Nagahama Distillery - Barmaid Series Whisky

I spotted this bottle a couple of weeks ago whilst having lunch at a local cafe bar.   I took note of the distillery name and later searched for it online.  I came up empty on that search.  The distillery in question has a tendency to release limited run whiskies and this particular one is over $300 a bottle at the single online shop whom I found selling it.

I don't really have the vocabulary to describe a whisky as those in the trade do.   But I certainly do enjoy it.  It tastes the part of a young whisky with a nice fragrance.  Not quite as smooth as the Yamazaki I had on a bottle keep until recently and sharper than the Chivas 12 year and Old Parr 12 year I have on keep at a couple of other bars.  This night I tried it sort of "up"...not poured straight from the bottle into the glass.  Measured but not chilled by passing over ice....

Would I pay over ¥30,000 for this whisky?  Probably not.  But I certainly wouldn't turn it away if it was offered to me or available.

Missing Cat

I spotted this poster next to the coffee machine at a convenience store in Nanyo.  What caught my attention was how much the cat in the pictures resembled my sister's cat, though the tail of the lost cat is very different.

Later on I show the photo to our office manager. She commented that the missing cat looked like her cat. 

That got me thinking about what wild animals could possibly prey on pets in that area.  The list we came up with was, not in order of likelihood of preying on household pets; foxes, bears, raccoon dogs, and monkeys.  Actually, I'm not sure if raccoon dogs and monkeys are herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores.  Though I'm sure the latter are capable of catching smaller animals.

Anyways, I hope the lost kitty is found and returned to its owner...though I feel the odds are not very good given how long ago it went missing. 

1/700 HMS Calcutta - Not Quite Right

I'm not quite sure why I purchased a copy of Trumpeter's 1/700 scale model of HMS Calcutta.  After putting it together, I'm still wondering why.  

Things didn't start off well.  After gluing the deck pieces to the hull, I noticed that the hull was hogged.  Soaking the hull in boiled hot water and pressing it under a stack of books didn't correct the issue....

After a second treatment the problem still persisted.   So I gave up on fixing it and started slapping parts on the hull.

At this point I've managed to get all the photo etched parts in place; the bridge wing supports, funnel grills, and a frame around an ammo locker (sic).

I took one more stab at fixing the hogged hull.  I crafted a hull bottom plate out of stiff 1.5mm plastic card and glued it to the bottom of the hull.  But that didn't fix the problem either.

So I carried on with assembly.   Here I've gotten most of the easy to lose small parts in place.

This is the almost completed kit.  It needs a bit more work on its paint job.

All in all, this was a kit with unnecessary challenges; the hogged hull, some inconsistencies in the instructions, less that stellar parts fit, questionable kit engineering, and at least one part representing something that appears to have never made its way onto the real ship.  I will be more careful the next time I tackle a kit from this company.

1/700 Hikawa Maru and Yawata Maru

I spotted an auction for completed models of two Japanese ocen liners; the Hikawa Maru and the Yawata Maru.  I put in a bid on them and that turned out to be the only bid on the models.  

The reason for bidding on the models is that the Hikawa Maru is depicted as she is today as a museum ship berthed in Yokohama.  

The Yawata Maru was a member of the Nitta Maru class of cargo ocean liners intended for service from Japan to Europe.  As they were built for the NYK Lines their names started with N, Y, and K.   All ships in the class were designed with the thought of converting them into auxiliary aircraft carriers.  Yawata Maru was converted to an aircraft carrier named Unyo. 

The Hikawa Maru served as a hospital ship during the war and was one of two(?) Japanese ocean liners which survived the war.  She was put back into service on the Yokohama-Seattle-Vancouver (BC) run after the war and served until 1957.  She was berthed as a museum ship in 1961 but the museum was shut down in 2006.  NYK Lines undertook her restoration in 2007-2008.  She was reopened to the public in April 2008.  I've had the pleasure of visiting her twice; once prior to and once after her restoration.  

Here are photos I took as I unwrapped the kits and prepared them for display....

1/700 Kenbu Maru 健武丸

Yet another Fairy Kikaku kit.  This one is a "sea truck" which was pressed into service as an IJA transport ship.  It met its demise at the hands of USAAF and RAAF on March 3rd, 1943 during the Battle of the Bismark Sea.  It was struck by bombs and its cargo of avgas and fuel exploded in a giant fireball. 

I'm not sure when I started assembling this kit.   It could have been as long as four years ago.  At the time I had put it aside, I had only joined the three hull pieces, applied putty, sanded it down, and glued the funnel and ventilator cowlings in place.  Here on August 20th of this year I had prepared some of the masts and cargo booms.  I also glued the top of the bridge, aft deck house, and port side AA gun platform in place.

I put it aside again to work on HMCS Ribble and didn't get back to it until this past Monday.  Here all components are in place and the model is ready for a coat of primer.

Next I gave the ship a coat of Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey and after that had dried, drew in the camouflage pattern by pencil.  The dark colour is Tamiya XF-53 Neutral Grey (not "Gray" on the bottle label). 

Here's the completed kit sitting at the head of its "instruction sheet"....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_transport_Kembu_Maru

1/700 HMCS Ribble Revisited

A few nights ago I was in the process of seating myself in front of my computer when I felt something hard under my right foot.  I looked down and spotted something small and grey.  Upon inspecting it after picking it up, I realized I had in my hand what had been a missing piece for a recently completed ship kit.  

The piece in question was the midship AA gun platform.

So I took the kit out of its display case and removed the part I had scratch built....

I removed the lattice support pieces and AA guns and set them aside to reuse them.  Then the original part was painted up and glued in place.  After that the supports and AA guns were put in place. 

Now the ship kit is back in its display case after I touched up its paint job. 

1/700 HMCS Ribble

My choice to use one of the two ships in a Seals Models kit of River class frigates as HMCS Ribble was decided by the decal set provided with the kit and my luck in finding a photo of a ship which wore one of the pennant numbers on that decal sheet.  My decision to paint the ship model in white with Western Approaches (WA) Green and Blue panels was based on a guess looking at a black and white photo of the ship and a similar pattern I found in a book on RN camouflage. 

Here's the ship kit in early stages of assembly.  Most of the forward superstructure pieces are in place.  The depth charge racks and minesweeping gear are also in place at the stern.  I thought that putting the lattice bridge wing supports in place would be a straightforward task.  Unfortunately I had to trim the parts a bit to get them into place. 

I found that the aft AA platform part had gone AWOL.  So I crafted a clumsy replacement and slapped it in place. 

After that I followed the TLAR ("That Looks About Right") principle forwarded by Malcom Wright in his series of books on RN and Commonwealth navy ship camouflage patterns.   I went with an overall white ship with panels in WA Green and Blue.  In a photo of the ship, the masts were somewhat darker than the shade of blue I got with my jar of WA Blue.  I suspect in real life they were some shade of grey.  

Here's the mostly complete model.  I say that since the matt clear paint I was going to apply to the decals had gone dry.

This is really a "Get it done ASAP build".   I doubt the model bears any resemblance to the actual HMCS Ribble.