My Hodgepodge

Edible Fujisan

2012-01-18T13:17:00.004+08:00

Here you are! Senbei(sen-bay)! ----- Japanese traditional rice crackers baked and brushed simply with sweet soy sauce or additionally coated with green seaweed or crystal sugar , sesame, red pepar----- In fact there are varieties of flavor. Besides flavor, there are varieties of shapeぬ as wellsuch as a square, a circle shape or other modified shapes.

Recently my daughter brought a bag of senbei as a souvenir when she visited Shizuoka Prefecture where it is famous for Fujisan(Mt. Fuji), a symbolic mountain of our country. She found a unique shape of senbei at a store.

You see, how these senbei look like Mt. Fuji! Just pleasant idea to take an advantage of a prefecture being at the foot of this symbol of Japan.

Delicately they are coated with different taste toppings. Guess what each senbei represents? Yes they have a reason for this. Not being coated in random. Look at a picture of Mr. Fuji above. You see an answer.
Amazing! Each represents the four season. Mt. Fuji senbei covered with white snow on top, one with trees of which leaves changed colors into red, one with green leaves in spring and presumably with no sprinkle on senbei representing summer. How do you like this idea?

It surely added casual topic to our tea time.

January 17

2012-01-17T08:31:00.003+08:00

(image from Yomiuri Online)

Seventeen years have passed since then.

The disaster took away more than 6,000 lives ,
which left a great sorrow and grief in their families and friends.

And

we will share the prayers again today at the exact time
when the Great East Japan Earthquake took place last March.

My thought is with them throughout the day today.

also my previous post in 2005

Reunion on Facebook

2012-01-10T12:27:00.011+08:00

(young peer group of various nationalities)

It was in 1980 when a total number of 60 or more Rotary International ambassadorial scholars from the world got together at Georgia Southern College in Georgia, US. It was for an orientation for us to get prepared for the following school year to fulfill an ambassadorial task as well as an academic purpose. 　Two months was long enough to develop our life-long friendships. We shared lots of time with studying and attending activities prepared by the Rotary. We were much concerned about why we were there. We had enough time to talk about various topics such as our own concerns, country, culture, politics, academic interests and so many. We were just so frank to expose ourselves into a unique community and eager to understand the differences.

Of all my close friends, including me, none of us applied to the same universities in the US. It meant we would have little chance to meet again. That brought us about a desperate moment of good-bye at a municipal airport while carrying a large luggage and going through a gate for each destination in the US at the end of summer.
If Apple or Windows had been there with us those days, it would not have been such a sad farewell. I think they arrived in a society a little bit late for us.
Since then, many had failed to keep in touch with one another except one or two.

Now this is what happened last fall. Owing to Facebook, we were united again! It was really amazing and dramatic. The only thing to do was that you just type out a friend's name in a friend search box. Then, look what you got there. Like we drew a fishing net, we found out familiar faces one after another. Sometimes we had to ask others in the Internet whether a profile picture we saw was exactly the one we had been looking for. Yes, it has been 30 years. It sometimes was not easy to tell. But most of the time, this kind of anticipation turned to be a big scream of joy at a computer screen. "Bingo! We got you!"
This way, now we had 17 members in our Facebook group all from different continents on earth.

(right click to open this in a new window for a larger image)

We're now seriously thinking of the whole reunion in person somewhere in the world not on Facebook anymore . In a timely fashion, in May, the Rotary International will have the International Conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Ahead of the main conference there will be also the Rotary Alumni Meeting for granted students. It would be nice if some of them can get together during the event. Yet, taking the mileage indicator into consideration, Bangkok might be too far for some of us. The choices are Argentine, Belgian, Brazil, Egypt, Finland, France, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico,Thailand and USA. Wow! I don't have any idea.

In the 7th morning of the new year

2012-01-08T10:56:00.008+08:00

(image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday it was the 7th day of January 2012. It was the day for Japanese to have a traditional meal called　"seven-herb rice porridge." Seven days have passed since the beginning of the New Year and we've been enjoying eating and drinking quite a lot with families and friends. Now many people are back to our usual life after a long holiday. It's time to give our stomach a rest for something simple and good for digestion. So here what it is. "Seven-herb rice porridge."
Speaking of seven herb, if you ask your Japanese friends, they might not be able to name all of them. Some are not familiar to us any more. So for my own sake, here I wrote down the list below:
Seri (water dropwort, Oenanthe javanica)
Nazuna (shepherd's purse)
Gogyō (cudweed, gnaphalium affine)
Hakobera (chickweed, stellaria media)
Hotokenoza (nipplewort, lapsana apogonoides)
Suzuna (turnip)
Suzushiro (Japanese white radish)

While cooking rice porridge, I prepared all these vegetable cutting into slice or dice and just before rice porridge done, I put all of them onto rice in a pan and steamed for awhile. Done. Here you are.

I love this custom of eating this rice porridge with herbs in the 7th morning of the new year. It has been widely accepted as a good fortune as well. I learned that this custom begun way back about 1,200 years ago in the ancient aristocratic society to ward off the evils at the beginning of the year. Noways we have this meal wishing for our good health and longevity.

Yesterday I used brown rice for porridge and we had it along with several side dish to go along with plain taste of rice porridge such as "umeboshi" pickled plums, "tsukudani"fish boiled in soy sauce & sugar with ginger and other spices and other tasty local products.
Dig in before it gets cold!

The First three days of the New Year

2012-01-03T20:48:00.005+08:00

(snapshots from my New Year's holiday)

We had a very moderate weather during the first three days of 2012.
How are you enjoying your New Year's holiday at your place?
Hope you had a very special First day of the New Year.

On the first day of 2012, my husband's mother came back to us from her nursery house for a short visit. Before her, having our daughter back home from Yokohama at the end of December, our whole family got reunited again. Though my mother-in-law didn't speak much as she used to, she seemed that she enjoyed having Osechi (authentic food especially for the first three days of the New Year) together which I cooked all by myself taking three days to complete just in time. In fact, having the New Year is definitely the most hectic time for every housewife what with cleaning a house and with cooking in advance. Yet the New Year's holiday is the most exciting festive event in every family all through the year.

On the first day, we went out to our neighboring Shinto shrine to pray for our healthy and happy year. Getting a happy charm and drawing a sacred lot to tell my fortune of the year was such a fun. In fact the fortune I got said "Excellent luck!" How lucky me! Shopping arcades adjacent to shrines and temples were crowded with people which I loved to enjoy strolling along busy streets while picking some sweet dumpling or other traditional sweets from some popular food stands.

The New Year's Holiday is the biggest event on a calendar in our country. Many people move between their home and their parents living in the remote cities for a happy reunion.

　　

This trip meant a lot this year especially for those whose hometown located in Tohoku. Many lost their loved ones, many lost their home and many still don't have a place to settle down due to the tragic earthquake and tsunami. Yet people looked so happy to be back where they belonged to for the sake of their family bounds and friendship.

"Happy New Year to every one! May this year bring all of you lots of happiness and good health! "

Happy 2012

2012-01-02T00:02:00.000+08:00

So many things happened in 2011-----
good things and bad things.
The nightmare fell onto us on March 11th .

The rest of the world was just kind and thoughtful to us.
Thank you the whole world for gentleness.

May the year of dragon bring much power & peace to people in disaster areas.
And let's find out what else each of us can do for them.

Happy New Year !

Challenge or Torture

2011-12-20T10:51:00.000+08:00

Today's blog is about one of my unfavorite topics. "Evaluation." What evaluation am I talking about? It's about the proficiency of English as a foreign language.

I'll tell you the conclusion first. I had two kinds of language certificate examinations in summer and in autumn. It was my New Year resolution. One was the EIKEN Test in Practical English Proficiency and the other was The TOEIC test (Test of English for International Communication). Well the evaluation from the exams were like as follows: I was certified as a holder "pre-1st Grade"(second highest level) from EIKEN and as a holder of 895 scores out of 1,000 from TOEIC. Whew, I did better than I expected. EIKEN is my second and TOEIC my first trial.

These tests are very distinguished ones and performed widely throughout the country. Every year, millions of people mostly students, businessmen and other English learners take either of these tests for getting an admission for a higher education or their own evaluation or better job positions.

In fact, I took my first EIKEN way back when I was a freshman at high school. It was school compulsory. Yap, it's a long time ago! I haven’t had it since then. As for TOEIC. Since it had not been launched yet in my school days, I had never had it before and had not paid too much attention to it. I impudently didn't like the idea. I didn't like taking these kinds of exams and hated that my language ability was judged by scores. I think at that time I was slightly offensive against language proficiency judged by scores. Maybe I was young.

On the other hand, our society gradually had been active in the international world. English language had been required as a communication tool in various fields. With a huge population of studious English learners, these test results became an objective gauge that the learners themselves as well as the third parties could locate one's ability in the whole group. In short, it is that there are too many people with too many levels of English language ability.

That was the reason for my trial. My life for these years became more involved with English language. Being a member of a volunteer interpreter, I had to keep up with my English and to improve it. Sometimes the results of these tests are prerequisite for a requested job. Although I didn't like the score-oriented idea, I knew I was in a situation that I had to know my ability in a huge population of English learners.
I thought studying for the exams basically should be fun to me. Now I think I am quite in it as long as I enjoy studying English. Maybe I'll try out for better results next year. It's "a challenge" not "a torture." anymore.

Finally some of my friends who are professional and qualified interpreters/translators, tour guides, and language teachers eventually gave me a push to make one step forward. Otherwise, I don't think I accomplished my New Year resolution.

all the images above are from:
TOEIC http://www.toeic.or.jp/toeic_en/index.html
EIKEN http://stepeiken.org/

They are going to make it SOON !

2011-12-09T08:16:00.007+08:00

One day this past July, I was on the Net browsing to seek for any chances as a volunteer interpreter. I typed out "volunteer" in a search text box and hit an “Enter.” Well that was when I came across with an amazing “Travel Volunteer Project.” I signed up then and there for a supporter in Aichi.

(for those who missed my previous post about this project, please have a look at here.)

It was really fortunate that the Project team gave me an opportunity to support Katy and Jamie when they got to Aichi as their 20th destination. One thing which impressed me was, well, it must be a very obvious matter for them, but for me, it was their resolution to this project.

I took them to the Toyota Automobile Company on Oct.25, the first day in Aichi. As soon as we were ready to start exploring the exhibition floor, they stopped for the discussion and they quickly walked in the different directions with each camera. Soon they were busy moving around, taking pictures, reading panels and taking notes one after another. Sometimes I lost either of them from my sight. For them this project was not just a lucky pleasure sightseeing but a mission to report for bringing back the tourism after March11 disaster in Tohoku.

The great part of this project is that a selected Travel Volunteer is supposed to appeal to the world every day by way of all kinds of SNS such as a Blog, Facebook and Twitter to introduce what they see. Apparently they came to learn Japan is much bigger than expected from north to south and safe enough to explore the land. Since Jamie is a professional writer and Katy a professional photographer, I see their spirit of the journalists in all over their posts. The posts are very enlightening, informative, well researched. Being sprinkled with his specific way of looking at things, his journals are quite interesting for the Japanese readers as well in terms of learning how the first-time visitors to Japan see our country. And look at Katy’s photos! Always beautiful and stunning! She marvelously sends us her message as well.

I'm sure their Blog will make a very special guide book of Japan!

Last week, they reached to the southernmost destination, Okinawa. Now they’re heading back toward their starting point, Kanazawa. They only have 6 prefectures left as of now. It will be a great moment of the accomplishment for the Project Team not to mention Katy & Jamie. All of the Japanese private/public supporters who participated in this project will surely be overjoyed with this moment, too.

Time flies. Who did ever believe that the “Travel Volunteer” makes a journey to all of the Japanese 47 prefectures in 100 days?

Well, they are going to make it SOON!

I made it in time

2011-11-29T11:47:00.014+08:00

Of all the four seasons, people in Japan get so restless twice----- in spring and in fall. We try not to miss the beauty of the autumn leaves at this time of the year.

There are many good spots to visit to admire the autumn foliage across the nation. People enjoy visiting famous gardens, temples and shrines where they grow old and huge trees like maples trees, gingko, beech and cherry trees. Others prefer making trips to the mountains and forests to put themselves into the grand picture of the colorful trees.

In fact the view is breathtaking. They say the autumn foliage in Japan is most colorful among any other areas in the world. Why? It is said that there are various kinds of deciduous trees in Japan compared with any other spots on earth. Since up-and -down of the temperature in a day is quite remarkable in fall, it makes an astonishing foliage possible.

This year, it is so unlucky for me that I can't make a trip to any other popular spots to see the autumn leaves due to my job schedule. Especially I miss Kyoto where there are lots of temples and shrines of which refined gardens show a beautiful combination with buildings and colorful trees.

Since this morning I've been working for my new class which will start tomorrow regretting why I took this job at this time of the year. (Never do it again for the next year.) Then it rang bells! I took my camera and stepped outside to see how our maple trees in the garden change their colors. There they were! Glad our previous generations left this garden to us. I spent some time to admire the season before I was back to my desk. "How lucky! I made it!" Then-----

I said to myself, "Next year, Kyoto by all means."

Travel Volunteer Project

2011-11-11T00:08:00.005+08:00

I was going to talk about them before they visited Aichi but I didn't make it. In fact I wrote halfway and saved it. So let me start from the very beginning.

Travel Volunteer Project! What is all about? What is Travel Volunteers then? Well, I need to start the explanation from the March 11th disaster by a huge earthquake and tsunami and damaged nuclear plants. This news of huge tragedy was so quickly reported all over the world and people in the world were just shocked to see how the nature could be fatal to man and his world. In fact every TV news kept sending the awful scenes how the tsunami attacked the towns and cities in Tohoku and eventually it swallowed up 20 thousand people and still many missing even now.
Due to the world TV news, many people in the world just believed the tsunami swept away all over our land and in fact some overseas TV and newspapers reported as if it were the end of Japan. This brought a confusion among world travelers that Japan was not a safe country to visit anymore. Many trips were canceled one after another even in the area far away from the devastated regions. During the spring which was the high season for sight seeing in Japan, the numbers of the visitors from abroad were dropped sharply. English speaking guides whom I know were shocked to know every request for guiding were all canceled.
The tour industry faced the fatal damage although of all the land, west part of Japan was nothing affected and nothing happened and remained just the same as it was as usual.
In order to prove it and bring many foreign visitors back to Japan, one travel company called Magellan Resorts in the city of Kanazawa launched "Travel Volunteer Project." Please check their project website to know more about it here.

It was in July that I have known of this project and right on the spot, I applied for a volunteer supporter to guide the elected travel volunteer when he/she visited Aichi.
There were 1897 applicants for Travel volunteer from 85 countries and eventually the couple of Katy and Jamie, a photographer and a writer from England won this tremendous opportunity to visit all of 47 prefectures in Japan while updating their blogs and photos outwards telling many parts of Japan aren't changed and the many parts of our country are as beautiful and safe as they are always.

So their journey started on Sept.15. Yes it's almost 2 months have passed since then. Time flies. Now how many prefectures they have visited by now? Here is a map.

Yes, while I stayed away from blogging, Katy and Jamie came to Aichi and I had such a great opportunity to accompany them on Oct. 25.
I'll talk about it next.
At the same time please follow their great blog with fascinating stories and beautiful photos. You'll love it.

(continued)

Our garden came to life again

2011-10-11T09:55:00.007+08:00

They grew too fast during the scorching hot summer. Too fast and too wild for me to control.

Once a year we have the gardeners (we call them friendly "Niwashi-san")come over to trim the trees and clear the bushes. This year too, Niwashi-san did such a beautiful work. Their skills are amazing especially when they work on pine trees. Basically they don't use scissors to trim these. They just pick up excessive tiny pine needles by hands. It's the most delicate work and it is often considered as an ultimate skill for a good gardener. It requires patience and attention to make a whole pine tree into a better shape. They often stay on a tree for hours to pick pine needles in the strong sunlight while others trim trees by scissors and sometimes electric scissors.
So ironically this is often said that a pine tree in a garden is money sucking.

Whatever it is, thanks to Niwashi-san, here comes back our garden of what it is to be. A "real garden" not a jungle anymore. The next thing I am concerned about is how long I can keep our garden this neat and clean after they left. Let's see.

In spite of the holidays

2011-10-09T20:40:00.001+08:00

Well, I have to update my life all after the typhoon.
In Japan we are now in the midst of three-day holidays and it's Sunday today. I brought my laptop in the kitchen enjoying my afternoon being alone in the house, which is once in a while welcoming moment. My husband is still in India, my daughter is visiting Korea and my son is out for business today.

It's indeed a beautiful, quiet and peaceful autumn day. All of a sudden, however, my thought goes to those people in eastern Japan who faced with such a huge loss. In that area the autumn surely arrives much sooner than my place. By now the nature over there must be changing in colors. It must be beautiful and breathtaking. This is the reality. The autumn beauty and the disaster are all due to the same Mother Nature. Soon it will bring snow in that region, which makes more difficult for them to promote all those recovery processes. I'm sure in some places, they have to leave them halfway.

Six months have passed since the March huge earthquake and tsunami. It is said the recovery and reproduction are generally going on as scheduled. From my point of view, however, it's very slow and not organized at all and looks like it is a long way to go. Every thing seems to be so slow. How come 10,000 people still live in the evacuation spots surrounded by piles of boxes without privacy. About 83,000 people including those from the area of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plants live far away from their home towns. The central government is too slow making vital decisions for reconstruction. As a result, in many places people as well as volunteers are still struggling with mountains of wrecked houses, debris and contaminated mud all over.

The fall in that area is very short and the winter will stay long in eastern Japan.
We have to appeal to more people away from the devastated area to do something helpful so that they can make a new start.

(Please read more about this picture here)

Typhoon Roke is appoaching

2011-09-21T11:18:00.005+08:00

(images from the web)

My work today was canceled.

Due to the approaching typhoon, we had a heavy rainfall yesterday and much sooner than we expected two main rivers running across the city were observed to be in a danger of overflowing.

In fact at the upper streams, the water flowed over to the nearby residential areas and fields. The city claimed an evacuation advisory to almost half of a city population. I don't know how many people had actually left for the evacuation facilities, though.

The main roads downtown were covered with heavy rainfall in a short period of time and some of the underground shopping arcades and the subway stations were flooded. The transportation systems were paralyzed in the midst of the evening rush hours. My son was stuck in a traffic jam on a bridge when he drove back into downtown Nagoya.

My area was safe except the fact the typhoon is getting much closer no later than this noon. The rain and the wind are getting worse as the typhoon is approaching. No evacuation instruction is claimed here at this moment but only an evacuation advisory for people at a certain area of the city.

My husband called me from India to check if I am all right. He convinced me that our place is basically safe from flooding. I glue to the TV anyway. It's raining hard and the wind is threatening. Our little pond in the garden will be flooded soon or later. Gee, it is so relieving my son is off today. We’ll stay safe.

It's good to learn something you don't know

2011-09-18T20:07:00.006+08:00

(click for a larger image)

Hello! I was away from blogging for a while because I was just too busy with this and that. Luckily enough, now we are the midst of the three-day-holidays over the weekend in our country. I've found myself a bit relaxed and I'm enjoying spending time just for what I abandoned for these weeks.

Today, I took a subway and attended the talk meeting.

A researcher from Vietnam studying at University of Nagoya gave a presentation on her country especially from a standpoint of preservation of genetic resources from an unfair trade work. That was so informative. She also introduced us a general history. Every picture she showed us was unfortunately what we already had seen over and over for 30 some years as the sad evidence of the Vietnam War. Despite the fact that the war was over more than 35 years ago, people are suffering from the fatal damages even now genetically over generations.

Vietnam is a very rich country with forests and water. The land is blessed with wild plants. People have been using it as medicine in the form of traditional knowledge. Now they are forced into an unfair reality that they don't get enough benefits from them. This is a global problem of ABS(Access to genetic resources and Benefit Sharing.)and I'm now really interested in this country not only as a very beautiful travel destination but also as a nation seeking for national development being free from unfair treatment from overseas countries.

It's always good to learn something you don't know.

Errrr, this is not a joke !

2011-08-30T22:54:00.007+08:00

Well, I don't have any excuse to make.
I would have been too busy to make any baskets. Look, I did it again !

I'm addicted to making baskets and I'm feeling sick now because I don't have enough eco tapes to complete one anymore. It's not enough. I have to wait until I get new rolls of tapes.

I should discipline myself to put me away from eco crafts. I should get my work started.
My, my, it's already Wednesday here.

So here is a picture!
The front one is the newest.
Thank you for sharing an excitement with me.

Here is one more picture on the process.
(click for a larger image)

Excuse me but AGAIN !

2011-08-29T21:37:00.010+08:00

You may be fed up with finding the same kind of baskets in this blog. But my friends, here is my newest cute little basket! (clap! clap! clap!)

"Again? Doesn't she have any other things to tell us in life?"

Sorry about that. I just start to get into making baskets.

I am always admired so many blogger friends who are very talented with hand crafts making. Yes, I'm talking about YOU and YOU and YOU-----every one I know here. Whenever I see their beautiful crafts, art works ---errrr--- everything created with hands, I cannot help admiring them. I wish I could make something with my hands, too. Then some day I will be able to tell a friend of mine proudly on her birthday, "Happy Birthday. I made this for you." Isn't it nice to give something only one in the world? So I put myself into it. Thanks to you all for inspiring me.

Will you be generous enough to share these updating on making baskets for the time being? I'd be happy if I can show you some more for advanced works.

Um, sorry I have to tell you one thing before I leave you tonight. This week will be a busy one for me. So-----my next basket may not appear so soon.(sigh)

Stereotyped or not?

2011-08-28T04:24:00.001+08:00

Here are dozens of sliced rolled sushi called "makizushi" in Japanese. You may be quite familiar with sushi with a sliced piece of raw fish sitting on a top of a small piece of vinegar sensed rice as one of the typical Japanese cuisine.
Next to those sushi, this rolled sushi is very popular too. In my childhood, my mother used to make these for lunch box for a school one day trip or school sports day. So do I. It's one of typical cuisine every mother does here. This is a very popular lunch when you have some festive occasions besides school events such as family picnic at a zoo, at a park and at a cherry blossoms viewing in spring.

These rolled sushi in the pictures above were all made by a friend's husband, which is a kind of surprising for us her female friends. Aren't they nice and in fact they were SO good. This is something beyond my imagination that my husband would ever make it. Traditionally speaking, men were considered not to step into their house kitchen where women worked. We set a clear definition in terms of a man's roles and a woman's roles in a house. Along with the changes of our life style, it's not all true anymore. I see many couple especially young ones cook together or taking turns. It depends on each couple and family to share cooking, I presume. A stereo type of a man/husband is changing in many aspects.

Talking of rolled sushi then, there are two videos introducing how to make a roll sushi and an arranged one called "decoration sushi" or "art roll sushi." Be sure that both come along with music.

Enjoy the second video on how to make a carnation shushi roll.

Is our country strange?

2011-08-25T14:36:00.007+08:00

I'd like to share this video here in case you haven't had a chance to see this before. This is an English Version. It's really cool and well explained using lots of statistics. Really a good job. It's created by one young Japanese graphic designer. Partly well generalized and partly not. Partly ironic and partly true and not true. Partly hilarious and serious. I like it. This video gives us the Japahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnese to think of ourselves, what we have gone through so far and consider what we should do next for the future. I'm pretty sure there's not only Japan in the world that has some aspects which are not welcomed. Each country has both sides. It's worth looking at our own country from another side of the globe. Enjoy!

For some reason, the English version from You Tube is not available anymore.
The video produced by Kenichi Tanaka was introduced in this site here.

Another basket!

2011-08-25T07:42:00.006+08:00

I know this is not a good time to post it before I leave for job. I think this could be happened to anybody, though.

When I am really really busy with this and that, I feel I've left something behind me or put something aside. Although I'm so concerned about it, I'm just trying not to think of it. Maybe this is about time I can spend for my own sake. Time that I can easily get myself into it for something creative now in my case, some handicrafts, that is totally nothing to do with my work.

The other day, I felt like making this basket by all means before I get to start my writing. That evening there was no one else at home yet. Such a nice chance to spend time working on this. Just about a couple of hours before I completed. I think I'm getting good at it. Ready to go on to the next step! Yay! All right, I've got to go now.

one of my favorite time

2011-08-18T00:22:00.010+08:00

(Click for larger images)

I'm not a crafty person but sometimes I do love working on a so called "eco craft bag." Isn't it something that I can make "the only one in the world?"

In fact I had made these before but since then I didn't have enough time to put myself into it. But then again, I had another chance to learn this from the same friend that showed me how at the very beginning.

It was really fun especially when a teacher and her three students were all close friends. What a busy class with handcrafting and chatting! Sometimes we need this. You'll feel accomplished in the end----- in many ways!!!

See also here and here for the previous works.

Our desperate effort to save electricity

2011-08-16T00:03:00.004+08:00

Five months have passed since the huge earthquake hit the northern part of Japan on March 11. I believe you are quite concerned about the damaged nuclear plants in that area. In spite of the fact that more than 100 people in charge of the power plant are working every night and day for getting stabilized the power situation, we don't see any better results yet.

Of all 54 nuclear power plants in Japan, due to the breakdown of the power plant in Fukushima as well as some other nuclear plants being out of service for annual maintenance, we are now facing the upcoming shortage of electricity.

The government asked every office and manufacturing company to cut the 15% electricity usage from the previous year except hospitals and elderly care facilities in those areas up until the end of September. In many offices where there used to be quite formal dress code, men and women are now free from wearing neckties, long sleeves and jacket since a closed high-rise building temperature often gets over 28 degrees C. In many private and public buildings such as department stores, offices and stations, they now switch off some lights in the buildings.

Not only those public organizations but also everyone at home is now very much aware of how to economize the whole usage of electricity. Approximately 50% of electricity consumption at home during summer is used for air conditioners following a refrigerator, lightning, TV etc. So it is quite evident that the whole nation can save electricity so simply by way of giving up air conditions! Oh but No way! That's not possible. Summer in Japan is very hot and humid. In addition, the recent global warming spurs the summer temperature to over 35 degrees C. The heat is really ferocious. We can't do without air conditioners.

Now we get much information from TV, public ads, newspapers and almost any kinds of medias about how to economize the whole usage of electricity at home.

For example, they advise us we should set the temperature no lower than 28 degree C, clean a filter at least once a week, use a electric fan to circulate air in a warm room, etc. As for a refrigerator, they recommend us we should not pack many items, should use a plastic curtain to prevent warm air from coming inside when we open its door. Boy, there are many "to do" and "not to do". Yet despite these annoying advices, many people are so aware of power shortage and we are making a desperate contribution by sweating.

I'm back!

2011-07-22T01:12:00.005+08:00

How I wish I had more than 24 hours a day!　 It's not a good excuse. 　I am a kind of disorganized person. When I'm getting busy, I'm just not good at making a schedule. I tend to leave behind what I have to finish first. As a result, I run out of time at the end of the day.
What have I been doing since I blogged last?
Well, I think that's what I am going to fill you in one by one for the coming days.
Where shall I start then?

One of the excitements I should tell you is I got one year older in June while I was away from blogging.

Here are some pictures of 100 gerbera daisies I got on my birthday.
Flowers! Where on the earth are any women who don't love to get flowers on their important days? This means so special when your loved one hands out the flowers to you on the day. It is another story. This bunch of colorful flowers, against the odds, was from my female friends. Since we don't meet as often as we used to when we worked together in the office, we just decided to send flowers one another on each birthday. We've been doing this for over 6 years. Isn't this a wonderful routine? It's not a surprise on a birthday, rather we know, say like, "Well, it's about time a delivery should ring the door." Yet, I always love to see those colorful gerbera daisies making my day so happy and cheerful all over in the house.

We're pretty sure the owner of the gerbera farm is very very happy about us.

GirlsTwitters Meet-up

2011-05-19T12:38:00.000+08:00

It was already a month ago story. I missed blogging about this wonderful get-together. I'd never expected that I would join a so called off-line meeting since I had thought of myself as not much of that kind.
I usually "tweet" friends who are mostly interested in learning English. They are different nationalities and all from different fields of business such as a company employers, an interpreter, a translator, an instructor, a tour guide and also some are students and stay-at-home mums and seniors. One common thing that twins us together is they all like to improve their English.
I love tweeting with those friends since they're really studious and inspire me tremendously. They are simply friendly and honest people and when it comes to handling the English language, they're more than professional.
My mind has been so much carried away when I heard some women I've been tweeting with would have an open meet-up in Kyoto. So why not ? I landed at Kyoto Station. It was really a blind date until I finally recognized the group of about 10 women at the hotel lobby. We headed for Okazaki area and we enjoyed talking well enough before we got to the lunch table.
Riripy from Kobe organized everything for us that day. Despite their professional concern, they are so understanding and also were kind enough to listen to me and givd me lots of advice and vigor in terms of improving English. Boy, it is so exciting to know how much they devote themselves into improving their abilities. They even look enjoying it out of professional spirit.

Now I know what I should do for the rest of the year. It was such a rewarding experience for me. Next time if I ever have a chance to meet them, I'd like to have some good news that I might achieve some improvement.

This is my home town NAGOYA

2011-04-22T22:46:00.005+08:00

[BTep02] Longboard around Nagoya from BoardTraveller on Vimeo.

Just take a look at this exciting video! It was taken just a few days ago and already uploaded. Great job!
It's my home town , Nagoya. Nagoya has the forth largest population in Japan with over 2 million people.
Every place in the video is so familiar to me. Nagoya Castle, the Nagoya Castle Park, downtown Sakae where you can enjoy shopping or strolling around , Nagoya TV Tower, downtown Nagoya Station. It's amazing that everyone can take a quick look at how Nagoya is alike. They are all standard sightseeing spots.
But, I'll tell you, next time you'll ever have a chance t0 drop by Nagoya, I'll show you around my favorite places to visit. Maybe I'd better make a list and show you here. One by One. Wow, it might be a good resolution for me to make!

And here is a link of the song in the video. Isn't it a fantastic music? Once you hear the music, it'll never leave you.

Love Letter To Japan Lyrics: "The Bird and The Bee Love Letter To Japan lyrics in the Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future Album. These Love Letter To Japan lyrics are performed by The Bird and The Bee Get the music video and song lyrics here. From the west to the east, I have flown to b"

One month since then

2011-04-11T22:15:00.009+08:00

One month has just passed by. Nothing has been improved so dramatically. We still have aftershocks over and over. People in Tohoku area are facing lots of realities to confront. Now getting free from the fear of death , they started their lives from " being nothing." Some went back and forth between their wrecked and muddy houses and the evacuation places to clean up their properties. Some just abandoned their hometown to another cities to let their children begin their school lives as they used to. I heard many families had made a hard decision to live in separate for various reasons. Boy, there are lots they have to face with.

Then, it is so encouraging to see dozens of volunteers and organizations are stepping into these areas to help them out to rebuild the land along with the Self Defense Force parties and other public support organizations from abroad.

However, there are many other people who don't move out to the safer places. They just stay each home that was damaged partly and try to find the way to clear their houses. Yet most of their conditions like those areas being away from the officially appointed evacuation spots, the daily necessities are not delivered enough. Even electricity, water and gas are not all back in full at places where piles of debris and rubble still sit, not to mention some mountainous and remote areas. The condition is not always satisfactory sanitary wise. It looks like hard to draw an exact map as for where to go distributing goods due to lack of detailed information.

One support organization called "HOPE International Development Agency" was asking people to make hygiene kits to hand out to people in heavily distracted Tohoku area. They claimed specifically 9 items to be set in a plastic bag. I read a flyer and when I finished reading it, I knew what to do next. I had checked the items at home and ran to the shop to get the rest in short supply.

When I got the donation drive of this agency at the Hilton Nagoya the day before the due date, there were several staffs working on the donated goods and sorting them out. I was surprised to see it was outside a hotel doorway. It was a bit windy. When they saw me approaching, they soon recognized my large paper bag full of kits. I was so glad they smiled at me. I hope our support will bring people over there lots of smile on their faces as well.

One month has passed but it will be a long long way to go for a recovery. I only pray for all those who are struggling and fighting against an on-going hardship -----for desperate residents, each member sent into devastated areas from organized bodies and of course for people working in the crippled nuclear stations.

(from Peace Boat website)

We can't miss it

2011-04-09T04:23:00.008+08:00

Nagoya Castle is one of the popular spots you can't miss in Nagoya.
It's especially beautiful in spring time when more than 1,600 cherry trees around the castle are in full bloom almost at the same time. All the trees grow blossoms first then fresh green leaves come next after the blossoms fall on the ground. So it is really something to our eyes when all the trees are full of light pink blossoms. It makes a breathtaking view against the donjon.
I drove there for a quick visit the day before yesterday. It took only 15 minutes or so.

(click!)

Since the TV weather forecast reported it would rain the next day, I didn't want to miss the best time. Cherry blossoms are in bloom only for a week and all the petals start scattering onto the ground like snow flakes dancing in the air. We have to enjoy the beautiful blossoms before the rain ruins the best time. For Japanese, spring never comes along without admiring them at first hand. And yes, the forecast was bingo!

Thinking of what I can do

2011-04-06T12:59:00.016+08:00

I know how significantly the Internet has been playing its role throughout the country right after the quake, the tsunami, and the nuclear crisis. It was so amazing how fast people in and out of the nation started to exchange information and concerns about the disaster. They even organized the volunteer groups by way of their blogs, Twitters, Facebooks and many other SNS.

There are lots and lots of volunteers working for those people in seriously damaged areas. I totally would like to send them a great gratitude for their efforts and resolutions.

There is not much I can do now but I'll keep thinking of what I can do today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. I'll keep thinking of it. For the moment, I think I'll be updating by way of the Internet how volunteers and people in the disastrous areas are fighting against the cruel situations for their recovery to get a basic daily life.

At the same time let us keep sending messages to people in the world that other areas, the western part of Japan such as Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka including Nagoya are safe and sound. We're here to make our own lives to be any kinds of help to those in Tohoku. Even many non-Japanese businesspersons are coming back to work from abroad to Tokyo after some hectic situations. Ready to make our domestic economy active again.

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in my city and this frontline is going up northward day by day up until it reaches to Hokkaido, the north of Japan. Cherry blossoms are very special to us in our minds and thoughts. It surely brings lots of HOPE to people in Tohoku very soon.

Read also a related story about the picture above from here.

Weekend!

2011-04-03T04:31:00.002+08:00

Take a break.
Get flowers in a living room.

I want to believe that the arrival of spring will surely bring HOPE
to those who lost everything by the disaster.

After March 11

2011-03-31T20:13:00.009+08:00

(click for a larger image)

It'll be three weeks by tomorrow since the devastating earthquake and tsunami took away the total of more than 20,000 people's lives. It's not the matter of the total number of people. It seems to me that this natural disaster kept killing innocent people over 20,000 times. That is what this number accounts.
It took me for a while until I finally came back here to post today.
I would like to say thank you for all your concerns about me and my family right after the earthquake that hit Japan on March 11.
Three weeks ago that Friday afternoon, I felt the earthquake in my house. It was the hardest one I had ever had before. Thank god, it slowed down in the end. Nothing in the house fell down onto the floors. I turned on TV to get the report and knew the huge earthquake hit the northern part of Japan. Yet who had ever imagined the first historically gigantic tsunami in 400 years was heading towards the cities, towns and villages along the shores? Soon the terrible broadcast was on the air. The self-defense helicopters shot the groups of tsunami rushing on lands one after another and swept away everything including ships, houses, cars and people on and on. It was shocking to see cars on the roads were all swept away with debris. It was impossible for people to get rid of rushing tsunami. Tides and waves rushed up to the third or fourth floors of the buildings with huge amount of debris. There was no way for people in their two-story high houses to survive. At an elementary school, all the students and teachers were out of the buildings on the school field to evacuate from the earthquake, where the huge tsunami swallowed them all at once just like a cruel wild animal attacked its prey. No one could believe what they saw and heard on TV news.
I was just glued to the TV alone in the living room and got quite depressed before my husband and my son got home late.
For the first week from the day, I was quite depressed with the news and had a hard time to concentrate on my job nor house chores and what was worse, to get to sleep. My husband told me not to watch TV news anymore but it was almost impossible to be away from any news about the tragedy. I was in tears all of a sudden while driving with some flashbacks of the news on TV. Gosh I was safe here and all my family were with me and fine but why it was then I was trapped with the sense of guilty. I didn't have any words to post nor update my blog and my twitter, either.
Fortunately just about the same time, I had a chance to meet the Japanese group of Facebook fans in Nagoya and there I met new people who were nice enough to exchange information with me. That was a big help for me to get out of the negative mode in my daily life. Well I still lots to do halfway. I've got to keep my daily life first and then it will surely find the way what I can do for others in need of help.

Thank you for reading and stay in touch.

Just helpless against the nature

2011-03-11T21:49:00.007+08:00

Thank you for your asking. All of my family members are safe as of this time. None of my family are not home but me as of now at 11:30pm but I know they are all safe and OK. My husband and my son are heading for home. I would like to reply to each of your kind mails, tweets and comments but I'll come back later. I want to get some warm food ready for my husband and my son. Their delay was not due to the direct damages from the earthquake. I pray for people in the northern cities and towns and in and around Tokyo who faced this tragedy. Every news broadcasts are just scary and sad. Talk to you later. Thank you again for your concern.

When you feel weary

2011-03-09T08:15:00.005+08:00

It was a busy day! I don't like Tuesday next to Monday. For one thing, my brain doesn't switch to a working mode and for another the schedule is often tight at the beginning of the week.

Yesterday I had the two meetings to attend and I feel quite exhausted when I got free from them. Whew, the last one was quite tough. Usually after the meeting, I had a chat with my friends but yesterday I just had too much for the day. I'd rather be alone. I got down to the first floor and went outside to walk across the park to get to the subway entrance. When I hurried across the park, I heard the water murmuring. Such a comfortable sound of water. I looked for the sound, where I found the waterfall in the corner of the pond.

I felt comfortable just listening to the sound of water and gazed for a while at many small streams running down the rocks and pouring into to the pond. That played nice music consisted with several different codes. I felt my heart entwined with stress gradually being released. Natural power!
What was your unforgettable view that rested your weary heart?

Our Affection to the dolls

2011-03-02T21:13:00.001+08:00

(click !)

Well, Hina Matsuri(Doll's Festival) is coming along tomorrow.
It's my favorite traditional event of all the annual events in our culture.
It's a decorative and colorful display of gorgeous dolls dressed in ancient imperial court wardrobe. Hina Matsuri on March 3 is certainly a sign of an arrival of long awaited spring. In accordance with the ancient calender, I already set up the dolls in the room in advance in February.
Hina Matsuri (Doll's Festival) became so popular among any classes of people in Edo Period (17th to 19th century). Of course it was at first a custom just being limited in the federal families then while the whole nation became stable without any battles, people began to be fulfilled with the same practice that their ruling class had enjoyed for years and years.

Just think. I wonder how come we've been carried away with this custom for centuries. People and dolls------ever since man's civilization, we often connected with some objects which were made to resemble ourselves-----figures, icons, statues, sculptures----and here are what we call "dolls."

Speaking of the Japanese people in olden days, they started the Doll's Festival with the belief that the dolls should take places of their little daughters and bring every evil , disease and bad luck away from their little ones. Parental wish to their children for healthy, wealthy and happy marriage life is universal regardless of time and places.
Dolls are so special and precious for the Japanese in the way that they take our places wearing all the evils and diseases. This is true to any other common practice when we decorate the dolls at home. Not only Doll's Festival for girls but also dolls for boys displayed on Children's Day of May 5th.
Dolls are not simply toys for the Japanese but effigies so to speak. This special sentiment towards dolls explains that people just hesitate throwing them away as a trash when they get too old. 　So we bring them to the temples and the shrines where monks and priests bless the abandoned dolls and eventually burn them with prayers of gratitude. This is what people and dolls are all about in Japan. Dolls are so dear to us as if we were seeing ourselves in them. I believe there should be the similar stories somewhere in other countries, for sure.
Human traditions are indeed worth being cherished and admiring.

Thank you for reading a long post ;)

You may go back to my previous posts on Doll's Festival if you want to.

2010

2009 #1
2009#2
2007

Changings in Japanese female names

2011-02-23T06:29:00.006+08:00

(ranking names for babies for 2009-2010 reported by the Insurance Company)

According to the annual survey conducted by one of the big insurance companies in Japan, a girl's name ended with the Chinese character(kanji) “子”(ko) has risen to 2nd in ties on the list for the first time in 27 years. This name was "Riko" which was marked the 55th in the previous year.
Why is this topic featured? You may be wondered.
In Japan, traditionally the Chinese character(kanji) for female names such as "子"(ko) is added to the end such as in Mitsuko( famous for Guerulan perfume named after Mitsuko Coudenhove-Kalergi, the wife of an Austrian diplomat in the end of 19th century) and as in Michiko (our loyal Empress）. I would say roughly up until 70s, this general rule are very much reflected in ranking. I remember when I was a student, almost all the girls names I found in the classmates list were ended with "ko" like Mariko, Kyoko,Yoko, Kimiko and more. Most parents were likely to follow this traditional fondness because for one thing the origin of using “子” had a long historical value back to the ancient era through samurai period to the modern era. “子” had been used for women whose families were socially influential and powerful. Adding ”子”(ko) is a prestigious style of naming. The tendency has been then gradually changed since 1980s, parents have been more likely to prefer unique and only-one-name in the world for their girls. “子” has been gradually put away from their choices as being out of date or out of fashion. So here are some from the recent ranking, Sakura(cherry blossoms) Haruna(an image of popular young celebrity on TV?), and Yume(dream)------whew it's sometime so hard to read these names in kanji even for many Japanese like me since young parents trying to dig out so many uncommon kanji that makes us difficult to read.
Now then people come to think “子”(ko) is not as bad as ever? That might be a good reason for "Riko" ranked in the second this time. Yes, history may repeat in naming too.
Oh by the way, my daughter has no “子” in her name and -----curiously enough, me neither.

Ready to go!

2011-02-20T21:01:00.007+08:00

It's now 10:02 PM Sunday Feb.20 in Japan.
I worked for my OWOH giveaway packages on Sunday afternoon.
This is one of the most exciting part of the giveaway.
I just pictured each of my packages going to make a long journey and finally getting to each mailbox of two winners, Mimi and aliceinparis .
These are just two small packages but I hope they will make you smile.

Wait for a while. They'll be leaving home tomorrow.

Have a nice weekend!

2011-02-19T10:23:00.010+08:00

I didn't see him for two weeks. It was so hard to see him off at the time the Internet was not so widely used in our daily life. Oh, it was just a story about 10 or 20 years ago not an old story of half a century ago, I'll tell you.
Thanks to the arrival of the new technique, I don't have to send an air mail in care of the hotel front desk, nor make a call, nor ask the hotel front to hand out a fax document to him while he was out.
Anyway, we've been doing this for years and years since we got married. Now I don't have to worry too much anymore. I can get him on the mobile phone, send him a message to it and to his PC anytime. The world is surely getting much smaller and so is our bloggers' friendship over the webs.

I've been busy for this past week what with visiting new friends from OWOH on the net and what with my daily life. Now he's back and the things in the house are going around a bit faster.

Have a nice weekend to all of my friends.
Is there any plan over the weekend?
Whatever it is, have a restful one. Another Monday will be with us so soon.

OneWorld OneHeart 2011 Winners !

2011-02-18T06:20:00.011+08:00

The Lucky Winners are:

Mimi from "Screaming Mimi" #16visitor
&
aliceinparis from "Alice in Paris" #88visitor

Hey, Congratulations!
I've decided to draw two winners for 2 sets of my giveaways
because there were much more visitors than I expected.
Thank you!
I'm going to e-mail two of you soon to exchange some more information
for sending out packages.

(Please check my first post on OWOH2011 here.)

Thank you Lisa and hundreds of participants for welcoming me.
I took part in OWOH for the first time. It was just about 10 days ago that I sent my email to Lisa about the entry. It was just amazing right after Lisa added my name in her list, the visitors started coming in eventually with 134 women leaving their kind and sweet words in my blog.
I enjoyed my visits to many bloggers and their visits to mine. I'll definitely go back each of my new friends to know more about her enthusiasm, her life and her culture.
OWOH2011 was over but for me it is the beginning of new friendships.

Let's stay in touch.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-13T08:59:00.006+08:00

Thank you for being friends!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The problem

2011-02-12T08:48:00.011+08:00

Since last night there has been a problem that many of my pre-posted pictures don't show up.
Some don't lose links but some do.
I found out it might be a bug problem which shows in many other bloggers posts.
I'm going to leave this for the moment to see if there is an easy way to get rid of this.
It's really disappointing and irritating that the pictures are not shown
and I have to click each blank to see it.
Sorry about this inconvenience.
If you have any good advice, I would be most happy.
I'm going to work on this in the evening.

Thank you for visiting.

Over 70 comments came in

2011-02-08T20:31:00.012+08:00

It's been less than 24 hours since I posted "One World One Heart" last night.

This is "OMG." Is this what OWOH is all about?
My post on OWOH has still been attracting bloggers over 60!
I've never had such a large number of comments in any of my previous posts before.
Every single comment is so sweet and heartfelt.
More than anything else, I feel so glad to hear that they like my posts in the past as well as the giveaway. You know, it's such a nice compliment for me whose native language is not English.

Thank you so much every one who kindly came in here today.
Now I feel so happy that all of a sudden, I got so many friends, that I'd never expected to come across in this world unless I had made one step forward and joined OWOH.

It'll take for a while for me to visit your blogs but I'm sure I will gladly do and will enjoy"talking" to you.
Let's stay tuned until we see who will be the lucky one!
We have still a week to go.

"One World One Heart 2011"

2011-02-07T21:56:00.000+08:00

Hello! Welcome to "My Hodgepodge".
I'm so happy to join "One World One Heart" from Japan.

A couple days ago, Jeany in Germany whom we've known each other in this blogsophere over the years, introduced me in her blog about "One World One Heart" project. As I was reading what it was all about, I was carried away with this project for bloggers across the countries.

"One World One Heart" project had been brought to all the bloggers(strictly limited as blog owners) throughout the world by one artist whose name is Lisa. Please visit her blog and learn more in detail about "One World One Heart".
This is a huge giveaway project that I've never run into before.
Go and visit Lisa's page to see more than 800 participants enrolling in this project with beautiful give-away presents. It is something like exchanging handmade gifts but there is more to it. You will know how large a number of women in the world, keeping their blogs, expressing their own thoughts and own life-styles, opening their doors to the outward world. By getting a chance to visit their blogs, we'll be able to know one another. That's friendship. Thus, the whole world is getting smaller. How nice this is.

So I've also made up my mind to join this project by presenting my giveaway. Of course, you can join the project just by visiting others , enjoying their blogs and leaving a message saying you'd like to sign up for a give away.

Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not good at handcrafts.
I love making things with my hands if I have time, but this is only for my own pleasure. None of them makes a good gift to be sent out.
So here are some cute little goodies I've bought from some shops before for adding to my favorite collections.

Let's enjoy "One World One Heart" together. This time it will be the fifth and will be the last project after all. How lucky that I joined the last "One World One Heart"project.

Here are my giveaway gifts: a very small set of dolls and three small pocket envelops.

The dolls are called "Hina Dolls." On March 3 we celebrate the Girls Festival in Japan by decorating Hina Dolls at home. Those small pocket envelops are originally for putting in small amount of money to hand out to others in Japan. They are too cute just for envelops.

In order to join my give away, please leave your comment , your blog URL and your e-mail address here. I'll choose one lucky winner by lot.(I'm ready to use one lottery free soft from the web.) Don't forget to write your e-mail address. Otherwise, if you were the winner, I've got to choose the second person.

Finally thank you Lisa for your taking time for this project for five years.

Besides blogging

2011-02-05T23:52:00.011+08:00

When I opened my eyes this morning, I didn't get what had happened to me. 'What time is it?' I grabbed my alarm and could not believe it was past 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. Shocked. My alarm clock was definitely on but I had not heard anything. Thanks god, it was Saturday and I didn't have to send off my husband to work much earlier in the morning. (He's in India now.) For these weeks I was quite busy with this and that. I felt so exhausted with all the works at my computer.
Having a slight headache, I just wanted to stay away from my desk even forgetting about blogging. I didn't want to sit at it another minute.
There are several things that I'm always longing to spend time on, which is nothing to do with a computer. But for these weeks I didn't have time for any of them.
These are 1) reading books 2) having favorite tea of the day 3) writing one or two letters to my computer-illiterate friends 4)watching a video 5)water painting 6) taking pictures 7)arranging flowers 8) going out for meeting friends or just for shopping.
So today I read a book with my favorite blended tea and wrote a letter to my ex- English teacher in NY and finally drove to my parents to say hello.

Probably, I've got to learn to make a good balance in-between my work and my wishing lists.
I should not keep some of them too long in my list especially as for 5) 6) and 7). I've got to find out the way to make one step forward for these three goals.

Well, what makes you feel comfortable when you feel so exhausted with your job or daily life?

We throw beans today!

2011-02-03T00:05:00.004+08:00

Before I started my post tonight, I just checked my past posts and learned that I hadn't posted on this topic ever since 2005. Wow, that's quite a long time ago.
It's probably because it is not a family event anymore with my children growing old enough and being reluctant to throw food. Well, who on earth ever feel happy about throwing food on the ground?
However no matter people would say about the Japanese throwing food, as long as it's Feb.3, it is just OK. We throw beans inside and outside the house! Young parents who are usually determined to discipline their children to be good, will hand out some roasted soy beans to them and tell them to scatter all over! They all start throwing while shouting, "In with good luck. Out with bad luck." After all, this is one of our traditional events which has been enjoyed for years and years.
So maybe you'd like to know more about this event. Let me link my past post in 2005 here.
By the way, though my children grow old, I already prepared some beans from several shops. Even at the bakery shops, they sell some yummy buns in the shape of a cute goblin.
So tonight in the evening I will throw some beans on behalf of all of my family for our happiness shouting as "softly" as my neighbors won't hear me but as much "softly" as good fortune can hear me.

Two shots of the day

2011-01-31T14:34:00.005+08:00

Yesterday my husband took me to the dealer's garage to show me his new car which had just landed all the way from PGO across the ocean. It will take some more time to go through an automobile inspection.
He gave himself a big belated birthday gift for himself.　He decided to renew his car. What a big buy! But I know he had been planning it for these past years and I believe it was perfectly considered. Man's shopping sometimes costs a lot at one time. On the contrary, I'd rather enjoy shopping throughout a year including eating out. So as he was content with his new car, we stopped at his favorite Japanese restaurant to have this grilled eel with heavy sweet soy sauce for lunch. Perfect Sunday! Now I have a good reason to get a new spring dress next time. Don't you think so?

Um, it's about snow again

2011-01-31T07:05:00.007+08:00

It's really a bad joke that almost every Monday in this January, we have snow. What a nice start to a day. Today is not an exception. When I went outside to see the road condition, it was just a slight snowfall and yet the roads were icy and slippery. Two of our cars looked pretty wearing powder snow so I added some finger touches to look much prettier though mine was just OK in the garage.

Our area is not basically snowy so I don't get used to driving in this weather. Hope it won't snow all day.

My goodness! It's still snowing!

2011-01-16T13:11:00.013+08:00

Well, when I woke up this morning, the snowfall was just moderate enough to enjoy the beautiful scenery. However I must say now, "No more thank you." The transportation is getting paralyzed. Trains delayed, cars trapped, people slipping. I don't feel like driving on such a awful day. So here I am sitting at my laptop making the slide show. What a good way to spend the Sunday afternoon.

Too bad, however, there are many senior high students who have been taking the entrance exams across the nation since this morning despite this bad weather.
Some students could not arrive at the exams venues on time due to the paralyzed transportation system so many exam organizations made it possible to give them a full time right after they sit at the desks. That's the way it should be. Yet,I know how much stressing for the students to concentrate on the exams all after the fuss.

It's the season of the entrance exams in Japan for these three months. Two-day unified college entrance examinations, known as the National Center Test, started at 706 venues across the nation yesterday. Today is the last day. It's the beginning of the exams season. With today's results, students are to go on to the next exams at each university which they apply for.

I don't know why but the snowy weather often falls on around the date of the National Center Test. I remember it did snow on the day when my daughter went to take this exams almost six years ago.
No more hardship on them. Hope they will finish the exams making their best.
Their own "spring" will be arriving soon.

Snow!

2011-01-16T07:28:00.005+08:00

First snow of the year in Nagoya!

Our garden is just lightly covered with snow!

It's not a heavy snowfall.

But at an area like my city where a snowfall is not so frequent,

it is big enough to make the news.

Have a nice and cozy Sunday wherever you are on this planet !

What is your New Year's resolution?

2011-01-14T01:32:00.004+08:00

I've read this in one Japanese blogger's page.

He introduced the original site here.

Every resolution is art. They are so cool, funny, and so true.

What is your resolution?

Japanese Daddy long legs　"Tiger Mask"

2011-01-12T08:47:00.015+08:00

　

It started at the end of the year when every Japanese household is busy getting ready for having the very first day of the New Year.
Ten school backpacks were found in front of the entrance of a children's welfare facility on Christmas in Gunma Prefecture by the name of "Tiger Mask," a great Japanese cartoon(manga)
hero that every one knows for more than 30 years. After the director of the welfare house consulted with the police, they have decided to accept the knapsacks.
Ever since this news, there are more and more anonymous "Tiger Mask" being inspired by the first one, send the brand new "randoseru" to children's welfare houses across the country.

Well, I was not the great fan of this "manga" when I was a kid yet I know some basic information on "Tiger Mask" since he is the great hero of the day. He himself came from the foster home and after he became a famous professional wrestler, he kept sending his money to his foster home as the anonymous sender till he died by accident.
This news means so much to us especially when today's economy is not so healthy that there is less good news in our society.

Sending a knapsack to a child has a special meaning among any Japanese adults. A knapsack, a school bag or a backpack, whatever you may call it in English, we name it "ra-n-do-se-ru," which originally came from "a ransel" in Dutch.
A compulsory education starts in Japan when children reach the age of seven in spring. It's a happy event for any parents and grandparents to celebrate their child/grandchild's beginning of the school life and getting a first randoseru for their child is such a welcoming and rewarding gift that they proudly make.

Every day we get the news that some more "Tiger Mask" appear by way of sending not only "randoseru" but also some other gifts such as books, toys and what's more, tons of rice and vegetables!!! One of "Tiger Mask" left the message "Children are the gifts from the heaven. So we've got to take care of any children with all our might."
Well, we're so thankful to every "Tiger Mask" but then, how the government understands this, I wonder. It's not the only charity to children but also the big caution to the government for their good policy to the citizens.

As of today, 96 anonymous "Tiger Mask" left 171 "randoseru" and other items in all the 47 prefectures in the nation.

(all the imges from the web news and the backpack online shop)

First visit to the Shinto Shrine

2011-01-08T09:46:00.017+08:00

Most Japanese make the first visit to shinto shrines and Buddhist temples on the very first day of the New Year. This is the biggest annual event for us throughout the year. We visit there to pray for good health and good luck for the newly coming year. Actually the visits start at midnight. There are many families and groups of friends and relatives who leave home for their destinations before the clock strikes the change of the year at midnight. At many shrines and temples across the country are ready for welcoming the crowds of people. We see many policemen are on duty for our safety at the sites. 　Every year it is reported that millions of people pay visits to shrines and temples during the first three days of the year.

(three pictures are from the website)

So this year too, my family visited one of the big shrines downtown in the first morning of the year. We passed the tall shrine archway at the entrance, which meant that we stepped into the sacred area. Usually the path which is covered with pebbles leads to the inner shrine where we make our respects to the shinto god.
In front of the altar, we make some donations by throwing some coins into the large alms box and now it's time for praying and making some wishes!
Every year I never forget to pray for happiness and good health for my family and make some more extra wishes such as "Let me accomplish my desire to lose my weight this year" or "Please let my husband and I have lots of fun together."------making endless wishes until I hear my husband laughing "How can you be so greedy with a small donation? Let's go."
Along the side way, some free hot drinks such as sweet rice wine and specially sacred rice wine are provided. Sweet rice wine is my favorite. It's so good to have such a rich drink of very mild alcohol on a wintry day.

Along the way, we enjoyed drawing fortune lots. We made a small donation and got each fortune told on a small stripe of paper. It was really fun and thrilling until I opened the folded small paper to find a largest letter which described the general luck of the year. Here you see the "omikuji(fortune lots)" I drew that day in the above picture, it said "Chu-kichi," which means "middle blessing" out of 7 or 12 levels. Great! "Chu-kichi" is the top second. My daughter got "Kichi," which means just"Blessing." It's still lucky enough. We both kept them in each bag and brought these good blessings back home with us. If we got results of less blessings, then we were supposed to tie these stripes of paper to a tree or a wall of metal wires so that bad fortunes would remain in the temple or shrine grounds. In general we just enjoy this for fun. Even if I get a bad luck, I just take it for a good reminder that I will be able to make this new year much luckier if I take care of things a little more attentively.

Hop! Step! Jump!

2011-01-04T00:53:00.006+08:00

In Japan, we often talk that each year reflects the character of the animal symbols in the Oriental zodiac. 2011 is the year of the hare in this zodiac calender.
People who were born in the Year of the Hare are said to be as gentle and good tempered as a rabbit and also they are believed to be very successful like a rabbit makes beautiful jumps.
As we see this character in persons so we do this in our economy. Every one doesn't hesitate to believe that the economy makes a big leap and our life turns to be better especially in the year of the hare. Yes, I do hope so.
And at the same time, I wish for all of you here that you will happily hop, step and jump to your New Year's resolutions and make your days fruitful !

Getting ready for the first day of 2011

2010-12-31T01:08:00.007+08:00

The last several days before the New Year in Japan is super busy, non-stop and restless for every housewife to get prepared for the New Year's celebration. Every man, no matter what position he's in in his business world, is happy to help his wife at home, as far as I know.
Hope every one has a happy and peaceful New Year Eve tonight.

Greetings!

2010-12-18T03:48:00.005+08:00

Wishing you all the best and joy for Christmas!

It's the busiest season of the year
but once I sit at the computer, I see my friends and share our daily life together over this screen.
It makes me feel so happy.

(Our favorite Christmas plate from Rosenthal 1981)

One of the Japanese popular sweets

2010-12-10T09:43:00.014+08:00

(click each for larger images)

Look! This is called "Peco-chan Yaki". I went to this shop when I visited Tokyo last month. Peco-chan is a popular girl character from a famous confectionery called Fujiya with a long history in Japan. "Yaki" literally means "bake". It originally comes from a traditional Japanese cake with sweet beans filling called　in general "dora-yaki".

Many confectioneries from fancy to local ones throughout the country make their own with a little bit of modifications in their ingredients and shapes.　
Try it when you had a chance to visit Japan. You'll find it almost any cities and towns. You won't miss it at any food floors of the department stores. Some times you are supposed to join the line to get this sweet. When you see the line, it is a "delicious" sign!

　

Like this "Peco-chan Yaki". They have several different fillings of the season besides sweet beans such as custard cream, cheese cream, green tea cream, mushed sweet potato,mushed pumpkin and several more.　

There is one Japanese traditional confectionery on the Fifth Ave. New York and I heard not only the Japanese living there but also other local residents love this "dora-yaki". I didn't expect that people besides the Japanese love this sweet beans paste. I think sweet beans paste is rather authentic and unique that I thought sweet beans filling just don't appeal to their taste. But it's fun to see on TV some fans of Japanese sweets enjoy eating "dora-yaki" while walking along the New York streets after they get them from the shop. Just like they eat burgers!

Autumn color Kyoto

2010-12-03T11:49:00.009+08:00

The city of 1.5 million residents called Kyoto is now as busy as it is in spring.
Many visitors from abroad and home come and visit to see the dramatic changing colors of the outdoor scenery in and around the city. The maple trees are just amazing and so impressive. Kyoto is just like the city sitting at the bottom of the big valley surrounded by moderately high mountains.

More than anything else, it used to be the imperial city for more than 1,000 years and people has been blessed with its rich culture. It was quite natural that Kyoto being the center of the county, has a great number of Buddhism temples and Shinto shrines all over the city. (approximately 1,600temples and 400 shrines)
What is more amazing is that most temples and shrines have their own gardens of small and huge, surrounded by tidy hedges or simply walls or some are just surrounded by the low hills, which add a unique beauty to each ancient heritage.

Now I'm so lucky to live close to this marvelous city, just 30-minute-train ride distance.
Yet, it is not a local train but a super express train called a "bullet train". Fare-wise, it is not a frequent choice to make a visit. But why not in this season. I can't miss it especially since my daughter lives there and it would be the last school year for her in Kyoto.
I rented a bicycle and we enjoyed the warm autumn air without being annoyed with the traffic jams everywhere inside the city.

We visited one shrine near her university and two temples. The scenery was just charming and breathtaking. By the time we headed for the last temple, the day turned into the night. While the colorful leaves of all kinds are at their best, several temples open the gates to the visitors by spot-lightening the gardens of moss and colorful trees. The reflection gives us some fantastic and different images from the daytime faces. Kyoto is always busy with tourists but it never makes us disappointed. We can feel with all our senses the wonderful heritage of the long history on every corner of this city.

We enjoyed a girls talk as usual during the dinner, then we left each other and I　hopped on the late train back to Nagoya. The cars for non-reserved seats were almost full with tourists and businessmen heading back to Tokyo, the terminal stop next Nagoya.

Here are some more images.

the reason why I expose myself into English

2010-11-15T06:39:00.014+08:00

Owing to the Blogger, the Twitter, the Face Book, I get the chances to expose myself into the English language world. There I have time to think, make an outline of an idea, search vocabularies, type out my idea into words and finally let it out in the Internet.
I do enjoy every step to express myself outward world. Since I hardly have a chance to talk face to face and exchange ideas with native speakers unless I go to the language school, writing English means a lot to me in terms of keeping up with it. More than anything else, it's so exciting to communicate my friends in the world with English. If I don't manage the English language, there would have been no other door open to the new world of friendship. Language is amazing.

Today I’d like to talk about some twitter friends who are generous enough to help out the Japanese twitters tweeting in English. Language-wise, they tell us many good advice, instruction and some cultural background information which is useful in learning the foreign language. Some kindly correct my sentences if I ask to. Mostly they are the language experts whose majors at colleges were the teaching English as a second language or the linguistic or the literature and some of course with their unique backgrounds. There are some Japanese with the similar backgrounds as well. It's good that I can have both of native speaker and the Japanese.

@phrasemix introduces us with lots of useful vocabularies, phrases and is kind enough to check our English sentences very systematically. @sawage runs his private language school in Japan and gives us kind instruction as a teacher. @zen_to_satori is a Japanese and has a good command of English. He knows what mistakes the Japanese learners often make and kindly shows the right sentences. @CaroneeSan is an English author, entrepreneur and more. She is always so carefree to talk of the cultural background from the woman's point of view. @nyeigo is a language tutor who lives in NY. He talks about some popular idioms and vocabularies often used by the native speakers.

There are many opinions on what the best way to learn English. Some say "Why don't you get some native speakers and just talk to them. It's the faster way to learn how to speak." I'm not sure about it. My favorite way to study it for the moment is “writing”. By way of writing, I’ve got to think and make my idea clear. When I know what I want to talk, then it is way easier for me to speak up. That way I believe writing is a very important exercise in order to speak as well. I love to learn new phrases and vocabularies and once my thought are put into letters, they will stay in my memories as my own words.

How can I write the good sentences? What else I should do for writing better English? I've been always looking for the answer these days.

What language do you speak besides your mother tongue? How did you study it? Do you have any suggestions for me?

Gilrs Get Together

2010-11-05T19:30:00.015+08:00

Three of ex-high school classmates got together in Tokyo and walked, walked and walked and gosh we talked, talked and talked.

Two of us left Nagoya Station at7:20 am and got to Tokyo at 8:40 and met our friend in Tokyo.

Sorry, it was too late when we realized that we didn't take any pictures before we started our lunch. We were so busy talking and eating.

This casual restaurant named "Canal Cafe" is really comfortable on such a warm fall day. You can see the open cafe in the far distance at your right hand as well. It is right in the middle of Tokyo downtown along the river.

It's so fortunate that we could make this trip possible. Our husbands are happy to see us having fun, we believe! Our railway company is so kind to provide us a very very reasonable round tickets fare unless we don't care about the set schedule of trains departure on both ways. It's just the half fare of the regular tickets. Amazing!
But this ticket is just available for men and women over ------oops, if you please excuse us, over XX years old.

I know men aren't so excited about this ticket just like my husband. But for women, hurray! it's such a treat. You'll get a free tea time coupone at one of the fancy hotel cafe as well.
The home bound train left 6:20pm and got home 8:00pm. "I'm home!" I met my husband before 8:30!

Perfect! Why not we should take advantage of this trip ! We'll come back again!

Animal celebrities on Ginza Street, Tokyo

2010-11-05T00:54:00.006+08:00

I ran into two fabulous sites when I was walking down the street of Ginza, Tokyo.
The cat was sitting on a narrow street sign board and taking a nap ignoring all the human crowds with their cameras and videos. In fact, there should be two more cats who often appear on this stage. They got so famous once they made their debut　on the blog world.

Another star is this white poodle. Isn't she gorgeous! And look at how she looks so elegant just as her lady owner behind her. That day was the national holiday and the main Ginza street was open to the pedestrians only.

Volunteers also worked hard

2010-10-31T01:16:00.020+08:00

COP10, the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties on Biological Diversity, Nagoya, Aichi was closed on early Saturday reaching to the agreement through the long and tough meetings in a row by the representatives from the 192 countries and the European Union.

Unlike the World Expos which is held every four year, the Conference is not open to the public. Yet during the Conference, there were more than 10,000 people coming in and out from home and abroad. They are delegates, representatives from governments levels, NPO, scientists, researchers, native people and not to mention the press.

During the 17 days, there are more than 1,200 volunteers also were completing their missions at the huge conference venue or at the important spots of the every transportation systems such as the airport, subway/train stations in and around the city to help participants.

Besides them, many volunteers who speak the foreign languages were stationed at each of 200 exhibition booths adjacent to the main conference venue. I was appointed at the booth which the city of Nagoya produced the exhibition on the history of biodiversity in Nagoya and we provided the short guided tour in the huge tent during the period.
It was really fun when I have many visitors and explained our panels in English. Visitors were mostly Japanese citizens or the conference participants from abroad who walked in in between the sessions. We both enjoy exchanging our ideas on what we can do for the preservation of the rich natural environment.

Click here. You can have a glance at what the COP10 were all alike.Photos are just beautiful.

Lovely needle felting

2010-10-30T02:16:00.002+08:00

These are the felt broaches my daughter brought home from Talin, Estonia. The deep green one is for her grandmother, the blue/pink one for her mother and the white/orange one is for herself. A center metal makes a good accent on a fabric.

When I was small, I loved to see my mother make some cute little felt fabric items such as pin cushions, purses, dolls and bags as the Christmas bazaar got closer. I remember how I was so thrilled when she'd finally finished all of them. I knew it was my turn that she would take my hands and make some simple one together.

And here is another lady whose website is full of her handcraft. My blog friend in Germany, Jeany is a very talented handcraft loving woman and I should say she is very very creative. When I first encountered her blog, I was so impressed with her beautiful boxes made of her well-selected materials. She is an artist in many ways. Now she is so absorbed in felting and she really enjoys making her original felt out of wool as the very first step before she makes her beautiful works.

I always respect people who are skilled in handcrafts. I've been always making an excuse saying "If only I had enough time, I'd like to try-----." Nope, it's not true. I don't have enough patience to take all the steps one by one until I accomplish my goal for myself. 　Any advice for this clumsy novice to turn to be a happy beginner of handcraft?

The way we celebrate

2010-10-24T21:06:00.012+08:00

Today it was my husband's birthday. We've been celebrating birthdays for 27 years together.
I didn't get any birthday present for him this year because we'd been exchanging many presents besides on birthdays such as on anniversaries and many other celebrations.
I'd rather enjoy cooking something special what he likes such as Chinese, Indians and Japanese on his birthday. While I am busy cooking, he enjoys picking up a bottle of wine out of our collections, which goes well with dish for the day.
But today he suggested that we should try the Chinese restaurant in Marriott Hotel. Oh what a surprise. I wonder who is going to celebrate whose birthday! Whatever it is, that's how we went out. I should have brought a camera with me. Every dish was just beautiful and delicious. Since he basically doesn't have a sweet tooth, we skipped the desserts. Instead, after we came home, I opened a new tin of blended tea named "Happy Birthday" for him and served it along with some chocolate which our daughter brought back home from Finland for us. The "Happy Birthday" tea from TWG of Singapore is just perfect to celebrate his birthday. It has a good flavor of sweet red berries and vanilla blended with mild black tea. Happy Birthday, darling. We had a good time.

Wow, it's been more than a month !

2010-10-19T09:14:00.003+08:00

Um, I didn't intend to be away from the blog for such a long time.
Things just made me a bit reluctant to write a story especially when I become busier than before. I wish I could have more than 24 hours a day.
Where shall I start then??? I tried to catch up things accordingly on time-line but it is hardly possible for me to do so after I neglected writing more than a month. Wow!

Writing a blog in English is not a piece of cake for me as you might know it is not my mother tongue and in Japan we don't necessarily need it in our daily life. But thanks to my childhood circumstances, I had always been absorbed in learning English as a door to learn something different, something new and to meet people from different cultures.

While I was away from the blog, I've been often twitting in the Twitter. I thought it was easier for me to keep writing since I only have to write in 140 letters. It was fun to talk mostly with English learning friends. Yet, I've realized that I'm not always contetded with it. I've got to express my idea regardless of 140 words. I missed my blog. So, here I am again to talk to you although I won't be a good blogger from time to time.
I'd really appreciate Dionne, who is such a charming woman and is always generous. She gives me an encouraging push to come back to this blogosphere whenever I am almost out of sight :) Thank you, Dionne.

Writing is another way for me to keep up with my English since I hardly have chances to speak up. So let's get started again.
Thanks everyone to read my awkward sentences.

I love vending machines!

2010-09-10T15:08:00.009+08:00

You will see several kinds of vending machines along the streets or at any stations----almost any place. Well sometimes I feel annoying to see colorful vending machines even at very classical, historical sites in towns. Yet, we're counting on these machines. Vending machines for drinking are most popular and you'll be stunned to hear some new machines can speak when you insert coins and get your drink saying "Thank you"or"Come back again" or even" Take it easy". It's really funny.
See this video of three minutes on this topic.

And one of the main railway companies, which covers Tokyo area has recently set their high tech beverages vending machine at Shinagawa Station. This machines has a big display screen and when a customer steps close to it, it automatically shows a display of selling products in bottles and cans. What's more in surprise, it recommends a product judging from a customer's face, gender, age with its built-in face recognition camera! All you have to do is insert coins and touch the image you want.
Amazing! I love to "meet" this high tech vending machine and to get my drink hopefully sometime next month when I go to see my friends in Tokyo. Can't wait to see what kind of beverage this robot like machine will recommend to me.
The first day when this machine was set, many twitters uploaded pictures of this first machine which turned out be the focus of passers-by.

Different world of hobbies

2010-08-27T23:17:00.015+08:00

a helicopter!

This is the world of Gundam, they say.

Whewwwww--------------

"Gundam" is a popular hero from a TV animated series.
It was first televised almost 30 years ago
and has been one of the greatest heroes among children since then.

Take a look what is going on.
It's only Japanese but you can get some hints from the images.

http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/comments/20100724_real_grade_gundam_project_first/

by the way, for me Astro Boy is still my childhood hero!

Who is your favorite hero?

(photo by my son)

coming-home presents from India

2010-08-19T23:51:00.006+08:00

Here are the short kurtas my husband picked up for me and my daughter from the shop "Fabindia". The bed spread in the picture is also from Fabindia.
This time he was kind enough to get something else besides tea from this country :)

Wagashi pleases our eyes

2010-08-17T23:33:00.009+08:00

Here are the sweets I got from my favorite confectionery at the airport shopping mall yesterday.

Wagashi(Japanese small sweets) are formed into shapes to express the images of different four seasons. During the summer, every confectionery has their own way to express some faces of the hottest season using kudzu powder or agar powder. These ingredients create a transparent layer which adds some cool images of water and breeze which we admires in summer.

Just imagine what these three wagashi express the faces of the summer.
Since each wagashi is titled after some images of the season by the confectionery, here are the answers.
From the left to right:" physalis alkekengi fruit with the red husk","summer evening" and "the moon reflecting on a lacquer tray." Well what do you think? Before putting them into a mouth, they certainly please our eyes.

Again!

2010-08-16T14:28:00.001+08:00

I'm here @ the airport to see my husband from India.So crowded.This time my daughter is here with me, blogging froma mobile phone,

Let me try out

2010-08-15T23:25:00.012+08:00

At last here I am !
It's been almost a month since my past blogging.
I was once so busy, lazy, and sometimes not in a mood to update my blog.
All these reasons were true for my absence.
While I was away from it, I still wanted to inform my friends of myself.
Twitter might be, then, easier for me to keep uploading since all I have to do is to write within 140 letters. As a matter of fact, I'm not quite sure what twitter makes a sense when I have my blog at the same time. But never mind, at least, you will "hear" my occasional tweets and know what I'm doing even when I don't update my blog.
So here in the side bar, you will see my twitter widget. Just let me try out.

Where have you been for two months???

2010-07-20T12:25:00.008+08:00

So, my friends, this is another story of swapping with Jeany from Germany.

It's such a nice story. I eventually received two packages from her.
Why?------- It's because the first one got lost on the way and Jeany was generous enough to send me another one although I told her I could be patient for the sake of our friendship.
She was so quick to make a decision about the second one. She didn't want me to wait for a missing package when no one knows whether or not it would be picked up and put it back on the right way. So this way, I received her second swapping package as a result.　
(See the previous blog)

And just about when we both have already given up the missing one, the postman rang the door bell and I saw him standing at the door with a package in his arm! What a welcoming surprise!!!
I checked the package on the spot to see if it got any damages. It was all right! It was really thrilling to open the box to find these lovely gifts she packed in almost two months ago-----tiny lovely all different tags, nice sensed soaps, a beautiful cartonnage and more. Some look familiar to me since she introduced some of her works in her blog and now these beautiful objects are here with me after they made a long journey. Isn't this exciting! I especially love her tag book with accordion pockets. Aren't they so neat!

(More images here)

I'm not a crafty type of person but I'm sure I'll try when I have more time to spare. It's really nice to get inspired by my blogger friends here. Every one I meet here has such a unique talent. They give me an inspiration and an excitement of creativeness.

Package across the sky

2010-07-17T12:09:00.000+08:00

Here are the gift items Jeany has sent for me all the way from Germany.

Click here for more images!

How gorgeous! I'm so thankful and happy that she made every single goody by herself and was generous enough to send them to me in Japan.

She is such a talented woman who enjoys varieties of crafts especially her cartonnage are breathtaking. When I first saw her blog, I was just carried away to know how she made every part so carefully and patiently and finally so beautifully while it requires time and concentration before she completes.

Just coming across with her on the web is a great pleasure. Isn't it miracle that our paths crossed each other one day in the Internet world and now we are friends! This is something great about the blogosphere.
I love the sewing box. It's like a magic box. When you open it, you'll find a small one inside and it has many pockets as well on each four sides. How amazing and how delicately and carefully she went through all the steps. I love every item you sent to me. Look at the lovely European doll. She's so cute. You definitely showed me the excitements of handcrafting.
Oh, my, how can I be deserved with those presents. Thank you, Jeany. I do keep them for long.

Well, my friends, it's not the end of the story. There is more to say. I'll come back soon.

Yay, TGIF!

2010-06-11T17:56:00.012+08:00

(by photojoy)

It was an exhausting week! So I'm deserved to have some sweets! This is a bowl of shaved ice with green tea syrup. Now it's getting hotter and damper as the summer is getting close to us. It's the season of shaved ice with syrup and ice cream. What do you think ? I love Japanese sweets. By the way I was visiting Kyoto last Saturday and had a chance to eat in at this sweet shop. It's a very popular tea house run by a famous Japanese tea company in Kyoto especially among females of all ages.

(image from google images)

There are always a long line to get in. Girls are often so patience when it comes to having something delicious. We can't miss it. Thanks God, that afternoon we didn't have to wait in line. How lucky!

HAVE A NICE DAY !

2010-06-09T09:35:00.001+08:00

from my cell phone

Lazy Dessert

2010-06-01T12:04:00.004+08:00

Remember? I went to pick up strawberries at my friend's last month. I made bottles of jams and syrups out of them and there were still lots of fresh ones left -----mostly they were small. What I did was I kept them in the freezer so that we could enjoy them anytime after the season.

So just put some in a glass, pour a strawberry sauce and add mint leaves. Here you are!

Lazy Frozen Strawberries Dessert!

By the time you finish the meal, frozen strawberries are just about ready. There is no way I spoil dessert. Lazy indeed.

My favorite place to stop by

2010-05-24T21:16:00.008+08:00

Today I left home at 8:45 in the morning to attend a computer lesson as an observer. Guess what? I'm supposed to give a class to 20 senior people for basic Microsoft Excel in July. This is what I used to do as my job but due to my mother-in-law's physical condition, I had to leave a regular job. I'm so excited about going back to this field as well as feel so responsible. The world of IT is growing so fast every minute and yet there are lots of elder people who have left behind though they're so much interested in this world. I feel so happy to help them go into this exciting world of web.
Anyway, after sitting a class for two hours even as an observer, I was just tired and didn't feel like moving forward to the next schedule of the day. I thought I needed some time to sit and cool my brain down. When you feel this way, do you have any place like a nice coffee shop or restaurant where you'd feel free to stop by all by yourself? I don't go so often but I have one very nice coffee shop full of fresh flowers where I have a favorite table for one. They serve good coffee along with nuts on a tiny plate and I feel just great to be left alone in comfortable noises of people and surrounding sounds.

(above two images are from http://raygass.blog4.fc2.com/blog-entry-27.html)

Come, come!

2010-05-18T12:18:00.004+08:00

On Monday I drove to the airport to pick up my husband on his way home wards from Delhi, India.
To go into to the airport building from the parking I walk across the airport station. It was one of the busiest time in the morning.
Now when I got to the arrival lobby, I found the cutest display of ceramic collections all lined up , which I haven't expected to see them at the airport.　

It's "Maneki-neko" which literally means a beckoning cat.　

(Click for a larger image)

It is one of the popular good luck charms in Japan which every one knows. Ceramic cat-figures in various sizes with their right or left paws raised, sometimes both. Japanese people, when they want people to come here or come closer , just turn the palm downward overtimes. So these beckoning cats are also welcoming good fortune to come in. Usually you'll find one or two welcoming cat-figures at ordinary home but you'll find more at the entrance of most local shops and restaurants of which owners wish more profits to be brought about.
There are beckoning cats figures with their right paws raised and some with left raised and some both! One with a right paw is welcoming money, one with a left paw is welcoming people and as you guess one with both paws raised is wishing both to come in. Isn't this adorable? This is originally based on the ancient story that once a cat scrubbing his face with a paw brought about happiness in his owner's house and as always there are some more different legends as well.
Do you have any good charms in your culture to welcome people or good fortune?

Well, while I was busy taking pictures of them, it didn't take long before my husband showed up at the gate! "Welcome home!"

How we wrap a gift

2010-05-13T08:00:00.017+08:00

My daughter sent me a small box of assorted "wagashi" Japanese sweets from Kyoto on Mother's Day. When I opened the brown mail box, I found this pretty box of sweets. I could tell instantly from its outer wrapping paper this was from one of the prestigious old confectioneries in Kyoto called "Kame-sue-hiro". Three Chinese characters are used for "Kamesuehiro" and it consists of "turtle" "forever" "widespread" ---- all indicate good fortune.

A box wrapped in a white "Noshi" with a red line
Today a custom of Noshi is modified in a simple style.
In stead of attaching a dried abalone, modified red letters "noshi"on the right corner was designed.

This brown one is added by a confectionery to explain the history of this Japanese sweets.

In this small box, you certainly find an essence of each season.

This small box is arranged with "Chiyogami" paper of printed patterns and what's more it was wrapped with a white sash-like paper called "Noshi". This is a kind of formal manner for us to hand out someone a gift. The origin of this manner of attaching "Noshi" on a gift was dated way back in Japanese early history. At that time, a stretched, dried, thin sliced abalone wrapped in a white paper was attached on a gift because ancient people believed that abalone carried away bad evil. So it was a token of good fortune. This might be one of the reasons why we use so much attention to wrap a gift today.
Today when you buy a present at any department stores, they never fail to ask you if you 'd like to attach a paper of "Noshi" or not. Well, we prefer having them attach it when we certainly want it make very formal or when we just add a bit of Japanese way of etiquette.
I would say that wrapping is not only a matter of covering something or decorating but of adding good wishes from a sender to a receiver.

Here are some more images of gift-wrapping with "noshi".

(above five images are from Google)

information website of "Kamesuehiro"

The last day of the Golden Week

2010-05-05T09:08:00.009+08:00

May 5th is the national holiday called "Children's Day". At this time of the season, huge carp streamers are floating in the sky at private houses with small children or at public parks. It's really fun to look at. Inside a house, we display dolls or ornaments for this day. Every item is displayed with parents' wishes that their children will be blessed with good health and happiness.

When my children were small, it was one of the family annual events. (See also this past post.) Even today since we have a cluster of national holidays called "Golden week" starting from the end of April to May 5, it's a good time for my son and my daughter who both are off from work and school and spend more time with us going out and eating out. That's the recent way of enjoying our "Children's Day", the last day of the "Golden week".
My daily routine will come back tomorrow.

Good bye to Strawberry fields

2010-05-01T04:22:00.004+08:00

I have a friend whose father has been running strawberry fields for decades. Now this season is going to be the last crop of his strawberries. He's going to retire from this business. He used to own another two strawberry vinyl houses beside this and now he's going to change this one into rice fields which is easier to take care of.
So here was our big surprise! We were invited to visit his strawberry fields and picked up as many as we could! Oh dear, it was endless and such a fun!

Study time!

2010-04-23T13:09:00.004+08:00

It's study time! I've go to read a lot on the Japanese lay judge system which has been newly introduced the previous year. Now a judgment in a criminal trial is not necessarily a matter of law professionals but of ordinal citizens like me, if they are eligible to vote over 20 years old. The Justice Ministry expects more common senses by six citizen judges should be brought in on the process before the final judgment is determined with three professional judges. Whewwwwwwww, it's a tough topic especially when it comes to English but it's a good opportunity to study the system itself. I learn a lot by reading lots of Japanese materials before studying it in English.
I might one day have a notice from the Supreme Court that I am one of these six citizen judges who are picked out from the voters list. Maybe not----honestly I hope not as a matter of fact. I hesitate to play a role to determine one's destiny.

Chinese Tea Set

2010-04-17T00:07:00.010+08:00

Tonight I'm in a mood to have tea with my Chinese tea set. I got them when my husband and I visited the China Town in Yokohama near Tokyo.
There are one small tea pot and five small cups(as small as egg stands) on a drainer tray with holes. You serve hot water into the pot and then after you put a lid on, you pour hot water onto the pot itself! Isn't it amazing? There is a good reason for this-----to make it easier tea leaves open inside and get them enough steamed not to mention keep teapot hot enough. That way you'll get your tea so tasty. When you serve tea, you are supposed to empty the pot so that there should be no excessively strong tea left inside. You just add hot water whenever you want another cups. What a lovely way to enjoy tea! Since I have any one else around me tonight at home yet, I enjoy it all for myself! Five cups one after another!

Taking a break

2010-04-16T00:05:00.005+08:00

If I had time to take a picture in the evening like tonight, I should have cleaned the dinner table first. But sometimes I just need it before I get started with my house chore routine. Some people may think it's only a waste of time but I feel I need it so that I won't kill my mind out of being busy.

My laptop was dead

2010-04-11T02:22:00.004+08:00

It was like the end of the world! My laptop was dead all of a sudden due to some hard drive fatal trouble. I back up my data regularly but still I lost some. Awwwww! Now for the time being until I get a new one, I use this small net book which my son lent it for me. Glad he had this one but you know it is quite smaaaaall! And as long as it's his, I'd better not customize it the way I like. It's a little bit exhausting. Now my friends, beware of your PC. It's a machine after all. Don't forget to back up your important files.

Inspiring hint from Dionne

2010-04-07T13:37:00.007+08:00

Dionne is such a talented woman in many ways. She owns "City of Dionne". She is a graphic designer, a writer, a photographer, a cook and an organizer-----and maybe a bit more talents.
Well, more than anything else, she has a generosity to accept friends from different backgrounds and shows her understanding toward differences. Her blog is filled with deep insights and warmness not to mention her artistic talents.
She also writes some articles in different sites besides her own blog and I'm a fan of her articles.

In her recent post in Meylah, she introduced the importance of making a blog button and I found it very interesting in a sense that I can use this button not only for linking to my blog but also for directing readers to a particular site or post.
A button is not only for advertising a blog. I haven't ever thought of that. Then, why not try a button for my own post! Thank you Dionne for inspiring me.

I've just followed her step-by-step instruction and I think I did it all right.

If you want to read her post, just click on the green button above.

I myself made a button to lead you my tulip album in a side menu. Would you like to click on that button? Thank you!

The origin of cell phone straps

2010-04-06T10:02:00.010+08:00

(picture from http://hanakagesho.blog17.fc2.com/page-1.html)

I believe there are lots of people here regardless of ages who collect straps as well as enjoy putting them on their cell phones. Young ones love cute and pretty items or anime(cartoon) characters and grown-ups may prefer more crafty and artistic ones.

I have posted about a cell phone straps before but still there are a little more I want to tell you why we adore straps.

Although our dressing style was changed drastically after the western culture was introduced more than 200 years ago, it doesn't necessarily mean we have abandoned our traditional clothing "kimono". Kimono still remains in our daily life along with its accompanying accessories like sashes,sash bands, fans, hair ornaments and the like. Among them there are "netsuke" (miniature carvings), which we believe, the origin of today's cell phone straps. We just take it for granted that straps are not only for fun but also for its function.

Here is a video on this topic. You may also like to read this site.

Good excuse for sweets

2010-04-03T15:02:00.005+08:00

Here are one of my favorite Japanese sweets called "Ohagi" , sweet rice balls.

Ohagi are rice balls similar to sticky rice cake and are covered with sweet red beans paste(right rear), sesame, sweet soybeans powder(front) or so on. My grand mom and my mother used to make these sweet balls as some offerings on the family Buddhist altar on several special commemorative days during the year. They are popular Japanese sweets which we have daily throughout the year as well.

So today I just needed something sweet so badly after I walked quite long to enjoy cherry blossoms at Nagoya Castle. On the way home, I stopped by at one confectionery store and found these Ohagi. Such a treat after I went through a comfortable fatigue. Good excuse to have some sweets!

When I got home, I had them with coffee not green tea but it was a good combination.

Well, just forget about calories. Happy tea time!

a stray kitty on an underground walkway

2010-04-01T20:15:00.002+08:00

It's about 200meter long underground walkway which leads to one of the newest office buildings from the Nagoya station. Underway paths can be just bleak occasinally with dirty graffiti on the walls but this walk through is named "Lucent Avenue" and an art gallery with illuminations of different colors. You'll never get bored while walking. In fact it's fun to realize that this walk way has a story that stray kitty on the walls guides you from the one end to the other. We will see this black kitty on several points on the way as if she enjoys following us.

move in and out

2010-03-24T00:44:00.012+08:00

We own three cars. Strangely enough, none of them is Toyota. Two Mazda and one Subaru. Anyhow it's about our parking space. We have only one garage for Mazda MPV(my car) and two others(theirs!)are sitting outside in tandem along on the approach way to our house.
Now this brings me an annoying chore especially when my husband and my son are not home. Our carpenters or gardeners come to work for a whole day so I have to give parking space for their trucks. See, they are not my cars but theirs! As a result I drive two cars one after another and park them along the road just in front of our gate one by one.
Then at the end of the day, after all the men drive home in their trucks, I back two cars into the space in tandem again. Don't you think it's annoying. My neighbors always gives me a smile when I am right at this work. I think I can drive any types of cars if you ask me.

a skilled and experienced gardener

2010-03-22T14:12:00.003+08:00

So this is one of the stories about the trip to Kyoto this past Monday.
There we saw one old man at "Ken-nin-ji" temple in Kyoto.
There are some gardens of different sizes inside the huge temple grounds and this man was working in its main garden covered with mosses sitting while picking tiny maple buds in mosses one by one with his tiny tweezers. Since he was working right beside the walkway we're on, I just can't help stopping and start talking with him about how to take care of mosses.
He looked surprised when I started talking to him. I'm pretty sure visitors likely refrain from talking to the gardeners at work.
This old man, however, was nice enough to stop for a while and talk about his job and he answered some questions I made. I was so happy that he enjoyed talking with me about the topic.
I learned some new knowledge from him.
A ground condition is so important to grow mosses and once soil gets so hard as years pass by, mosses likely get damages because drain empties very slowly. According to him, at Kenninji temple, they use very well-drained soil best suited for mosses. Guess what? One of the best is very fine crashed used-roof tiles. It is amazing and already shows an eco-life, isn't it?
This is almost impossible to change garden soil completely in an ordinary house like ours. But what he recommended to me is if some part of mosses run dry, I should groom them and repeatedly cover them with good dry soil and water them. Wow, it sounds very difficult and naturally need lots of tries and errors.
There are some other tips he told me. Such as to use a rake made of good and dried bamboo. It's so impressive he thinks bamboo cut down in October makes the best results. He said so proudly "That is the best! And you know the difference." He added "Groom the surface every day with a bamboo rake and don't forget to water them twice a day in the morning and in the evening. Good luck!"
My daughter smiled at me saying "Mom, you can start it from tomorrow." "Well, well, well-----" (the reason is here)
Oh we had a wonderful talk with a nice and kind master of gardening.

Kenninji temple was founded about 700 year ago and is reagarded one of the important Zen sect temples in Japan. Official site is here.

I'm reviewing my trip to Kyoto

2010-03-19T08:57:00.004+08:00

I'm uploading this from my cell phone. I'll be back soon. My PC is quite all right-----hopefully.

Need to rest?

2010-03-17T02:10:00.003+08:00

My PC performance is so slow for the moment. I've got to see what's the problem. It's so irritating. I feel like I was shut down from any doors to go out from a house. Any windows seem to be a bit small for me to get out! I need the Door to the world wide web! I may not update for a moment. Wait for me.

Lucky Monday!

2010-03-16T14:39:00.006+08:00

I went to Kyoto! How lucky! My appointment was canceled and i got a day off on Monday. Hurray! I called up my daughter and asked whether she had any time with me. She did. It was cloudy and started raining in the evening but it didn't ruin our day at all. We walked and walked and enjoyed the beginning of Spring in Kyoto. We had lunch and dinner together. It was such a good time to enjoy girls talk(if you might say)until the last minute I got a train back home. I'll tell more about this visit.
This photo is one of the popular slopes leads to the very famous temple.

Fun to check

2010-03-12T00:24:00.000+08:00

Most of the popular morning newspapers in Japan hold files of inserts in the middle almost every day. They are from all kinds of shops like the neighboring department stores, drug stores, grocery stores , car dealers, real-estate companies, gyms, community colledges--- all sorts. It's really fun to check one by one to know what is going on at each store. These newspaper inserts are full-colored and very eye-catching. The one I never miss among them is from the Takashimaya Department stores and another is from Tokyu-hands which deal with daily goods from stationery to DIYstuff. Checking these ads in the morning over a cup of coffee after I finish some chores is one of my favorite past time. What about the newspaper you subscribe? Does it hold paper inserts? Are they good enough to draw your attention?

Until next year "Good bye"

2010-03-11T00:42:00.005+08:00

Hinamatsuri(Dolls Festival) was over on March 3. It's time to putting Hina dolls back to each box. Hina dolls are quite special in a way that they are displayed for a short period of time up until the day of Hinamatsuri March 3 and should be kept in boxes until the next year. It's been raining for these days after March 3 and I don't have them back into boxes in a damp weather for fear of getting stained or spots on their silk wear and on their faces. I was waiting for a clear weather and it was today after a long cold rainy weather. It took time to finish carefully but I enjoyed this as much as I did when I displayed them.
It's like a farewell party to say good-bye to your dear friend. I'll see them next year at the same time of the season.
See also the post I wrote last year.

Just want to share this!

2010-03-10T08:49:00.004+08:00

Aren't they cute! A friend of mine's dog(pomeranian) gave birth to three babies. I went to see them! They never got me bored any minutes. They are really something! They never stay still. I took this picture with my cell phone camera, which I believe, is hard to get a perfect shot. They are much more adorable in real life.

Does your cell phone have a hole?

2010-03-08T12:05:00.005+08:00

Here! Actually it's like a thread hole------one in and one out.

Japanese cell phone models regardless of manufacturer companies have holes at either upper side of bodies.

What about yours? Does it have a hole? What is it for, then?

These are for cell phone straps!

See more below in an album. Some are mine and my friends' and from the web.

Why do we love to put straps on our cell phones so much?
Well, it is probably related pretty much with our
ancient custom of using "netsuke" which is a hanging object we use in kimono.
It might be fun if I talk about it in my next post.

Until then, enjoy a bit more images of cell phone straps from google images.
here!

Time's up!

2010-03-05T10:42:00.004+08:00

Today our volunteer group has a monthly study meeting to interpret. We have two topics from the recent news. It's such a nice meeting for me to participate. With a group of friends whom I am always impressed with their enthusiasms for learning the foreign language , this get-together gives me much inspiration to keep up with my own study.

I'm running out of time though. I feel a bit reluctant about joining this meeting today since along with the paper work over the past few days I haven't prepared enough for today.

Just wish me luck!

"Participation is what counts!" Right?

What a mess!

2010-03-02T09:23:00.006+08:00

I'm not happy about my desk. It's not wide enough to handle paper works to do.

I'm a member of a volunteer group of about 30 interpreters in English, Spanish and French and we are registered for the Aichi International Association in Aichi prefecture. Since March is the month for every prefectural volunteer group to renew a registration, as a matter of routine, I have a lot of paper works to do. Besides an official registration form, I have to hand out several papers such as a group bylaws, a members list, a newsletter to report our activities, a leaflet and the like. It's really time consuming. I need to ask the rest of our staff members to check all those papers before printing out. I'd been working on this almost for a week. Well we're almost done, anyway.

Then another job is waiting for me. We have a workshop in April and the staffs are busy getting ready for searching enough materials for interpreting lessons on the subject of "COP10" and "the citizen judge system in Japan." Whew---- sounds tough, isn't it?

As a result, my desk is a mess. I need a bigger desk but what comes next after I get one. I believe it will be another mess after all.

Raking　mosses

2010-02-19T13:36:00.005+08:00

How to keep mosses always healthy requires time and patience.

If you are not in a mood for spending up your time in the garden, it will turn to be such an irritating moment of a day. But once I get involved in it, I quite enjoy this chore of cleaning up the garden.

Today it was warm and less windy in the morning, I decided to spend a couple of hours before lunch to clean mosses.

Mosses grow inches and you can't neglet them grow. If they grow tall, it is natural they stand tittled and finally they pile one another by their own weight. Sometimes this brings excessive moisture inside mosses and let them ret. To prevent them from dying, I rake them to have them sit straight to get enough air as well as clean the surface.

It's really fun to see quite an amount of weeds are raked at the same time.

After raking, it's so pleasant to see and feel a moist carpet of green.

My 200th post!

2010-02-02T02:12:00.014+08:00

It took way long for me to hit the 200th post today.
When I started my blog in English, who would have expected to meet a group of nice and sweet women from different countries. In fact I started my blog about 6 years ago but I haven't gotten many comments for years. Eventually I wasn't a good writer for years. I almost gave up writing.
I still remember of my excitement when I found the comments from Dionne from US and Little Tiara from Indonesia. They came in at around the same time and then I've met Anya from Holland and Jeany from Germany. This brought about a change in my blog. I've got some other friends. Lenorenevermore, Pamela, from US and Ellen from Malaysia, you always give me an enthusiasm to keep uploading my posts, as well. Then new meetings still lead me to another new encounters one after another!
Of course I would like to say "Thank you" to all those who come and read my posts often.
Without each one's constant visit to my blog, I would have never made the 200th post today!

One for you and all for me!

2010-01-31T10:18:00.008+08:00

These are all from TAKASHIMAYA department store in Nagoya.
This is something very crazy about how women get totally carried away with selecting chocolate for their loved ones on the Valentine's Day. All the corners are just crowded with women of all generations. I belong to the group that stay away from those chocolate corners during the valentine's day season. Well, I've got already some for my family though from a very different route. (I'll talk about it later.)
However why not take a look at those fascinating catalogs from the web. Are you ready? There are 40 pictures I picked up.
You can see more if you want to from here.

This is trendy

2010-01-28T01:01:00.006+08:00

Tea from Singapore. TWG Tea of Singapore is well-known and popular tea in Singapore but it hasn't opened any stores of its own in Japan yet. As both of my husband and I enjoy tea almost every day, we are always ready to try something new and that has a good reputation. This "Singapore Breakfast Tea" is so full of harmony with a blend of green tea, black tea and vanilla and some spices. Mmmm it smells sooo sweet and has a mild taste. It seems that nowadays, people select each tea by its unique titles like "Singapore breakfast" named by the tea company. In fact TWG tea has varieties of blended tea under the titles like "Happy Birthday Tea" , "Christmas Lights Tea", "Holiday spirit tea" "White House Tea" or "Tokyo Singapore Tea" which all are very attracting to try.

I love it and glad my husband got it in Singapore on his way back home from Malaysia. As a matter of fact, he said to me he prefers single loose tea from certain product areas like India or China. Well, I understand him as well. That is his style. I think I am more flexible enjoying tea.

Here are the TWG Tea website. It's a very gorgeous-looking page. It's fun to have a look.