Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning
I am a native Japanese speaker who used to teach Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. Currently I don't work but stayed in my house in Northern part of JAPAN. I hope that you could enjoy reading my posts and know what life in Japan is like.
Today’s post is not about today, but about what I saw in the last days of my staying in the campus. At that time, I walked around the campus and took a lot of pictures. There is a pond at the northeast of the campus. When I went there on July 14th, I saw some lotus flowers.
Tomorrow is the first day of the school year 2025-2026. I just imagine that Japanese major students whom I know are coming to the classroom as they did in the last semester.
I planted seeds of cabbage ten days ago. But I was disappointed by the result. As shown in the photo, I got very few sprouts. Although I want to plant those sprouts in my garden, they are insufficient in number.
So, I went to a different shop today, and bought another package of cabbage seeds. It costed 440 JPY, not cheap. I hope this time I could get more sprouts.
I hadn’t written a blog post for three weeks from 4th to 24th this month. During those days, I was making a system of microphone, amplifier, and speaker so that my mother can talk to me from the first floor to the second floor in my house. Making it from the scratch is impossible. I just connected several circuits that were already assembled.
Not only because I was making this, but I had to get rid of weeds and to cultivate the soil in the garden, and I had to bear the severe heat of the level of disaster. These are the reasons why I could not post anything these three weeks.
And I realized that I had lost viewers from the country where my students are. From coming Monday, they are going to the classroom again. But they will not see me there. I am wondering if some of them would remember me, or just forget because I will not be there.
I used only salt for taste, didn’t use any seasoning nor spices. This is the way Japanese grill fishes. We eat grilled fishes with natural taste. And I made notches on the fishes so that gas fire effectively can heat the fish meat.
Now my supper is ready.
Severe summer heat continues. Since I don’t have my vehicle, I have to walk to a supermarket. Go-and-back is a little less than two miles. I don’t walk this distance in the middle of the day. So, these days, I go shopping right after my supper in the evening.
Tonight, I found some horse mackerels were remaining in the refrigerated shelf of the supermarket. They were fresh fishes for Sashimi (raw fish). But the time was already past 7:30 p.m. There were not many customers in the store. It was highly likely that no customers would buy them until the closing time at 8:30 p.m. If it’s a small shop, those fishes would turn to be grilled fishes and appear on the shelves next day. But because it’s a supermarket, I thought they would be disposed as a waste after the store closed in one hour. I didn’t want them to be wasted. I bought one package in which two horse mackerels were packed.
When I got to my house, I quickly started processing. Now the main dishes of tomorrow supper have already decided. I hope that storing one day in the refrigerator could make the taste of fish meat better.
There is a Smoking Booth near Bandaiguchi-Exit on JR Niigata station. Oh, but let me tell you, I am not a smoking person. I have never ever smoked even a single cigarette through my life of more than a half century. Passive smoking was terrible when I was a young company man, but I have already retired from company work. Now I am free from smoke of others.
Anyway, I took the photo above, and then I walked to the other side of this smoking booth. What I found there was…
It reads;
BAN on Smoking Outside This Facility;
A lot of complaints are coming (to the City Office) due to part of users with bad manner. If this situation continues, this smoking booth would need to be demolished. We ask you to smoke only inside of the facility.
As if these big letters indicate how the Niigata municipal government is angry with bad smoking people.
And I thought that, if there are a lot of complaints, it would not be “part of users” but it might be “many of users”.
Thank you for taking a look at this post until the end. Good day,
It took more than one and a half hour for me to cook tonight’s supper.
Actually, it was a little stinky with fish smell. I should have poured some olive oil before wrapping it. I regretted not doing so.
Now snow on the ground is gone. I can get green vegetables from my garden.
I put those green leaves into miso soup.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 