カテゴリー: LQ Laoshi

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

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A refrigerator is not a grave of food, period. But my deceased dad used to, and now, my mom put food into the refrigerator, and that is the end of it. Although food is for us to eat, for some people, buying it is more important than eating it because shopping is a fun. Foods kept or left in a fridge stay there for months, sometimes even years. When they are found, some are apparently rotten, otherwise they look uncertain if it is edible or not. Besides, refrigerators in Japan are slender and tall so that they can fit in narrow space in a small kitchen of tiny Japanese houses. So it looks like a casket standing.

When my mom came back from walking-shopping with one lemon and showed it to me, I immediately thought the lemon would be a candidate for such fate. I usually make compote when I got fruit that I could not eat soon. But in case of lemon, I had preserved in honey once or twice before, because the lemon was so sour and could not be soft as fruits compote. This time, I didn’t have honey, so I tried using a lot of sugar. I used glass bottle, put slices of lemon with a lot of sugar, and heated the bottles in hot water. As shown in the photo, I made two small bottles of lemons slices with sugar syrup. Part of sugar could not melt, remaining white in the bottles.

If you want to do the same, I strongly recommend using not sugar but honey. This time I got to know that sugar is not good to extract the flavor of lemon, or in other words, lemon’s flavor does not come out into sugar well. Honey can work much better than sugar.
Anyway, I make one litter of black tea every morning. When I pulled out the tea bags from the tea pot, I put just one slice of lemon into the pot. It changes the tea flavor, and makes me happy.

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

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This is a view just before sun rise. There is Hishiga-take Mountain behind which is the highest peak of Gozu Mountain Ridge.

I got on a local train to go shopping in Niitsu. The day was of Morning Market that is held at days with number 1 and 6 for the last digit of date.

I saw the Mountain Yahiko through the train window. The mountain stands on the edge of Niigta plain. So the behind the mountain is the sea. The peak of the mountain is not so high; it is 637 meter (approx. 2000ft).

I got off the train at JR Niitsu station. My destination could be seen from the platform. There are vinyl tents in a parking lot near the railway station.

There is a stained glass at the east end of the station building. Niitsu is the town that is famous for railway. Steam locomotives are drawn on the stained glass.

So this is a morning market in Niitsu.

This is a fruits shop that I always buy something. I bought one basket of persimmons with 500 yen.

There is a half body of salmon on the cutting board.

These are what I bought in the morning market in Niitsu today.

• Apples:800JPY
• Grapes:600
• Persimmons:500
• Chinese Cabbage Kimchi:500
• Radish Kimchi:500
• Two Pears:400
• Ginger:200
• Cauliflower:150
• Taro potato:100
• Total:3,750JPY

And then I pickled Cauliflower and put them into two small bottles. I want to know when they will be best to eat; in two days or two weeks?. And every time I make pickles, I become wondering how I am supposed to do with the soup when I finished eating pickles. I don’t want to just throw it into sink because the soup uses a lot of sugar, vinegar and spices, but just drinking it with diluting with water does not taste good.

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

Walking along a river bank, I saw a big tree near a Japanese Shinto shrine “Jinja”.

In this small rural town in suburb of Niigata, there are several Shito Shrines like one in each village. It is interesting that most of those shrines are located near to the river bank. This one is relatively small. But an old person was cleaning fallen leaves at the shrine when I walked by there. I guess many people in the community have believed this shrine from the old times.

November is the month of Chrysanthemum. In Japan, schools have a cultural festival on November Third. When I was a kid, I saw many chrysanthemum flowers in classroom in the day of that festival in the elementary school. It was a contest. There were many people in this town, whose hobby was growing big flowers of chrysanthemum. I am just wondering if such a hobby is still popular or not. Because it was more than forty years ago when I saw a lot of chrysanthemum flowers contested for their beauty in the festival. Now is the time of 21st century, people are busy for anything IT or whatever, efficiency and effectiveness on time and cost are most important even in people ‘s daily life. So my question is whether or not people have time to grow chrysanthemum as leisure in their free time .

Oh, by the way, chrysanthemum in cultural festival competition is the different kind from the photos that I show you here . Those are like one big flower on the top. Chrysanthemum in these pictures doesn’t need much care if not nothing. Their underground stems make buds in every spring, and bloom in fall without much care by people.

A path on the river bank. Many places of Japanese soil was intruded and covered by yellow flowers of tall goldenrod that came from north America. You can see their yellow flowers anywhere in this time of the season. But it seems that Japanese pampas grass “Susuki” is still surviving on this river bank.

Yellow ginkgo tree in front of another shrine.

A lot of persimmons are left on the tree.

Sparrow s are anywhere , but it is very rare to see a white-eye bird.

They are eating persimmons!

Does it taste sweet?

I walked down to the river. It was used to be a landing place for a boat. I guess that water transportation was common in Niigata plain area in the old times.

Standing by the river and seeing just water surface make me feel good. The mountain behind is often appearing in my photographs. That is Mount Sugana in Gosen-city.

I walked several miles. Gotta go home now.

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

This is a blog post only for the purpose that I wanted to upload something. Today is Sunday but now almost over. I have been exhausted by hardworking for online classes. I should have taken a rest whole of yesterday without uploading a blog post which was actually so unpopular that no one visited.

Walking across railway, I got to rice field. The sky was dark because now it is late autumn. This is my hometown in Niigata Prefecture, JAPAN. Climate at this time of year is always like this. It’s wet and chilly. Living here under this circumstance might make you nerve wrenching. But you know, you can never have a choice for your birth place.

Cherry trees “Sakura” are Japanese favorite. People want to plant sakura trees anywhere. Yes it is beautiful in blooming. But I’d say their leaves are also beautiful in autumn.

Leaves had become beautiful, but it was a sign that they would soon be falling down onto the ground. They will turn to be soil that is where they came from, I am not sure, though.
Actually when I took photos of these leaves, rain became strong. I gave up taking photo like yesterday, and went to a supermarket. I bought some foods like fish and chicken for supper. I planned to cook fish today and chicken tomorrow. Since I got rosemary, I am thinking to cook chicken with tomato sauce and rosemary.

On the way back from the supermarket, I dropped by a small park. No kids were there.

The sun goes down and it’s getting dark.
17:30 – Cooked supper
18:30 – Ate supper
19:00 – Checked students’ homework
21:00 – Wrote this post
22:00 – Uploaded this post

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

So I decided to eat this bitter persimmon because part of it became so soft.

Some slices that were so soft were sweet a little. Some slices that were not so soft were tasted as if remaining some bitterness. My conclusion was simple. Sawashi-gaki was far better than this. I mean, sawashi-gaki is persimmon that got rid of bitterness by strong alcohol.

I went out with my Olympus camera when I finished the online conversation class for sophomore students at 4p.m. on Friday. So it was getting dark already. Now it is late autumn. The top of the Mountain IIDE was already covered with snow.

I heard these days voices of swans flying over my head, I mean, in the sky. They are coming from Siberia to Japan to spend winter time. I saw one of them on Saturday morning. She/he was alone, though they are always in herds. I wished her safe migration.

Leaves in my garden have turned to red and yellow, although this happens in everywhere in northern hemisphere in this time around, anyway.

This region is cold, so it is impossible to raise rice crops twice a year. The paddy fields are left as-is through the winter.

Farming people like to plant flowers at the edges of their fields. When I took these photos, rain started falling. I gave up taking photos and came back house.

I wish if I had more time to practice this.

Because of corona virus pandemic and my hectic job for online teaching, I don’t have chances to go outside for these months. If there is a chance for me to go outside world, it had been to go for a walk one hour, or to go shopping in the morning market in Niitsu. I went to Niitsu this morning. And what I saw when I got off the train was a locomotive pulling passenger cars. The steam locomotive runs only on the weekend as a sightseeing train.

But anyway, my destination is here, the parking lot that turns to be a morning market on the dates with 1 and 6.

Every time I come to Niitsu morning market, I buy Kimch from Ms. Minami Yamashita.

This is her cooler box. There are three types of Kimchi; Chinese cabbage, Radish, and Cucumber kimchi(s).

This is the information of her Kimchi selling. Her Kimchi is available in Niitsu, Gosen, and Suibara.

Another shop.

I was interested in mushroom of 250 JPY, but I didn’t buy them.

Flower shop.

I bought one basket of these Shuyo-Ringo(s).

So this is a photo of what I bought today in the Niitsu morning market.
8 apples “Shuyo”: 800yen
11 persimmons: 500yen
1 Chinese cabbage Kimchi: 500yen
1 Radish Kimchi: 500yen
2 Pears “Niitaka”: 400yen
1 Radish with green leaves: 100yen
1 Bitter persimmon: 100yen
——– 2,900JPY in total

There is an issue about persimmons. Since Niigata is in northern part of Japan, most of persimmons here are bitter because of chilly climate. You can get naturally sweet persimmon, if you were in Hiroshima or Wakayama because they are warm places. The issue in Niigata is how to get rid of bitterness from the persimmons. There are three ways to do that:
1) To make persimmon dry fruits; You peel off, tie with code, and hang them outside under the roof. You might need some nets as a protection preventing birds from eating them.
2) To use chemical reaction of strong alcohol; You put the upper part of persimmons into alcohol that is stronger than 40%. And put them into plastic bags to keep them airtight for several days.
3) is surprising one, You just keep the bitter persimmon until it gets sweet. I don’t know how long it would take. There is a moment between ripening and rotting. So it must be a very short period of time. In that moment, the bitter persimmon becomes sweet. It is not “You eat when you want to eat”, but you have to eat when it happens. I know a person who said that it tasted rotten when she ate this type of persimmon. She said she would never eat any kind of persimmons again. So it seems that bad experience left trauma about persimmon.

Today I found this type of bitter persimmon. A lady explained to me. She raised her sample persimmon. “See, this is a little early. You keep it more time, then you can eat this sweet”. I have been interested in this type of bitter persimmon for so long. I asked her to sell that sample to me. It was 100 yen. Shown in the photo is the one. Part of it looks ready but other part of it looks still early to eat. I will tell you the result.

There were a little chilly autumn days recently. I thought the mountain Iide might have got snow on the top. As I expected, I found that there was snow on Wednesday 28th.

These sparrows had been somewhere for one month or so. It was the season that there were a plenty of rice grains in paddy fields. They liked rice better than bird seeds that I give them. But now the season has changed, they have com back to my garden.

A ginkgo tree has not become yellow enough. It would be still earlier to be the best color.

Another yellow thing in autumn is this introduced species from north America. You can see this flower anywhere in Japan at this time of season.

A river and the mountain Sugana-dake. Soon the leaves will be yellow and red on the mountains.