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.
A bird must have eaten part of Persimmon.
I processed five persimmons today. They are the last ones.
There are still other twenty persimmons of other kinds. They are small and have seeds inside. Rather than getting rid of bitterness by alcohol, I am thinking about making them “dried persimmons”.
This morning, I took my mother to a big hospital in order to hear the result of the echo test of her heart. She took the test last Thursday. We arrived at the hospital a little before 9 a.m. and had waited until 10:30. Since the doctor took thirty minutes for one patient last time, I had thought that the whole of morning hours would be gone today. But my mother’s turn came earlier than I expected. Anyway, what the doctor said was that her heart didn’t have any problem like heart valve disease. No need for medicine, no need for periodically seeing the doctor. It relieved me a lot.
After that, I paid money for her because at that time my mother went to the in-hospital shop to buy some bread. To my surprise, it costed only 160 JPY (approx. 1USD). The lower the charge is, the better for elderly people. But I worried that Japan’s medical system would collapse in the near future when I got older.
We got on a free bus at 10:45, and got off it in front of a railway station. There, I saw a driving wheel of steam locomotive (as in the photo). The board says that this wheel had run Two million kilometers (1,245,750mi) since 1923 until 1974.
A farmer does this thing one hundred, two hundred, or more. But I am not a farmer. And my persimmon trees are still young and small. They are not so productive yet. Today, I set six persimmons hung under the roof. Two behind are not today’s. Drying is another way to remove bitterness of persimmons. But weather in Niigata tends to be wet in this season, I am worrying about mold on the surface of them.
Cherry trees have got their leaves red.
The mountain behind is actually beyond the sea. It is Ko-sado Mountain Ridge of Sadogashima (Sado Island)
The mountain has already appeared on my blog so often; Kitamata-dake of Iide Mountain
This type of Local train is used to connect to Fukushima Prefecture on the east side of Niigata Prefecture.
I processed four persimmons for getting rid of bitterness using strong alcohol.
I went to the town next to my village by a local train. I took this photo through train window.
A ticket for high-speed railways “Shin-kansen” is expensive. Plus, Jo’etsu shinkansen runs through so many tunnels, you cannot enjoy the view from train window in mountainous area. So, I didn’t use a high-speed railway, but got on a local trains to go to Kanto Region on Saturday.
This is the town where LQ laoshi was born fifty-some years ago.
Needed to transfer to another train at Nagaoka.
View from the train window, it’s under dark clouds.
It’s still under dark clouds, because the train was still in Niigata Prefecture.
The train from Nagaoka brought me to “Minakami” in Gumma Prefecture.
Station Building of Minakami
The sky was bule in Gumma, it’s different from Niigata.
On the way back, the high-speed train “Shin-kansen” was so crowded with passengers. I had to be standing at the end section of a train car until the trains got to Takasaki where is a kind of mid-point between Tokyo and Niigata.
When the trains departed Takasaki, I got a non-reserved seat.
Finally I got to my hometown in Niigata Plain. Now I’m going to upload this post from the living room of my house.
Today, the weather was fine, and the sky was clear.
I could take a photo of Iide Mountains with some snow on top of it.
By the way, I went to a supermarket and bought foods a little.
Goldenrod
Japanese pampas grass
Ducks on the water
A Shrine in a Village
Persimmons on a tree
When I was a kid a half century ago, this was a timber bridge. Its width was so narrow that only a small vehicle could cross.
I could see snow on Mountain Iide(飯豊山地) with my eyes, but it was not clear on a photo. I have processed the above photo much.
Some students have sent me emails in these two days. I would like to thank them; I am very happy to read their messages. And the next thing I got to do is to write replies. Yesterday I wrote my reply to one student. Actually, I should have written to five students today, but as of 8 p.m., I have done none yet. I am sorry to say but, give me a little bit of time to reply to you guys.
And the followings are a little about me. My elbow of right hand is still aching so that I can’t play my bass. My elbow started aching in July and now it’s the end of October. It had been getting better very slowly, but one week ago, I just tried playing my bass with very light touches of my fingers. I played 15minutes only, but this was very bad for my elbow. I feel that my curing process went back more than one month. Now I think I should not play bass in the rest of this year. I practice piano every day at 4 p.m., but I play only with my left hand.
Another thing about me is that I will go to Tokyo this weekend. I asked one of my students in Tokyo if he would be able to drink with me in the night or not, but he said he couldn’t because he needed to work for a part time job in that day. I thought I was going to stay longer in Tokyo in order to adjust to his schedule, but I gave up this idea, because I cannot leave my old mother in the house more than one-night. I need to go home soon. I think this raises a problem that I cannot travel to far from my home in Niigata, though I wanted to travel to many places in Japan.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 