Edible Fujisan

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 as well such 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 which 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

(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

(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

(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

(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! "

You may like to read this one, too.

(the last two images are from the web news)

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 !

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/

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!

I made it in time

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

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)