Cooking Oyakodon

Oyakodon 「親子丼」, a bowl of light fluffy egg with chicken and onions on top of a hot rice, is perhaps one of the easiest Japanese meal to cook. To cook this simple menu you will need eggs, chicken, onion, rice, and some Japanese cooking sauces like Shoyu, Mirin and Sake. In Youtube there's a video on how to cook it, fun to watch :)

 

Oyakodon

Oyakodon, dressed with seaweed

Cook with dog!

Cooking show on YouTube

DesignSpree 2 : Unimplemented designs

During 2005, around the 2nd year of my undergrad, a friend asked me to design university notebook covers. At that time I was new to this design industry, so I took a chance in the cultivation process of a college notebook. University students like to come up with their own notebooks which go for sell during the start of a new semester. These notebooks were meant to be sold for fund-raising. We targeted freshmen and those who want to have collectable items with their university's pride. Unfortunately we never did sell these notebooks. I think we invest on something else.  just ran into the Adobe illustrator files of these cover designs and grab three of them here. 

   

another day in thammasat

Each box randomly shows a typical life style, thoughts, etc.

"Hazard station, too many winning 11?" 

"Asian games village, TU Hometown, get electrified by the electric bill"

"Dog is a man's best friend, WHY EAT IT"

TU

That would have fit well with your brand name items.

Write Thammasat

Inspired by the Japanese language, and culture. 

That samurai stuff was what in my mind when I first studied Japanese.

If you are interested in implemented any of that, feel free to contact me but it's going to cost a lot :)

みなさん、ゾウを見たことがある？

タイの代表的な動物と言えばゾウである。毎年、世界中からツーリストがタイで有名なゾウのショーを見に来る。何がそんなにすごいのか。理由はゾウがいろいろなことができるからだ。たとえば、サッカーやバスケットボールができるし、きれいな絵が書けるし、旅行の案内のための乗り物にもなる。

また、２００５年　タイのゾウのキャンプはギネスから「ゾウのグループにより書かれた世界中で一番大きい絵画」として、ワールドレコードを与えられた。この絵画は横２．４０メートル、縦１２メートルのサイズである。http://www.maesaelephantcamp.com/jp/records.html


絵が書けるゾウ／サッカーもできる／ピカゾウ／白ゾウ

タイの歴史によると昔から国とゾウは深い関係がある。特に王様以外持てない「白ゾウ」は一番大切である。多くのタイ人は王様の見つけた白ゾウは多ければ多いほどいいと思っている。また、平和になると信じられている。一方、昔の戦争では、王様はゾウに乗って戦争に向かった。ゾウは王様と国の象徴となった。



白ゾウ／ゾウの戦争／昔の国旗／ゾウに乗って虫を探す

さらに、１８１７年　タイの最初の国旗は赤地の真ん中に白ゾウを描いた。現在はその国旗を使っていないが、ほとんどのタイ人はこのことを知っている。

また、タイ語にはゾウについてのことわざがたくさんある。たとえば、

1. 「ゾウに乗って虫を探す」は無理をするという意味である。
2. 「死んだゾウは葉っぱで隠せない」は悪いことをするとすぐわかるという意味である。
3. 「男性はゾウの前足、女性はゾウの後足のようだ」は男性はリーダーになるべき、女性はフォローすべきだという意味である。

しかし、最近、人の考え方が変わって来たので、ほとんどの人はゾウの前足ようになりたがっているだろう。

最後に、タイのゾウの飼育は、今世界的に絶賛されている。みなさん、タイに行くなら、ぜひ、ゾウをご覧ください。

DesignSpree 1 : Vibrant Colors

DesignSpree is a series of collected thoughts along my graphic design experiences. I'll begin the series with "Vibrant Colors". Perhaps the most important aspect of design is how you choose the colors, set the mood for your overall work. Color is the fundamental beauty. Most of my past works are described as bright and vivid. Here I give you some examples of such works.

   

Colors made arrows visible

A music competition website layout

The project is called Acoustic Party which is organized in 2007 

Singing through time

Add some colors to the photo

Playful login

xQuiz, website layout for login page

Playful blue to attract users. Users are like cats, if you want to attract them you need lure them with playful colors!

I often play with colors by making many geometric shapes and run then together, see how they play with each other. It all began with basic shapes, [bright] colors, highlights and intermediates. 

In the example below the basic shapes are simply alphabet letters 'gx'. Bright colors are saturated pink, blue, yellow, green and other tones in between. Highlights are areas in black that stretch from tails of each letter. Intermediates are shades of grey, to bring more dynamism to the overall structure, alleviate the differences between two dominant colors.

Colors made possible for design to take shape

In conclusion, you can collect ideas through colors. Colors are elements that exist everywhere. You just pick one, two or more, define the tones to go together or simply select them from the  pre-defined color palette. Once the colors are right, the rest will started to come along. It's perhaps the easiest way for idea to take shape. 

New Year's Resolution

Finally it's 2009. This year there is the year of the Ox according to the Chinese calendar. I happened to born on this year so this year is best for me to show my cow pride. Here are this year resolution.

1. Stop spending time reading craps off the Internet, read more research-related articles.　インタネット上で研究関係の記事を調べる。
2. Save some more money (so that I can spend a big time later-- put it this way as an incentive).　高い物を買うため、必ず貯金する。
3. Satisfy 'her' more. She said that I ignored her too often. Perhaps my heart is not reaching to her deep enough.　彼女に十分な愛を与える。
4. Study more Japanese.　日本語が上手になるために、よく勉強しよう！ 
5. Blog more! Share it before it is lost.　おもしろいことがあったら、すぐボロッグする！

That's all I can think of for now. これから、がんばれ！

Adding a nice TeX equations to your Keynote

I just found a way to put TeX equations to my Keynote presentation. Before that I have to rely on either Beamer (writing slides purely in TeX, obviously I'm not geeky enough for this) or using Microsoft Equation with PowerPoint. Since I love how Keynote produce professional high quality slides, I seek a solution to bring the goodness of TeX and the stunning quality of Keynote.

The solution is to use the tool called LaTeXiT, which allows you to compose your equation and drag it down to any desired location of your application.

http://ktd.club.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php

Compose the equation and paste it any where you like.

However there's an issue with the latest version (at this moment) 1.16. It rendered extra "pxpxpx..." text on your equation! After searching Google, I found someone was having the same problem as me. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/takashyx/20081209/p1 (explanation in Japanese)

Apparently there is an issue with version 1.16 when LaTeX is installed via MacPort. However the older version 1.15 does not have a problem so I use the 1.15 and it works just fine.

It appears that the link for 1.15 on the maker site is dead, so this site above (in Japanese) suggests to download 1.15 from this link:

http://www.kerodownload.com/index.php?show=fx_info&id=17338&class=3

Thai Student Ski Trip 2009

Ski resort in Nagano (-3C)

On 1-4 January, 2009. TSAJ, Thai Student Association in Japan held a ski trip at Nagano prefecture 「長野県」. The trip was packed with fun! It is the first time for me to ski. 

Indeed to start learning something new is a painful process, but with help of TSAJ staff, the process become enjoyful. For me I'm not very good at it right now. I can dive down the hill and just that, often uncontrollable. 

The fun part of this trip is to get to know everyone and to enjoy the activities being nicely arranged by the staff. We created a Snow Voodoo! At first we were going to craft a Doraemon but later turned into Wall-E and Yoda, ended up in thin we called Snow Voodoo.

I thought that it was going to be very cold. But in fact it is quite hot when you snow, just like you when you are doing an excercise. That's why I slammed into thick snow very often. It actually felt great when slamming to that snow, but to retreat was no easy. 

I'm looking forward to the next ski trip and hope to learn some more trick.  

一緒に滑る？

アルプスみたいな

New life in Japan

I received a Japanese Government Scholarship (MEXT) to become a Research Student at Tokyo Institute of Technology. I arrived to Japan on October 2, 2008. This is my second time to visit Tokyo. My first trip was in 2005, where I came here with my friend to see the Tokyo Motor show. One I place that I visited last time was Odaiba. I remembered the statue of liberty, Fuji TV bldg., Telecom Center, etc. Now I get to live there! My dormitory is called "Tokyo International Exchange Center". The place is very nice and modern.

My Room

TIEC Dormitory Corridor

Inside the dorm, there are many facilities, study room, kitchen, activity room, seminar room, convenience stores, etc. I was attracted by a smell of food so I ran to the kitchen and found out people who live in the same floor as mine. They were having a meal! I went in the room and greeted them. They welcomed me and invited me to join the meal. And so I tried out the food, which is very nice. People here are very friendly.

At the floor kitchen

After setting things up at the dorm, I went around the area just to get myself familiar with the place. I got to the train at Tokyo Teleport Station, the name is very interesting indeed. To go to the campus I need to change a train at Oimachi then go to Ookayama.

Kippu

I want to drive this thing!

Japan is a very interesting country indeed where everything are well-planned in a cute way. I really enjoy being here.

Taxi in Thailand, the service to whom?

Well, we all use taxi in time where we need to go somewhere without our own transportation. And of course taxi is a good option to take you from point A to B. Especially when you are drunk and you don't want to kill yourself, others and get in trouble with the police. It supposed to be a nice service for most cases. But, in Thailand the things work the opposite way. 

In the normal way, we call the taxi and tell them where to go and simply the taxi get you to the desired destination at an expense that is measurable with standard metrics.   

In Thailand's way. Taxis get to choose their customers. Not you to choose where to go! They do not have a service mind unless you offer him extra money. They would reject you if your destination is not in their favors. And definitely they want farangs, or foreigners as they believed these farangs are easier to trick with an unfair game, and that they will get a lot of tips and that farangs would likely go to airports, and from their taxis would easily get another customer right away back and forth. Simply taxis want to optimize their own benefit at every possible ways. Their greedy algorithm is as follows:

1. Plan the circular path. He will travel along the path where he can get back to the origin. For example: Siam Paragon -> Central World -> Pratunam -> Pantip Plaza ->Phaya thai -> Siam -> Siam Paragon. 
2. Whenever the passenger call him, he will make a unwelcome look and deny you if your destination is not in his planed path. Their ways of denial are either by making a death face and drive away without saying anything (how rude!) or simply say "no" shortly and drive away. Some time they will look at you as if you had done something terribly wrong. In deed the taxi thought that you had waste his time as he is in search of a customer that would come on his planned path.
   
3. If possible, choose foreigners over local people for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph.
4. Get to the destination with attitude. Taxi might make comments regarding politics and want to get you in the conversation, this apply for Thai citizens of course. Sometime taxis listen to the radio channels belong to the extreme activists and protestors. In that case taxis would be quite aggressive. You can tell from the style of driving and his manner.
5. Drop you off anywhere near your destination. You would simply want to get out of this taxi and this torture.
6. Get the next customer along his planned path.

So try for yourself. Finding a taxi could be challenging, like finding your soulmate. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE WHAT I SAY, please go try calling them at the following places.

1. Taxi stand in front of Siam Paragon, here the taxi would be the one to choose his own passenger not you. 
2. RCA (Royal City Avenue, Rama IX), here most taxis would deny your offer. You have to ask where he wants to go and sometime you have to offer him more money!

The solution is to give them a lot of money. Money talks, bullshit walks. As Thais believe it is according to your karma, you are deserved to have this kind of "service" for your bad deeds in the past. Sometime you get a good taxi, that means you are lucky and so the karma paid off. 

Start do something good today. Next time your taxi might behave nice to you. 

Why we should not give seats to children

One of the discussion I found interesting and want to share with everyone is concerning the issue of seat priority in public transportation. It began when my Japanese teacher asked to whom do Thai people offer seat to. We answer her: to women, children, handicaps, monks. One of these options now bring a contrast view, the children. My Japanese teacher said in Japan, we do not give seats to children for the following reasons:

"They are younger than us and stronger than us. In the future they have to become adults, strong adults. So they should stand and be strong. Keep fighting."

Now she asked us what is the reason for giving seats to children. One of my friend said, because they are cute. I think her answer is more cute. No one was giving a good reason for this. For me I think because the loving and caring nature of Thais as part of the spoiling process were the answer.

Instead of having a future generation that is strong and can think for themselves we ended up having a generation that is strong, strongly need others to take care for them. In programming we would say that this piece of code is highly coupled, meaning that they have high dependencies of other codes. Should this be a sensible reason to stop spoiling the kids? Now think carefully, to whom you should offer seats to.