Kabuki

If I don't have a friend whose career is so much related to Kabuki, I wouldn't have had a chance to enjoy one of the sophisticated culture of my country.

Let me talk about Kabuki for those who don't know what is all about.

Kabuki is a form of classical theater that started in the early seventeenth century. It is characterized by the rhythm of the lines spoken by the actors, extravagant costumes, flamboyant makeup, and the use of mechanical devices to achieve special effects on stage. Most of the plays based on medieval or warriors period or Edo period (just about between 7 to17 centuries)themes, and all the actors, even those playing female roles, are men.

The world of Kabuki fascinates many people from abroad as well as the Japanese.

Well, a friend of mine who commits his life to the Kabuki world is not a Kabuki actor. He is so-called "a chanter" who plays an important role telling a story during the play.

On one of the days during the run, I make it a rule to see the Kabuki with one of my good friends and really have a good time to enjoy the Kabuki world. I'm really proud of him to devote himself for the traditional Japanese culture.

One of my favorites of these days

For these months, precisely since April, I've been just absorbed with this English learning application on the web called "iKnow!" run by a group of young IT professionals consisted of various nationalities.
They have many different learning applications of all kinds and levels.
What I like best about "iKnow" is that I can read, listen and typing many phrases and sentences and I only finish one application by marking 100%for each vocabulary.
In other words, a certain vocabulary is showing up over and over until I am supposed to tell that I've made myself understood a new vocabulary.
What's more I can make friends beyond sexes and ages with the same concern of learning English by requesting as "Friends" so that we exchange comments, sending some greetings and writing diary.
For those being interested in learning Japanese, they have a Japanese learning application as well. Would you like to try just to know what Japanese language is like.

It's October.

(image from the previous year)
(things we need for putting new screen paper)

Well, it's kind of threatening for a housewife to know that we have only three months to go before the new year. There are more or less household chores for a typical Japanese housewife to meet the first day of the new year.
Here are my top three annual chores to do:
1) changing the old paper screens to the new ones
2) wiping out all the windows
3) cleaning up shelves and closets in the house.

Chore 1) is quite a task for me. Since there are quite a number of shouji( paper sliding doors) in our house, I can't finish all in one day nor I'm not going to change all every year. I take two years to finish all paper screens to new ones. When every October arrives, I start to make a plan how I start with this job, making plan on how many sliding doors I should work on this year, getting rolls of screen paper,special glue for door frames and a good small blade.
I also check the weather report to know the days must be fine and warm. This is true for Chore 2) as well. Chore 3) is, I believe,just easy for a good housewife who is good at putting things in the house in order, but this is not for me and I prone to leave this chore undone at the end of the year making a excuse to myself saying "Well, let's try to get things in order in my daily life next year. With every day efforts, I don't have to struggle at the end of the year like this."
I've been saying this for these years. what an experienced housewife!

Funniest story about sushi

I just burst into a big laughter to see it. If you are Japanese or anyone familiar with our culture, you will be just surprise to watch this film and wonder who on the earth made this story and what's for?The story is partly true and partly wrong but you can't blame it. It is just a harmless and funny story I have ever seen before.

It has a useful aspect of learning English vocabularies, though.I learn fish names and some other vocabularies often used at the Japanese sushi restaurant.In fact the last time I had sushi at the sushi restaurant with the guests from abroad, they wanted to identify each slice of fish on a sushi rice cake on their plate before they put them into their mouth. If I should have known each name in English, they could have enjoyed the meal without being skeptical.

Guests from South Africa

I guided two women from South Africa accompanied their husbands visiting Nagoya on business while they had business daytime. South Africa is somehow very familiar with me since my husband has been visiting there once a year for over 15 years on business. I've heard a lot and seen many pictures for years. I've finally had a chance to enjoy conversations with two women from the fascinating country.

My collegue from a volunteer guide group and me showed them around to Nagoya Castle, the Tokugawa Museum and the shopping archades at the basement floors downtown, and the one-coin shop where you can pick up almost anything at 100 yen. Starting from 9:00 in the morning, time went up so fast before we came back to the hotel.

It was a good chance for me to learn how to explain our history and culture in English.

Nagoya Sightseeing Route Bus

Nagoya is quite a big city in Japan. In fact, it is the fifth largest city and has many historical spots of the anceint ara. I visited some spots using a shuttle bus.
I parked my car at the Toyota commemorative museum where I took a shuttle bus bound for the Tokugawa Museum. A shuttle bus runs every one hour and that gives me enough time to visit the spot. I joined the guided tour by a volunteer guide. I leared some of the knowledge about the history and ancient culture of the Tokugawa period. That was really worth of it. Then, I strolled around the Japanese garden next to the museum. After I spent 2hours, I took a shuttle bus dropped at the center of the commercial area of the city. I went up to the TV tower where you can take a view around the city from 100meter high. Then finally I went back to the Toyota museum.
Though I've lived in Nagoya just about 25 years, there are so many things I don't know about this city in all aspects including history. It was really fun and I'm sure I'll be taking this shuttle bus again some time soon to see some other spots I've missed this time.

This summer is too hot

It's the end of July. The weather here is just terriblly hot this summer. The temperature has been going up to 38 degree c. these days. It seems that we are really facing with a global warming. It is something we've never expect that the temperature goes up over 30 degree c even in summer. When I was a kid, summer heat was hot in the midst of the day, but durable. The overall weather in our country seems getting so to speak, "wild" in terms of rainfall and thunderstorm and to our surprise, tornedo.
These have brought some serious damages in local areas all of a sudden.
Cicadas in our house garden are busier than usual in chorus from morning till night and that makes us feel this summer is surely much hotter.

Blackberries

I lived with my husband's mother who is 92 years old. She is generally in good shape and enjoys taking care of the house garden. She had quite an amount of blackberries this year. She seems to enjoy picking them up every morning and she comes back in the kitchen with a basketful of berries. Now it' my turn to make them to jam and syrup. I prefer syrup to jam. Syrup makes a cold beverage with soda or a topping for yogurt. I can use it in anyway I like. Anyway it's such a treat from our garden.

Eco craft

This is a basket made of colored tapes. You just weave basket out of those paper tapes just as you do out of pieces of bamboo. Weaving baskets with these tapes is now very popular among women these days. We call this new handmade "eco craft", since those paper tapes are mostly made from recycled paper.
Well, I wove this small basket for the first time. I have a friend who is very good at handcrafts and she is so much absorbed in it now. You will be surprised to see how many baskets and boxes she wove at home. They are so colorful and adorable. So finally I felt like I might as well try for it, if she help me out. With another friends of hers, we had a chance to make it today. It was really fun.
Maybe I'll ask her to let me try another one.

positive aspect of the rainy weather

Through June to July, we have a rainy weather so called "Tsuyu" in Japan. Strictly speaking, it starts from May in the most southern part of Japan, Okinawa and the rain front ends up to the northern part of Japan but not as far as Hokkaido by the end of July. During the rainy season, the weather is humid and dump with occasional rainfall under the thick clouds. Though it is somehow a unpleasant season, it has several positive elements as well. The sufficient amount of rainfall blesses our land for water. It help all the plants grow. Hydrangea especially symbolizes the rainy season as one of the welcoming aspects of the season. People enjoy all kinds of Hydrangea flowers growing in their house gardens, visiting public gardens, looking at them along the sidewalks and at the historical sight spot like ancient temples and shrines.
The other day I visited one Buddhist temple in the neighboring town. There you can enjoy more than 10 thousand Hydrangea trees of various kinds with full of flowers at the best.