I'm back!

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

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

[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

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

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

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!

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

(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

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

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?