A GOOD START TO 2024 AT 15 CRAIGSIDE

But first, a terrible beginning for Japan. On New Year's Day, a 7.5 earthquake struck Japan.

So far, 57 have perished, and roads into the Noto Peninsula remained unaccessible. The highest tsunami hit 4 feet, so nuclear powerplants were not affected.

Then later in the day, at Haneda Airport, an Airbus 380, Japan Airlines JL516, while landing from a Sapporo flight, collided with a Coast Guard plane on it's way to bring supplies to the earthquake area. Five crew members on the DHC-8 JA7221 (photo to the left) were killed, and the pilot is in critical condition. Amazingly, everyone, all 400 or so crew and passengers, safely escaped the burning super jumbo-jet, which is a total loss. The plane has a value approaching half a billion dollars. Of course, what is human life worth?

We have a lot of rainbows at 15 Craigside, where I live. Yesterday.

On New Year's Eve, we had a special dinner followed by poker.

Note above that the sirloin roast had no fat. That is because they cut that off. I love beef fat, and got the chef to save me some, as you will see on my plate. There were also salad and fruit bars.

Our meals.

That piece next to the cut is fat, with a lot of taste.

We had a Stanford Highway 12 Cabernet Sauvignon.

I should mention that my annual Stanford wine collection just arrived in time for this meal. I've been doing this now for almost 30 years.

Also had two kinds of whisky. One from Japan, and the dragon one from Costco.

Then from 9PM to midnight, the 15 Craigside poker group got together.

Honolulu fireworks at midnight.

I've traditionally had ozoni for breakfast as the first meal of the year. I was not the chef for this to kick off 2024, but here is what I enjoyed.

Mochi is part of the soup.

Watched the two NCAA playoff games with my meals today. The games and ozoni were classics.

The ozoni was accompanied by four types of sashimi and gau gee.

Then for dinner I had kalua pig and cabbage, with an egg, plus macaroni salad, sashimi and salad.

Comments

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo. We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo. So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines. We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station. This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site. It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance. This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of ten of those already waiting to enter. However...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

Search This Blog