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.
Today, weather was not good. I have been in my home, doing room makeover so that I can spend coming winter in a little more comfortable room. My house was built 25 years ago or so. It’s still not so old, but built by traditional building method of Japan, it is so cold in winter. In fact, my heels of both feet have already cracked and become chaps although it is still November. So far, I have slept every night in a room without air-conditioner, but I am thinking about sleeping in another room during coming winter. The room has an air-conditioner and a gas heater. Actually, the room is currently my office. Since I won’t change my office, I will do my computer work and sleep in the same room. This is a temporary measure, when spring comes, I will probably change room again. Anyway, the makeover has not finished yet. Now the room is dirty because so many things are on the floor. I need to continue the remaining works tomorrow.
Though nothing has to do with today’s post, this was a noodle in the campus dining hallDon’t say I took too much jujube in free soup. I went there late, jujubes were accumulated at the bottom of the can.
Red-core Radish that I planted in my gardenPickling liquid contains Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, and WaterGreen Leaves of the Radish were used in Miso-soup
I need to take my mother to a big hospital tomorrow morning. The hospital is located in very inconvenient place. It is too far to walk from the railway station. I don’t know why that location was selected at the time of planning. But they may say, it is next to the interchange of an expressway, so it would help a lot in the case of emergency of a patient in local area behind. But you know, an interchange of an expressway would never be constructed in the center of a city.
Anything on the ground in Niigata is planned, designed, and constructed with precondition that everyone in the society moves by a car. People without car would never be given a consideration at all. I have a driver’s license, but don’t have a car because I don’t like driving. I am not going to blame anyone who drives a car, but I myself feel uncomfortable to drive a car on the road, especially with a concept that an individual person’s car runs and occupies a certain area of public road. One concern is safety, and the other issue for me is that a public road often becomes a battle ground where each individual person’s interests crush, even though physical crush happens not so often (it should be). I know my driving technique is poor and is likely to make other people angry with me.
Anyway, I hope that the retest of tomorrow will not result in a major health problem of my mother.
Dates on the tape show when I put the persimmons into plastic bags; Oct.14, 17, and 20. I think I will be able to eat one a day from Wednesday.
Now almost three months have passed since I retired my job and came back Japan. Probably I spend these days with a little bit of lazy life style. It’s like; wake up in the morning at 6, then cook breakfast, eat it at 7, read English book with a dictionary until 9:30, then usually I work in the garden to care vegetables and fruits trees through the morning hours.
Today, rather than to work in my garden, I went to a supermarket before noon, because rainfall was coming according to weather forecast. I took my lunch with a watching video sharing site (the famous one). And then I have been watching a DVD of Japanese teaching training course from 2 to 4. But I was sleeping most of the time. I started practicing a piano at 4, cooking a supper at 5, eat the supper at 6:20, and now I am writing this.
Perhaps I will not be able to teach Japanese again. I am still trying to study teaching skills for the next time I teach Japanese language for foreign people. But I may give up the career as a Japanese teacher. I am not sure for this matter.
So, the task was to take an ID photo of my mother. The photo is needed for applying an issue of the National ID card. We visited a photograph studio in Niigata today. It was like shown in the photo above, but after several shots, the lady at the studio told my mother to make an angle toward slightly to right, and to make a little smile. I was wondering because such shot was not suitable for ID photo, but I understood why that lady took a such shots. She said that “smiling photo” was free of charge. I really thanked her. She knew and I knew that smiling photo would be used in the future.
When we got out of the studio, my mother went to a department store by herself, and I went to see Shinano River.
Can you see a couple on the bank?Bandai Bridge on Shinano RiverIt reads “Niigata is a city where Kaku High-ball tastes good”Construction works still continue in front of JR Niigata stationAn event of “Chiikawa” was being held inside JR Niigata station
One of my ex-students sent me an email. She has already graduated and left the campus. She wrote she liked to see the photos of the campus. So, I am just posting photos of the campus tonight.
In fact, I haven’t been outside today because rainfall continues all day. I have not taken any photos, but been watching DVD about Japanese teaching.
I walked to a DIY shop in the morning. I bought 20 litter of Soil there. Recently one of neighbors gave me eight seedlings of strawberry. Of course I thanked him, but I know that strawberry can hardly grow in my garden, because soil is too bad. I had tried several times growing strawberry in the past. Strawberry couldn’t grow well in my garden, nor could I harvest the fruit well. So, I didn’t have any plan to plant strawberry in my garden in this autumn. However, having been given seedlings, I have already made the place to plant them. When I plant a seedling, I will make a gap between the soil of a seedling and soil of my garden. And I am going to fill the gap with soil that I bought in DIY shop today.
A Local Train on Shin’etsu Line
Probably there’s no Snow on Mt. Kitamata yet
DIY shop is selling a lot of Flower Seedlings
The Big Tree has been there since I was a kid in a half century ago
I took my mother to a small local clinic in the afternoon. She had a health check ten days ago. So today is a day to receive the result of the check and a flu shot. When the doctor told her the result, I was also there because she would forget anything the doctor told her. The doctor told her to take a more detailed inspection in the big hospital. The doctor wrote a referral letter and gave it to us. I have to take her to the big hospital next week.
I am just a layman about medicine. And no one can make a judgement about her symptoms exactly at this point. Let her take a test first. But I feel a little wondering. I quit my job in foreign country, and came back here in July. If my mother’s condition is not good and someone needs to take a care of her, does it mean I retired and came back home in a good timing?
There is a mountain range whose name is Iide Mountain. The mountains are located among three prefectures; Niigata, Fukushima, and Yamagata. Since my house is in Niigata Plain, I can see the mountains in east, when the sky is clear. The straight distance is approximately 50 kilometers (30 miles) from my house to the mountains. Now, it is the mid-October, and temperature is going down. I think soon I will be able to see snow on the top of Iide Mountain Range.
The photo was taken on October 28, 2020. The peak is Kitamata-Dake (Mt. Kitamata) with altitude of 2025 meters (it is interesting that the altitude and this year are the same 2025). In the years of corona pandemic, I had quite often taken pictures of this Mt. Kitamata, and shared the photos with my students through SNS. Although very few of my students are taking a look at this blog now, when snow has fallen onto Mt. Kitamata of Iide Moutain Range, I will take a picture and post it on this blog.
The shoes in the photo are my second mountain climbing shoes. I bought the first one when I was a fourth-year student of a university. I had climbed many mountains with that first shoes. Those mountains were not high-altitude ones. Since I always went to a mountain alone, I just climbed low mountains only for safety.
I don’t remember when it was exactly, but in the past, probably in early two thousand, many Japanese mountain climbers got the accidents in which the sole got apart from the shoes. It was recommended to mountain climbers carrying wire in order to fix the sole just in case of such accident.
One day, I got that accident. The sole of my climbing shoe came off in front, and barely hung at the heel. I took the shoes to a shop that was selling goods for mountain climbing. I wanted to ask the shop to repair my shoes. But the shop simply rejected to repair. So, I bought the new shoes that is shown in the photo.
I came back to my hometown ten years ago with my second mountain climbing shoes. Actually, there are a lot of good mountains to climb in Niigata area. But I haven’t climbed any single mountain in the past ten years, and probably will not climb in the near future because of the following three reasons.
1: It is dangerous to go to mountains alone, because the mountains in Niigata are usually located in remote area.
2: I usually get aching on my knee while descending on way back. In order for me to avoid knee aching, it takes three times longer hours than others for descending.
3: The third reason is quite scary one; BEARS. In recent years, encountering bears is happening more and more often. Many accidents with bears have occurred also in Niigata Prefecture. According to the record of “Niigata bear appearance map”, bears came three times to the places like 6 kilometers (4 miles) distant from my house. Actually, those places are not mountain. The bears must have crossed rice fields, residential area, even the town of “Gosen”. If you look at the map, it would show you a huge number of witness cases along the foot of the mountains. If I climb a mountain, it is really likely to encounter a bear. This is the biggest reason why I don’t go to a mountain.
Because of these reasons, my second shoes have been left unused for several years. But I started putting those shoes when I came back to my house in July. For what? it is for gardening. These days I work in my field in morning hours for cultivating the soil, growing vegetables, and caring fruits trees. My field is not so wide, but I walk a lot. Since the ankle part of the mountain climbing shoes is stiff in order to prevent sprains, it makes you feel a little hard to walk. But I have got used to it, I even feel that stiff shoes can reduce fatigue on my foot. I can say that both of the mountain trails and the vegetable field have a similarity as being rough to walk.
Onion seedlings; the problem is that they don’t grow evenly.Osmanthus is fragrant in autumn.Thursday’s “Princesse de Monaco” has become like this
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