


I’m a little busy right now. It’s cold outside. I have been doing room makeover today.



I’m a little busy right now. It’s cold outside. I have been doing room makeover today.
X-ray test on chest once a year is free-charge under the Japan’s national health insurance system. Although the test was done at the community center in my village last month, I just forgot about it. The last chance for me was today’s test in the town next to my village. So, I got on a local train in this morning.

An object displayed on the west side of the Station; Many dolphins are swimming and jumping.

Yellow leaves; I saw on the way to the venue of X-ray test.

There were two vehicles which have the facilities of X-ray test; one for female, the other for male citizens.

On the way back, I saw this board. It reads; “Morning, day time, and evening, Say greetings loudly and cheerfully”, “Smile each other”, “Greetings Street”, and “Let us try to recycle that eases the Earth”. Telling people these kind of things is good, but I was just wondering; if there are any other countries, cultures, habits that tell people these kind of things on a board by a street or not.

I was back to the railway station. And then I got a local train to my village.




That’s all for today.

I started walking in this afternoon to the direction of downstream of the river and then I saw this tree standing on river bank.

Today, the sky was not so clear, I could not see the entire Iide Mountains. But as shown in the photo, I could see white snow on the top area of the mountains.

I looked back on the path on the river bank. This road is exclusively for pedestrians and bicycles.

A local train was crossing the river on the steel bridge.
In the day time, I don’t hear the sound of trains running on this steel bridge. But I can hear the sound well in early morning. I think it is the phenomena of diffraction of sound waves because speed of sound changes by the difference of temperature with altitude in early morning. Every time I hear the sound of train on steel bridge in the morning, I cannot help thinking that my dad had listened to the same sound for twenty years he had been living alone in this house.

Leaves of Ginkgo tree in the shrine have not become fully yellow yet. The tree is the symbol of the shrine. Soon they will become yellow and fall onto the ground. It will look like a yellow carpet.
I harvested three Daikon(s) from my field today. I wanted to make “Dried Daikon”so that I can keep Daikon longer.

Since I didn’t know how to tie them to hang, it was difficult for me to do this. But somehow, I made it.


Yesterday, I went to the town of Niigata. After I came home, I hang 14 persimmons to dry them. I can keep them longer by drying them.

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.