To my favorite blogger ☆Sapphire

Her handle name is ☆Sapphire and her blog title is "Through the Sapphire Sky".

Dear ☆Sapphire,

If you happen to see this post,  please contact me.
I have been a fan of your blog for years and while I was away from blogging, it seems that you had changed your privacy setting only for bloggers with permission.
If possible I would like to get your permission.

Thank you in advance.

Mekkan

Happy Valentine's Day

I send you every single friends of mine

 lots of thoughts and love on this special day. 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR FRIENDSHIP

How many are there on your hands?

Today  it's about websites or blogs or other social net services I get involved with now.
I have one of each.  I have to admit.


1)My first personal website 2) My blog in Japanese 3) My blog in English 4) Twitter 5) Facebook  6)Two photo logs.

Besides these private ones, I take care of the website of the volunteer interpreters group  as well as its Twitter and its Facebook Page.

How do I possibly handle one of each for these ten years???
I don't know.  Probably I like writing. I like expressing.  I am not a good writer but I keep them one way or another.

Most of my blogs are just like my dairy while my Twitter, Facebook are for interacting with my friends inside and outside the country with two languages; Japanese and English .  Of all these, here I write "My Hodgepodge" in English.  It is  to build up my ideas, thoughts, concerns and issues so that I could share them in English.  It's an important exercise for me. That also helps me a lot when I guide foreign guests and tourists.

Communicating in different styles is fun!

A notepad in my bag

I feel so bad about my recent absence from updating my blog.  I haven't given up on it, though.  I just didn't have enough time to write. Well, that's an excuse.

This year　I've made up my mind to spend more time as a volunteer guide interpreter rather than that of a language interpreter in English.  It seems to me that there is more opportunity to act as an guide since recently we  don't have big international events such as the Expo or the international conferences in Nagoya that many volunteer interpreters used to make the best of their language ability during the past few years.
One difference between an interpreter and a guide is the latter can talk and explain with her own words and idea ,while the former  is required to translate what other speaks. Both are challenging and on a volunteer base I really like doing both.

Ever since I have more chances to guide visitors from abroad as a volunteer,  I have one addition in terms of the items in my bag.  I always keep a little notepad in my bag to write down some  information for them.  It may not be something new at all for those experienced guides.   Well it  occurs  to me more often when I am not in charge of guiding but at some other occasions such as when I just walk across the tickets machines at a local train or subway station,  I run into a foreign visitor at a loss. Most of the times, he/she is in trouble figuring out the way  to their destination. So I jotted down the directions on a notepad page and hand it out to them. It is interesting but I am often asked to write down the names of the stations, the buildings or even some sentences using the Japanese letters such as "この電車は刈谷駅で止まりますか？　Does this train make a stop at Karia station?"
This happened one day.  The young man from Christchurch who landed on Japan for the first time in his life asked me to do this. He explained that he was going to show this piece of paper  to anyone on a platform so that he would not take a wrong train.   "Ah, that is smart," I thought.
Since then I have a small note pad with me in my bag.  Just a piece of note can be a help.
At the same time, however, I have to keep it in mind that a foreigner in trouble is not necessarily a tourist but a resident and he/she speaks Japanese so well.

Happy 2012

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 !

They are going to make it SOON !

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!

Travel Volunteer Project

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)

After March 11

(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.

Ready to go!

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.

OneWorld OneHeart 2011 Winners !

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.

The problem

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

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"

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.

Greetings!

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)

the reason why I expose myself into English

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?

Lovely needle felting

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?

Wow, it's been more than a month !

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.

Let me try out

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???

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

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.