxed into buying not just a smartphone, but also a Surface 3 tablet to go with it by the notorious "some alphabet-Mobile!" The problem is that this client cannot even use the computer properly and he comes to us every time something goes wrong on his smartphone or tablet.

Last time he came, we were forced into setting his tablet to tether on his smartphone, because he wanted to access the Internet though we couldn't draw out an answer to whether his tablet carried a SIM card or not. Today, he came back again saying he'd lost access again.

We finally dicovered that the tablet had a SIM card mounted, and after some struggle, succeeded to connect the tablet to the Internet via LTE. Sigh... Exhausting.

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Caterpillar

3:41 p.m. Cow has been out shopping for tomorrow's lunch. He's been making soba on Saturdays for a while so I wouldn't have to bring my own.

As Cow passed by the ready-made tempura corner, his eyes caught a jumbo pack with the price sticker that said 200 Yen. Unbelievably reasonable price. Soon he figured the reason why. There were smaller packs lined just above the jumbo packs and they were all priced 200 Yen. Some staff had put the wrong price. Secretly feeling grateful and a wee bit of thrill that the error might be spotted, Cow waited for the cashier to process the food through the register without incident.

And that's how I got lucky to have a tempura soba for tomorrow lunch :-D

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Caterpillar

1:52 p.m. Aaaaand we've got Rokkatei Marusei butter sandwich to have for snack today! My brother-in-law always brings them whenever he's been on a business trip to Hokkaido.

Rokkatei Marusei butter sand is my favorite Japanese confectionery, which comes in the form of blended white chocolate and butter cream dotted with raisins, sandwiched by soft biscuits. I've eaten many biscuits that looked alike, but I've never met anything that beats Marusei butter sand.

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Caterpillar

5:16 p.m. The high temperture of Tokyo has shot up to 34.8 degrees Celsius and JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) has announced the end of the rainy season for the Kanoto area.

34.8, that's nearly 35 degrees which is equivalent to body temperature of someone who has low average temperature (my late grandmother's average temperature was 35.3 degrees). No wonder my fan produces merely lukewarm wind. No wonder I've forgotten that Hakodate Kinen started from 3:25 as the opening grade race for the summer Hakodate series.

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Caterpillar

9:53 p.m. It was another hot day but a holiday today, yes, Marine Day whatever that is. After all, I haven't been even close to sea water for the past decade, although it's supposed to be a public holiday to get acquainted with the ocean, as Japan is an archepelago surrounded by sea.

I had to finish up some work to prepare for the morning meeting tomorrow, but otherwise I pretty much enjoyed my free time watching some of the earliest episodes from Kingdom and Ore Monogatari.

Looks like the body-temperature heat will be back again tomorrow. So why don't we have another holiday tomorrow? Or better yet, make it a holiday whenever the temperature hits 33 degrees Celsius? Then perhaps I'll get a chance to go and get acquainted with the ocean.

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Caterpillar

2:05 p.m. Since I couldn't buy Hakodate Kinen wich I'd dutifully called but have lost had I been able to remember the starting time, I've been to netkeiba.com to take a look at the members of this week's Chukyo Kinen.

And my, this is one difficult race to call. The race distance has been shortened from 2,000 meters to 1,600 meters since three years ago (2012) and dark horses have been not only winning, but also coming in second and third. Chukyo Kinen has always been known to go wild, having been a handicap race in the middle of the summer, on the relatively worn Chukyo course.

Thrillingly though, the average pay-off of trifectas for the past 3 years amount to 344,286.667 Yen. Wow.

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Caterpillar

3:08 p.m. Have bought transparent acrylic bowl and box, both at 100 Yen shops to use in our office.

I've been wondering if there was anything I can do to reduce the smell of smoke inside our office. But I didn't want to use defusers because our plugs were already full with computers, modems and routers. After a good deal of searching, I've found an earth-friendly way to reduce the smell: zeolites.

Zeolites are said to be porous and absorb ammonia odor of cigarette smoke. I've done a little experiment and decided this might work, so have bought some zeolite at a DIY shop. I've poured it into the acrylic containers today and set them on a shelf and on the worktable. Look nice, as if they are displayed as interior accessory:-)

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Caterpillar

5:52 p.m. It took me nearly 20,000 steps on my pedometer to get one miniature elephant model.

I thought Daiso sold a pack of miniature animals for 100 Yen several months ago, but it seemed they were gone already. The problem with Daiso and other 100 Yen shops is that the items they sell aren't supplied steadily. I've been to Tokyu Hands trusting a post on the Internet that they sold miniature dinosaur models for 100 Yen, hoping I might be able to get animal models for about the same price, but in vain. The miniature animal models I found there were all from famous foreign manufacturers, and although high in quality, each model cost at least 500 Yen. Too expensive!

Losing hope, I dropped by the nearest Can Do as a last resort. There, I miraculously found lions, polar bears, horses, penguins, dolphins, whales and elephants sold fro 100 Yen each. However, most of them didn't meet my quality standard. After some half hour of hesitation, I settled for an elephant and now it's standing quietly on the zeolite in the acrylic box I'd set on the worktable yesterday. Wish I could get him some new friends.

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Caterpillar

3:15 p.m. When I was a child, we used to have evening rain showers in the evening during the summer season called Yuh-dachi in Japanese, especially on hot days. Towering up white clouds and Yuh-dachi were the features of the summer, along with Hanabi (fireworks displays) and Bon-odori (Bon dance festivals).

About an hour ago, there was a downpour. Unlike the atmospheric Yuh-dachi, thunder rolled and the rain came pouring down in full force. Seems we're having these downpour more often these days, something more closer to the squalls in south-east Asia. Had to stop Cow from going out on his daily shopping until the rain stopped.

The good news though, is that today we have useful information source to learn about sudden downpours on JMA's web site, called "Now Cast." It provides you the newest weather information about downpours. They also have apps to download to your smartphones, so better make use of them and stay put while it's pouring. High-resolution Precipitation Nowcasts

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Caterpillar

2:32 p.m. Cannot think of anything, brain has stopped functioning.

Cow and I have been talking about twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac and we went on the Internet to search about it, encouraged by the fact that yesterday was Doyo-no Ushi-no-hi, the Midsummer Day of the Ox. And we learned unexpectedly a lot.

One of the interesting things was that these signs of the zodiac were not only used to express the year, as in "I was born in the year of the dragon," but also to represent month, day, time and directions in the old days of Edo. In those days, office workers used to strike bells or beat drums to let everyone know of the time. And those office workers are said to have used something called Koh Dokei, literally interpreting, incense clock. This incense clock was an item that formed a shallow box, where people made banks of incense using a wooden mandril in it. They would light the very edge of the incense bank, and the incense would burn out every time the bank took a turn, because there was a gap designed into it according to the time length. Amazing!

It just hit me, but wouldn't it be nice if the incense banks were made with different fragrance incense? That way, you can tell the time by the fragrance. What a luxuriously wonderful way to tell time! It almost sounds like a great way to enjoy time!

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Caterpillar

6:30 p.m. The high in Tokyo today was a baffling 35.8 degrees. Unfortunately, I don't have a thermometer in my room, but am sure it still must be well above 32. And the forecast has just pronounced a sentence of another 35 degrees tomorrow. Daunting.

I do have an air conditioner though I haven't been using it for the past decade considering the environment, my health condition, and to save electricity. And to be honest, yes, it crossed my mind today to finally turn it on again however, that option was instantly denied as electronics being unused for a long time must first be applied current for at least 6 to 8 hours, before starting them again. I'd thought of plugging it right now so I can use it tomorrow, but then, there will be no empty socket to plug in my TV, hard disc recorder, and TV antenna booster. Darn.

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Caterpillar

3:15 p.m. Cow has been to the otological doctor's. Looks like he's got another bottle of those nose spray.

But he's coming out fine. The doctor seems to have told him that his nasal polyps have grown smaller and that Cow's condition was getting better, and now he can breath normally through his nose. Thank god. I've been feeding him lots of shiso (Japanese basil) myouga (myouga sprouts) and negi (green onions), which were said to reduce inflammation, to avoid him having surgery.

Also, Cow himself seems to have thought over the process of applying nose spray, which might or night not have been effective in getting the polyps smaller.

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Caterpillar

2:42 p.m. They said it would rain on and off today so have brought my umbrella, although my bag was already full and heavy.

And now they say it won't rain today. Humph. Might as well leave my umbrella in the office to make my bag a bit lighter. The reason my bag has become so heavy is because I've brought some gifts for my foreign friend. We're meeting after work so had to carry them all to work.

Well, if it's not gonna rain and stay hot like this, beer must taste real good, come to think of it.

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Caterpillar

2:54 p.m. Couldn't sleep well last night because of the heat. Am seriously condidering turning on my old air conditioner again, as the weekly forecast is predicting another "body-temperature" weekend.

Enjoyed the reunion with my friends though, and we're bound for a karaoke meeting during this week. Yay! There may be some new members joining which sounds very exciting :-D

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Caterpillar

3:08 p.m. Cow is fuming. According to Cow, he has been pressured to give way on the sidewalk by an old woman who was riding a bicycle, to which he didn't give in because he was pissed by the woman's behavior.

I sympathize with Cow's fury since first of all, bicycles are required to run on car lanes, not on sidewalks, unless there are obvious risks of danger on the car lane, such as heavy traffic. Plus, even in cases when bicycles are allowed to be ridden on the sidewalk or side strips, forcing pedestrians to give way to bicycles is considered as an act of threat where pedestrian are give npriority in passing, and is officially illegal.

Personally, I think Japanese bicycle manners are far from good, and the police should tighten their control over the regulations. Otherwise, reckless bicycle riders will never disappear. Besides, they would only ruin the reputations of true bike lovers who follow the regulations, which definitely should not happen.

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Caterpillar

2:28 p.m. Last night when I turned on my hard disk recorder to watch the programs I'd recorded earlier, I realized that the sound wasn't coming out although there seemed to be nothing wrong with the image.

Have unplugged and plugged the cables a couple of times without success. At one point the sound came out just for a minute, but as soon as I started to play my recordings it went silent again. Has it broken because of the heat? Recalling what I was doing at the time when the sound briefly came back on, am thinking there might be a possibility that the batteries in the remote are running out. Hadn't changed them since I bought the device, come to think of it. When was that?

I am skeptical about the batteries though, as I was able to turn on and off the hard disk recorder with the same remote. Anyway, will try getting some new batteries and replacing them with the old ones. If that doesn't get me out of this situation, I have the faintest idea what would.

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Caterpillar