カテゴリー: LQ Laoshi

No Kids in the Park, Saturday Afternoon

Although today is a day of spring holiday so-called “Golden Week”, people are asked to stay home because of Corona virus pandemic. I went shopping by walk in this afternoon. On the way I just dropped by a small park.

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Might have sung Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park”? Nope. This is a small park in small town in northern part of Japan. There is no man selling ice cream. Even kids are not there because of Japan’s aging society.

 

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It was a little early for wisteria flowers to be full bloom.

 

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But actually the pink flowers of dogwood have gone already. I think the white one is also almost ended.

 

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I am not sure if this tap water is hygienically okay to drink or not. Anyway, I left the park and went to a supermarket to get food for my supper.

Spring Flowers in the Garden

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I wanted to make the title “Spring Flowers in my Garden”, but actually it is not my garden. I have just stayed at my parents’ home for these several months. I cannot get back to the country where my university is because of corona virus pandemic. Anyway, spring season never stops and the peach flowers have already gone.

 

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Coming next would be flowers of azalea. Its white bud makes me think of vanilla ice cream.

 

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This is also a white azalea, Doudan-Azalea flowering downward. It seems to contrast to the red leaves in autumn, although we cannot see white flowers in spring and red leaves in autumn at the same time.

 

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This is also “Downward flowers” of silverberry. I planted only one tree of silver-berry (or goumi) in the garden. This means that I will not be able to get any fruit in the near future because there should be another silver-berry but a slightly different kind. In order to get fruits, most of fruit trees needs another tree nearby for pollination.

 

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Buds of an apple tree. For the pollination as I mentioned for silver-berry, I planted two apple trees in one place. They were Kougyoku and Tsugaru. This photo was probably of Kougyoku’s.

 

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Here is another apple’s flower that has already opened. This is Alpus-Otome.

 

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This is flowers of gooseberry. Maybe it is safe to say that the fruits look more beautiful than the flowers. If I can take a photo of gooseberry fruit, I would like to put it on this blog.

 

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Actually this photo and the below were taken two weeks ago.

 

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Yes, this is peach flowers two weeks ago. I am not sure if I will be able to eat sweet peaches from this tree in summer because I am just an amateur about fruit tree growing.

Railway Geeks’ Holy Place, JR Niitsu Sation

I had uploaded some pictures for these several weeks. They were the photographs that I used as background picture on PPT slides of my online teaching. But now I am reluctant to upload some of my best pictures here. Maybe I am a stingy guy, but let me say, this blog is so unpopular that no one comes. I don’t have time to waste here. I am busy now because of online teaching. I have to prepare for 70 slides for 90 minutes class. And I have to teach such classes six times a week that need five preparations (two classes are almost identical). I have to work through the night three times a week. I am exhausted.

 

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It seems that  I will not be able to get back to a country where my university is, in near future. So I applied to citizenship in Niigata-city. I went to Niitsu where city ward office is.

 

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Only a railway geek would be interested in this kind of photographs. Niitsu is a town of railway. Think it as letter of “K”. The vertical line is Shin’etsu line of railway. Stroke of upper right is Uestu line and the lower right is Ban’etsu line. Niitsu is the town these railway lines are connected. The town had been developed with railway in the past. But a huge motorization changed everything. The central part of Niitsu has been just going down over time. Still this is a town of railway, so you can see many railway geeks hanging a big and long camera lens in JR Niitsu station.

 

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On the platform bench, they are occupying two of three seats.

 

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Forty some years ago, my family went to Niitsu station. That was the last day of steam locomotives. As a young boy, anything moving was fun to me. But my dad once said that that day, my older sister got angry very much. She didn’t have any interest in such a black thing spewing dark smoke running and stopping. It was a thing almost a half century ago.

 

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Time never stops. Spring has come after the winter as usual. This photo was taken not in Niitsu but in Niigata that is the prefecture capital. I had to go to a bank in Niigata for some cumbersome processes of national pension payment. Anyway, people are now having a different spring time all over this planet.

Background Photographs shown in Online Classes This Week (3rd W)

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Agano River and part of Gozu Mountain Range: Spring in 2017

 

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White Plum flowers on Sumaura Sanjo Yuen in Kobe:

 

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Akashi Park in Hyogo Prefecture: Spring in 2015

 

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Mountain Kimpoku of Sado Island: Spring in 2018

 

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Red Plum flowers on Sumaura Sanjo Yuen in Kobe:

 

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Narcissus, or Jonquil? on Awaji Island in spring of 2015

Train Ride under the Dark Sky

It was a day for me to get on a local train.

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I had to go to four city halls to collect documents of family record for a person who passed away recently. It is the time that anything can be done online, but many systems in Japan are such out of date that require people wasting much time.

 

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The top of Mountain Suganadake is hidden by the dark cloud.

 

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The train went east toward Fukushima along Agano River.

 

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I got of the train. Fukushima was still very much far. There were a few passengers getting of the train with me.

 

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The office was at 10 minutes walk distance from railway station.

 

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Just after 1 p.m. I went back the station. There were not many things even in front of the railway station because this was a rural area.

 

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Actually I had to wait in the station for two hours. No one was there.

 

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View from the train window. A highway running along Agano River was protected by concrete roof.

 

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It was dark but not in the night. The train was running through a tunnel.

 

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I had to still visit one more city hall at the time when I took this photo. This train trip was not an excursion for leisure. I was just moving under the dark winter sky in Niigata, JAPAN.

LQ Laoshi Plays BACH on Electric Bass

J. S. Bach, Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.3, Prelude on Electric Bass (4.22MB)

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I know that my playing is slow and technically poor, but this is a kind of mourning for the deceased.

The original is Key-C, but I play in Key-A so that I can play with a four-string bass.

Bass：SR500 by Ibanez

Strings：D’Addario, Extra-Light of Balanced Tension

Amplifier:  Not a Bass Amplifier, but a cheap audio Amp.

I edited the recording around 2:24 because I made a mistake.

在日本LQ老师做着什么?! 06

I have got things to do in Kanto Plain. So I decided to travel to Kanto region for several days. I got on a local train first to head Niigata.

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When the local train crossed a river, I saw Gozu Mountains that had got some new snow. It was dark. Yes winter days in Niigata are always under the dark clouds.

 

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I took a Shinkansen, or Bullet train in Niigata.

 

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Less than two hours, you can get under the clear blue sky in the Kanto Plain. There are lots of unequal things in this world, you know. People in Kanto can enjoy this fine weather in winter, while people in Niigata have to live under the dark clouds with wet, chilly, and snowy weather.