Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning
I am a native Japanese speaker teaching Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. This blog is usually written in English, but sometimes Japanese and Chinese appear. Please don't care what you cannot read. They are for my students.
I got on a local train in the morning.
I could see a little bit of snow on the rice fields. The coldest weather hit Japan yesterday.
There was an objet at the west entrance of JR Niitsu station.
A person gave me a pack of Sushi as a souvenir. The sushi was “Engawa” that was muscle at the base of fin of flatfishes.
Dipping into soy sauce, I ate the first piece of Engawa Sushi.
A close-up photo. Of course this is raw fish. Do you want to eat it? I like it.
Behind the town runs a river.
There is a small ship building yard. The factory can be seen behind the three vessels on the river. But I am not sure the company is still doing shipbuilding.
I went to Niigata in the evening. I had a dinner with one of my students who learned Japanese from me. The Izakaya restaurant was just near the JR Niigata station. Sashimi or slices of raw fish were fresh and tasty.
Niigata is famous for Sake that is rice wine. I ordered three brands assortment. One was Kirinzan, the other was Hokusetsu, but I forgot the third one. In front of three bottles, that was oyster fries. Anyway I enjoyed food and talk.
Morning market is held on the 1st and 6th date of every month in Niitsu. Niitsu is a town that is located southern Niigata. JR local trains in every 20 minutes take you from Niigata to Niitsu. It takes about 20 minutes. Since it is called “morning market”, so better to get there by 11 a.m.
If you walk to the market from Niitsu JR station, this is the entrance of the market.
I always buy Kimchi at Ms.Minami Yamashita’s shop. She is shy so she hid herself behind the board.
Inside her cooler box. You can see there are Radish Kimchi and Cucumber Kimchi.
A man was selling seafood. He was talkative very much. He said he didn’t take photographs but liked reviewing other’s photographing. Sliced salmons were on his shelf.
There were some flower shops in the market.
I like this old person’s fruit shop.
Western pear “Le Lectier” were being sold with very much reasonable prices. The old person said to me that they were reasonable because it was the end of the season. “Le Lectier” is Niigata’s speciality.
This is all that I bought in the market;
7- Fuji apples = 500 JPY
2 packs of Yellow Kiwi = 500 JPY
1 – Chinese Cabbage Kimchi = 500 JPY
1 – Radish Kimchi = 500 JPY
Green vegetable = 100 JPY
So it costed 2,100 JPY in total. If I apply foreign currency rate of 1 USD = 109 JPY, it would be 19 dollar 27 cent. Expensive or reasonable? It depends on you. I have no complaint about the prices because I enjoyed talking with buyer. That is the beauty of morning market.
I got back home, cut Chinese Cabbage Kimchi into small pieces, and then put it into a small grass container.
Actually, yellow kiwi was not so yellow. It was yellow green. I wanted to change color of this photo so that it could look yellow. But I couldn’t make it, although I tried to adjust colors by an imaging software.
Morning market in Niitsu is small. Please do not expect a large market. It is just a tiny small market using a space of parking lot by the JR railway line. Some towns in Niigata area hold this kind of morning markets. Dates are different town by town. In Niitsu, 1st and 6th. In some town, it is 2nd and 7th, or 4th and 9th. I am not sure you would be interested in the market, but please check the date before you visit some of them.
I left Kanto Plain in the early morning today. Getting on a train, I headed north.
Terrain was becoming mountainous as the train moved north towards the end of Kanto Plain.
The platform was thinly covered with snow. As the train went north, snow depth increased.
Having got through some long tunnels, the train was running in southern part of Niigata prefecture. This winter is warm, so there is not much snow on the ground and mountains.
My hometown is on the lower land of Niigata Plain. Thanks to the low altitude and the record-warm winter, there is no snow on the ground. This is just a rural town under the dark cloud of winter.
I am back in Japan.
I went to Tokyo today.
I thought I was the only 5tupid who was taking photographs of Tokyo Station building. But it was surprising; many people were there to take photos of this old station building.
JR Tokyo station is very big, but this Tokyo station of Tokyo Metro is a kind of small subway station. I went to Tokyo to pick up a rental WIFI rooter. Since my flight yesterday was so late in the night that I couldn’t get the rooter in the Narita airport.
When I came back from Tokyo to the nearest station, it had already got dark.
