Kujukuri-Hama

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beach is, for many travelers, their first glimpse of Japan: it's the long coastline you see from the plane coming in over the Pacific into Narita. The name means "99-ri coast", where a "ri" is an old unit of length equal to about 654 meters. The coast is in fact around 60km in length. There are numerous small towns along the coast, from Iioka on the north to Ichinomiya on the south.

How to get there -> Tokyo (--Keiyo line-->) Togane (--Bus(30 mins)-->) Kujukuri-hama




Sanderlings in Kujukuri-Hama










The Last Supper

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A 16 billion pixel image of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper has been posted on the internet, giving art lovers a detailed view of the 15th Century work.
The image is 1,600 times more detailed than those taken with a typical 10 million pixel digital camera.

Experts will be able to see segments as though just centimetres away and examine otherwise unavailable details.


Authentic digital image of the famous Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" is avaialable at Haltadefinizione

Anyone want to become "Robert Langdon" and investigate whether the person seated to Jesus's right is John or Mary...?

There are lot of speculations/theories surrounding this mural...check it out...

Wikipedia

http://www.jaydax.co.uk/lastsupper/lastsupper.htm

Transliteration

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"Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. It is also the system of rules for that practice."

Google Transliteration - almost accurate and easy to use... available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam...

Some useful purposes:

->if u dont have anything to do, try transliterating some meaningful ;) movie songs like the one below...

"arachha maava araippoma... thuvacha thuniya thuvaippoma... a emma emma emmamma"

"அரச்ச மாவ அரைப்போமா... துவச்ச துணிய துவைப்போமா... ஏ எம்மா எம்மா எம்மம்மா"

->if u want to scold someone in your native language over chat... "podaa panni" "போடா பண்ணி"

Saltooo...

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We used to make fun of our Telugu friends about Telugu…"What ra...if you put “Lu” after any Tamil word you will get Telugu". After being in Japan for almost 5 months now, I felt the same about Japanese as well… Take any English word and add “aeiou”... whatever you feel comfortable and you will get an equivalent Japanese word…It has worked well quite a few times… “Busu” for Bus, “Milku” for “Milk”… but this was not the case yesterday. After deciding to cook yesterday, I wanted to buy some salt and vegetables… Went to a nearby shop and checked the whole shop and couldn’t find any salt…Thought its time to use my Japanese skills…

Me: Sumimasen, Saltooo…
Shopkeeper: Kohi..?
Me: (I knew Kohi means coffee and she was trying to say something about coffee and said no) Nai…Thought she didn’t get me properly and I asked for “Saltoo”(stressing the word) again…
Shopkeeper: Ryori..?
Me: (Ryori-cooking… thought she got what I said) Hai…

and bought it. When I was about to start cooking, I opened the pack to taste it and it was not salt(Good that I was not over confident in my Japanese... I checked before adding it to my cooking)… it was sugar :( ... what the ****... I had no choice but to buy Salt. So checked the English-Japanese dictionary and knew that my Jappu technique went horribly wrong this time... "Sauto" almost pronounced like 'Saltooo" means Sugar and "Shio" means Salt...

Vocabulary learnt:
Sauto - Sugar
Shio - Salt

"Champions India win again..."

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Thats what the electronic scoreboard read after the emphatic win against the Aussies in the Mumbai Twenty20. Australia cruising at one stage(110/2 in 13 overs) was reduced to a meagre total of 166 in 20 overs by some good spin bowling by Harbhajan and Murali Karthik which is always a chaseable total in this format. India while chasing were so much at ease and never looked like losing. Sehwag as usual was out cheap, but some class shots from Gambhir, Uthappa helped India cruise to a comfortable win. Really a great performance from the youngsters.

Scorecard

But.... After the humiliating exit from the world cup, India had a easy series against Bangladesh(ofcourse they beat India in worldcup, but they are not that consistent) and after the embarassing 4-1 loss to the Aussies, we had the Twenty20 against Australia, the format with which we are really comfortable right now... How come India get a easier series almost after every tough one... is it a ploy by the BCCI to schedule it in a way so that we would forgot what actually happened... are they the Visionaries???

On the lighter side, here is one of the mail forward mocking the dialogue from the movie "Sivaji"

It goes like this:
Villain: Engala enna manja satta potta manja makkan nu nenachiya? Paaru ethana peru vanthirukkom innu... (See how many guys have come... u thought we are fools are what..?)

Rajini: Panni thaan padai oda varum... Singam single'a thaan varum... (Pigs only come in droves... Lion comes alone only)

Here:

Ponting: Australia na manja satta potta manja makkan nu nenachiya?
Australia da, World Champion Australia da.
Palaya WC record a eduthu paru (See how many world cups we have won)

Dhoni: Kanna... Panninga than neraiya World cup Jeikkum,
Singam Single World Cup dan Jeikkum. (Pigs only wins so many world cups... Lions win only one)

Room pottu yosippangalo...

Summa irukkarthu onnum summa illa... (Sitting idle is not so easy)... "Based on a True Story"

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In one of the Tamil comedies, Vadivelu makes a bet with a guy to sit idle for the whole day and eventually the other guy loses and Vadivelu makes a comment "Summa irukkarthu onnum summa illa... (Sitting idle is not so easy)". Many a times I have thought with the work pressure back home, I can do that for sure and how nice it would be to just sit idle... But after coming here to client side with almost all work done, I'm sitting here just a like a bench warmer in many of the IT companies with absolutely no work to do... The max I do daily was to read the same story twice, couple of Coffees/smoke and call it off for the day... Atleast at offshore I can keep myself busy disturbing others... But with no one around(to disturb as well), its damn boring... I too would have lost that bet...

Juglar in front of Minatomirai-Yokohama

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This performance was before Minatomirai(The tallest building in Japan). He made more than a lakh Yen just after this performance...

Russia - England 2-1

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If you read any of the English newspapers on the post match analysis, you would see these lines "Dodgy penalty decision", "England deserverd to win", "Plastic surface" etc etc... attributing the failure to beat Russia to factors other than the poor selection and play from the manager/players. But this is not the case in most of the fans forums... few questions in my mind as well...

1. Why was Lescott playing as the left back... If I'm correct all the back four are center backs for their clubs. Micah Richards as right back (CB for Man. city), Ferdinand(ManU), Campbell(Portsmouth), Lescott as left back(CB for Everton). Nicky Shorey plays as right back for Reading was in the bench throughout the match.

2. Why didnt Robinson tip that ball(leading to the second goal) to the corner. If he had handled it soft it would have gone to a corner and not in the 6 yard box. But the defenders too were the culprits. Should have cleared the danger before palvychenko pounced on it.

Few saves from the Goalkeeping legend(Oliver Khan)


3. If u had seen the build up to the second goal(Youtube), you can easily see how nervous England were. Never really passing the ball but trying to clear it as for as they could inviting next attack by the Russians.



If you look at the stats below, you will never say "England deserved to win" as McClaren and others say.

Goals Russia 2, England 1
First-half goals 0, 1
Shots on target 4, 3
Shots off target 5, 5
Blocked shots 14, 5

Corners 9, 8
Fouls 16, 18
Offsides 1, 0
Yellow cards 2, 2
Red cards 0, 0
Passing success 80.9%, 66.2%
Tackles 24, 27
Tackles success 79.2 %, 66.7%
Possession 66.8%, 33.2 %
Territorial advantage 57.3%, 42.7%

Building a digital SLR system

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For the photography buffs out there…Below is the link to a detailed document on Digital SLR’s…

http://photo.net/equipment/building-a-digital-slr-system/

Ushiku Daibutsu (Ushiku Big Buddha)

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The Buddha in Ushiku is 100 meters tall and is the highest Buddha statue in the world. This is almost 9 times the size of the Kamakura Big buddha(14m) and thrice the size of the Statue of Liberty(40m). And asusual you can see Mt.Fuji from the top of Big Buddha :) ...

What are these!!!

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Are these the new Generation cars...? running in Solar or Hydrogen??? Or are these the "Research Cars" being tested on the streets???

Nope...But these are the highly fuel efficient ones...Guess what...




These run without any fuel... Yes... Known to us since long time... These are the Rickshaws on the streets of Yokohama... Surprised!!!

Sreeshanth Hater

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I dont know how many of you hate Sreeshanth but I for sure hate this guy a lot...His antics is for what I hate him most... I can understand if someone who has proved at the international level, who is consistent enough, wins games single handedly can be this arrogant... But Sreeshanth hasnt proved anything... His figures isnt great as well... Has a bowling avaerage of 28.23, 32.78 and economy of 3.26 and 5.74 in Tests and ODI's respectively... Everyone has to learn from Walsh, Ambrose... One of the all time bowling greats... I have never seen them stare at anyone or a second look... even if a newbie hits them for a four or six...

Sreeshanth Bowling Average:
Bowling Mat--Inns--Balls--Runs--Wkts--BBI--BM--Ave--Econ--SR--4w--5w-10
Tests 11--22--2387--1299--46--5/40--8/99--28.23--3.26--51.8--4--1--0
ODIs 32--32--1575--1508--46--6/55--6/55--32.78--5.74--34.2--1--1--0
T20Is 8--7--162--216--7--2/12--2/12--30.85--8.00--23.1--0--0--0

But for sure I'm not the only one who hate him... but there close to 11 orkut
community of Sreeshanth Haters... Just behind Ricky Ponting... Which for sure he can be proud of ;) Sreenshanth Hate Clubs

The media has its own share in endorsing these stuff... Whenever I see him doing some nonsense stuff, u can always hear "This is good for the game", "One can expect a great series" and stuff like that... Also now he into movies as well...He is supposed to act in one malayalam film with Mammoty...
http://cricket.indiatimes.com/Sreesanth_offered_film_alongside_Mamooty/articleshow/2414063.cms

But this is not sportmanship... Im not saying Sreeshanth is the only one.. I hate Nel and I hate the Australian team for that... Sledging (Supposedly claimed as Mind Games by some) should never be tolerated... Otherwise this would make some like me turn away from Cricket...

Cool way to learn Japanese numbers 1 to 20

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Yoyogi Park - Tokyo

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Indian style music in Yoyogi Park- Tokyo... Definitely will make your legs tap...
Video is not clear as it was already late when we reached there...

My take on the Setu Canal

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There is a huge outcry over the Tamilnadu Government's proposal to go ahead with the Setu Canal project from various political parties and religious leaders raising the issue of Rama's bridge which is supposed to exist over there. I'm not going to comment on the presence of it or try defending Mr. Karunanithi's remarks about Lord Rama… What I think is that we should solely address this issue based on the benefits in the economy of India as well as the ecological/environmental effects that might arise by building this.

The proposed project would bring more revenue for the shipping industry in India and particularly for Tamilnadu, with the ports Tuticorin, Nagapattinam and Rameshwaram benefiting a lot and it also reduces the amount of fuel spent and also the amount of time one could save.

"Assuming that international vessels would prefer to go through this canal as against the Colombo port route, an estimated 2,000 vessels or more may use the canal annually. In the 19th year, cumulative annual earnings from the project are expected to be over Rs 5,000 crore." – Wikipedia

There’s always other side of this story…Based on the ecological aftereffects…
“Environmentalists are concerned as the Gulf of Mannar Marine Reserve is one of India's most biologically diverse coastal regions. Over 3,600 species of plants and animals are found here. The sea grass beds along the coast are among the largest remaining feeding grounds for the globally endangered dugong. Additionally five species of marine turtles, innumerable fish, mollusks and crustaceans also feed there. Gulf of Mannar is the first Marine Biosphere Reserve not only in India but also in South and South East Asia. The reserve covers 10,500 km² and has 21 islands with continuous stretches of coral reef. The coral reefs which surround the islands in the area are highly productive and are often referred to as "underwater tropical rain forest" and are a treasure house for marine ornamental fishes. The establishment of the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere reserve has enhanced India's position as an environmentally responsible country in the comity of nations.” – Wikipedia

But for those who just look at this based on the political or religious reasons need not look behind our neighbors(China) who are building the largest dam in the world. The Three Gorges. The known estimated destruction caused by this project alone would run into billions… and the numbers of temples that would be destroyed/submerged might run into thousands. - CommonDreams

My view is that if it’s going to be a favorable for India then we should go for it... We should consider the economic/ecological/environment factors and not those of religion…

Spot the Not

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The Temple of Abu Simbel




The Parthenon




The Golden Temple - Kyoto



Were you able to spot the Not??? The pictures at the bottom are actually the miniature models of the original. We took these pics in Tobu World Square, Nikko, Japan...

Curious, Cute little girl

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When I went to Tobu World Square(Miniature world)... There was this little girl who was very curious about the miniature buildings... But the girls father was even more curious about it and the girl hardly got any chance to see the miniatures... She was restless in the beginning turning her head whatever way possible to have a peek at the miniatures but in the end she just gave up...