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.
I wanted to get on local trains to go to Kanto region. Because using local trains costs only a half of bullet trains (Shinkan-sen). But influenza is now prevailing these days. If I got on local trains for many hours, it could increase the chance to be exposed to flu virus. Perhaps I may transmit influenza to my mother after I get back to my house. This is the reason why I got on Shinkansen to go to Kanto Region near Tokyo.
Tickets of Shinkansen are expensive. In order to save money, I usually get on a car for non-reserved seats. Such a non-reserved seats are on the several cars on Tokyo side. Of those non-reserved cars, I like to get on the top car.
Since the Jo’etsu Shinkansen runs thorough snowy areas, there are water sprinklers all along the railways in Niigata area. By melting snow on the rails by water, Shinkansen doesn’t get delayed even in winter.
This time of year, almost of the time the sky is cloudy and dark in Niigata side.
While Niigata is under dark clouds, people in Kanto region enjoy clear sky.
And I saw Mountain Fuji through the window in the following morning.
The last time I visited there was seven years ago. Yesterday I went to Niigata and took a lunch in an Indian/Nepali Restaurant in Furumachi. I ate “A lunch set” that was curry, naan, salad, and plain lassi.
The curry was a little much. As I was eating, I came to think that dipping wouldn’t consume all of it. So, I used chop-sticks and ate a piece of Naan by submerging it entirely into curry. I thought, if you would eat two Naans, the amount of curry fit them. It was 1080JPY, but my stomach became quite full.
I went to the town of Niigata today. Getting off a local train at JR Niigata station, and then I got on a bus to go to Furumachi, where used to be the center of commercial area of Niigata. What I found in Furumachi was that the underground shopping street had already closed. In 2018 to 2019, I was living closed to there and visited and walked there every day. It seemed to me that closure was a matter of time because few people were going there and obviously shops couldn’t make much money.
All the stores and shops were closed, but the street is still being used as an underground passageThe place is lower than the groundwater table. There must be a lot of water leakage.
Niigata is an area where motorization is developed thoroughly. Almost of all people move by vehicles. They don’t want to go to the city center, rather like to drive to suburban shopping malls.
We left home at 10a.m. and went to see a dermatologist. My mother has a skin problem on her both ankles to lower knee. She had already finished using medicine of the last time. So I took her to there because she cannot go there herself. When she bought new medicine at pharmacy, it was almost noon. We went to Rahmen restaurant to have a lunch. I ate a “Hot Miso Rahmen” as shown in the photo.
I won’t write a long post tonight, because I am going to write a music score using “Sibelius” from now. I need to learn how to use that software.
I woke up at five in the morning because I felt very cold in the futon. Since my house is built using traditional Japanese architecture methods, I feel very cold in winter. I got up at seven, cooked and ate breakfast. Today too, my mother asked me to tell her how to use the washing machine. No progress has been made for this issue. I made a list of fruit trees in my garden. It was not completed, but I wrote the list on my “yearly diary notebook” until nine thirty. Then I took a shower and shove.
I had been reading an English book and checked words that I didn’t know until noon. I took a lunch and then went out at 1p.m. for shopping. I came back home at 2:30 with foods in two bags. I carried them by walk. Although I tried watching a DVD for training about Japanese teaching, but I fell asleep at once. 4 to 5, I practiced the piano by playing Hanon. I cooked and ate supper. Then I am now in my room, typing this.
Recently, I upload my blog post every day. And I write my post after supper and before going to bed (In fact, “going to bed” is not right for me. My bedroom with “Bed” is too cold now, so these days I sleep in a room with tatami mat on the floor. There, I sleep not in bed but in futon). Anyway, I think writing a post in English is part of learning. English is the second language to me. I know that even if I make much effort, I will not be able to be as good as a native English speaker. But looking back my life, learning English has helped me a lot. Having almost retired now, I am not sure if I have another chance to use my English in the future. But I want to continue to learn English.
A photo of Seven years ago at a Restaurant of Indian Cuisine
Four days ago, I wrote that my mother “is eighty-six years old, still can wash and clean”. But in fact, she cannot do those chores completely herself. Cleaning is almost okay. Although she cannot change a trash collecting bag inside vacuum cleaner, that bag is not a thing that needs to be changed so frequently.
Washing is not okay. Every time she uses washing machine, she calls me from the first floor, and I need to go down from the second floor. Then I teach her how to start the washing machine. The washing machine is a product of Toshiba, which has a function to save amount of laundry detergent. Because of this function, the procedure to start washing is a little different from ordinary “automatic washing machine”.
The procedure is as follows; Close the lid. Push the power button. If the program for washing, rinsing, and dehydrating is okay, push the start button. And then, the machine rotates a little, measures the weight of clothes, and displays necessary amount of detergent. Open the lid, pour detergent of the amount indicated, and close the lid. After this, do not touch any button.
But my mother never learns this procedure. She says “Why do I close the lid before pouring detergent?”.
Actually, I also needed a little bit of time to get used to this washing machine when I started using it ten years ago. I am not sure whether or not this function and procedure are common to washing machines of other manufacturers. Since she cannot understand why such a procedure is required, she can’t memorize the way to start the machine. Therefore, every day or at least once in two days, I hear she tells me to come down saying with loud voice “Tell me how to start the washing machine!”.
Until several months ago, she uses another washing machine of old type. I mean the old type is the two-tub washing machine in which washing tub and spin-drying tub are separated. One day, the spin-drying tub became slow and eventually stopped spinning. I checked and found that ELEVEN socks were clinging to the shaft under the tub. Probably she put a lot of clothes into the spin-drying tub and rotated it without the inner cap to prevent clothes popping out. Since socks were light, they could get out of the tub by the centrifugal force, and fell under the tub. Even though I removed all the socks clinging to shaft, the spin-drying tub was broken. That was the reason for us to have changed from a two-tub washing machine to a fully automatic washing machine.
I guess that my mother exhibits early symptom of dementia. She cannot remember things that are new. I have the similar experience with my deceased father. He also got dementia in his last years. From that experience, I could say the progression of dementia is slow, takes many years. At this moment, I am not sure how her symptom is getting worse in coming years. But I have to take care of her and prepare for the things to come. Since I have already retired, I think it will be less tough for me when comparing with other people in their 50’s who still work, probably.
Today was a cold day. Temperature was barely plus in Celsius. But I have been working in my garden most of the day.
I have done two tasks; making the support of persimmon “KOYO(tm)” more rigid, and pruning of several plum trees. The support for the persimmon tree is of course a measure for snow so that the branches will not break by the weight of snow. But not only for that, I aimed at growing each branch longer as I intended. This autumn, I could get only 29 of persimmons. I want more. So, I added longer support bars along branches, trimming short unnecessary branches, and buried fertilizer around the trunk.
As for the plum trees, they have grown too much high such that I cannot reach by my hand. I cut the long and tall branches. There are four plum trees and two prune trees in my garden. What I want most with those trees is to harvest from the tree of “Soldum”. For me, other three plums are just pollination trees so that the Soldum can have fruits. The plum Soldum was introduced from North America to Japan in early twenties century. Its appearance is actually not so great; sometimes it looks green. But inside is very beautiful red violet color. Since I planted the Soldum tree ten years ago, I have wanted to get fruits. But so far, I have got almost none. It is kind like: every year it gets less flower and less fruits, falling onto the ground before ripening, and then I get none. I think I need to learn better pruning, better fertilizer, and how to pollinate properly.
Although I worked outside today, I didn’t take a picture. The photo below is bottles of lemon jam and red-radish pickles. I made the lemon jam yesterday.
As the title indicates, today was just a normal day. The weather was fine in day time, but now strong wind and rain are making sound around my house.
This evening, I cooked a fish of sea-bream by cutting the whole one fish into slices and bones. Since I haven’t cut a sea-bream for so long, I couldn’t cut it well. Certain amount of meat remains on bone, and the slices became thin. I thought I need to cook a sea-bream often for learning a good skill to cut the fish. From today, my miso-soup will get taste of head and bones of the sea-bream that I cooked today. I will boil them two or three days.
Once I upload this post, I am going to arrange a song of “Sand Mountain（砂山）” using the software “Sibelius” (not a Finnish composer) for one hour or so. And then I will fall asleep in Futon which is now warmed up by Kotatsu. I feel that now my life is a kind of tranquil. Weather forecast says the temperature is going down tomorrow. I would like to stay at home in such a cold winter day.
Something on the top of the building of Japan Agricultural Association was hiding snow-covered Iide Mountains.
They are what I bought in the afternoon. The sea-bream was hidden under the bread. Two sweet cakes at the top left in the photo are to be offered to the alter of my father who passed away five years ago (I’ve already put them there).
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