Summer Sweets

Good friends of my late mother-in-law's kindly visited us to give a prayer before our Buddhist family altar for remembering her on her first death anniversary.　

I served Japanese tea for them and I put some Japanese sweets on a glass plate. Although this summer heat was exceptionally weird, we still keep the nice way to appreciate the season that traditional Japanese confectioners depict using refined sugar and beans.

We really had a good time together sharing nice memories of my mother- in- law.
I believed she smiled on us.

It's Magic!

I have a very nice story to tell you.

It was on the way back to the cable car to get down from the top of the mountain where Gifu Castle stood when I realized that my hat was gone.

Where did I lose it?

Then I remembered I took it off and put it in a coat pocket, perhaps, on an open-door observatory floor. It was very windy. I might have dropped it there. My friends, Marta and Junko suggested that we should go back and get it.  But I was not sure where I dropped it and I didn't want to walk a bumpy and steep path to the castle tower again only to find nothing there.

It's time to say good-bye to my hat -----this must be destiny for my lovely hat to leave me and be replaced with a new one.  I almost gave up on my hat before I identified a very familiar item sitting on a bench ahead.

OMG! My Hat! 

See, I was wrong. Now I learned I must have dropped it before we reached the castle tower.
Marta and Junko were so excited with this. My hat showed up in front of us the moment we discussed its loss. Someone was kind enough to pick it up and leave it here on a bench..... in front of a small shrine along the path.

Everything is at the mercy of gods.

We were overjoyed with this and laughed a lot.
Welcome back, hat. Happy to see you again. I will keep you company until you get worn out.

So I gave a little prayer of gratitude in front of the small shrine with my hat on.
Isn’t it a nice story?

Magic of Light and Shade

This year again, I went to see my old friends from university at the gallery in Daikanyama.
There one of them holds a photo exhibition every year.
Her exhibition gives us a good excuse  to get together once a year in Tokyo.

Photography is an art of light and I believe a professional photographer is an artist who stops time and captures  the moments we often overlook in our daily lives.

This year her pictures showed  impressive collaboration of light and shade. She looked at the scenery through window glass in the cities of NY and NJ, where she  lived more than 20 years. We saw natural layers of reflections in her pictures, which created a magical world of her own.

We were all fascinated with her pictures as we always are. Afterwards,  we enjoyed dinner and a lively chat with a couple of bottles of wine. That was the perfect ending.

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

Reunion

Friendship is one of  the incredible miracles in our life.  No matter how long or how far we are apart,  the same experiences and concerns that we shared in those days never made our friendship fade away.  This turns to be more than happiness when we finally meet again face to face across time and space.

Last weekend all this happened to me . For the first time in 30 years.  This is about the Rotary students who shared two months  during the summer at college in the US, where the Rotary International provided us with the orientation before we left for each applied university in the US.

My close friend, Suchada stopped by Tokyo over the weekend on her way back to LA from BK. We spent two days together. We felt for two days as if we were all riding on a merry-go-round.

Yes finally we made it.  The instant we saw each other at the hotel lobby,   we didn't feel we were apart for such a long time.  Ahead of the fancy dinner with two boys, now gentlemen, in the evening,  three girls enjoyed the afternoon chatting to fill in each 30 years' interval.  And the dinner was just lavish enough to make it up for our 30 years. Our talk seemed endless before we knew we stayed too long at the restaurant.   We talked and laughed a lot. The food was awesome and the service was great.

Now 17 Rotary classmates are united in Facebook group page.  In this reunion with Suchada,  wherever we go,  at every visiting spot,  she and I were busy "check-in" in Facebook with each iPhones to update our photos and messages to the rest of our friends.  It was just fun because every time we checked in,  our friends of all different places on the earth  gave us "likes" instantly.   We giggled at the results.  We owed Facebook so much.  There will be another reunions in the near future in Japan, or somewhere else in this world.  No matter where it comes up,  we will share our exciting moments together.  And one day, we are hoping , all of us will get together at one place like we once used to do.   How thrilling !  This was a great weekend.


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RI Convention in Bangkok

 I am back from being in a pretty bad shape (that was why I didn't show up in FB for these weeks) and also a trip to Bangkok. Glad that I came over the two extremes for the last three weeks.
Two purposes for the trip to Bangkok were to attend the Rotary International Convention from 6-9 and to get reunited with one of my dear friends for these 30 years.   I was scheduled to arrive on 4th but due to my condition, I changed my flight on 6th. My husband left for BKK two days earlier.
I had the splendid days to get in touch with the amazing history and culture of Thailand and the pleasant encounter with people, especially my new friend,  Fay who is extremely talented and charming young Thai woman.
Unfortunately Suchada was not able to arrive at BKK from LA while I was staying but we are to make it next time somehow in BKK or in Tokyo with our friends.
In the House of Friendship, I met Mike, an Alumini Relations Specialist from the Rotary Foundation and had a nice suggestion to get reunited with more friends who spent time together in Statesboro, GA in 1980.
I'll try to write him sometime soon to get more information.
Hey, 17 guys, just wait for my next report. Oh my, where on earth is Yuna now?   We miss her sooo much.

Reunion on Facebook

(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.

The First three days of the New Year

(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! "

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(the last two images are from the web news)

Challenge or Torture

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/