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.
I worked in my garden in the morning hours, went to a supermarket for shopping in the afternoon, practiced piano at 4p.m., and cooked supper. Now today is going to end.
White flower of climbing roseThis rose’s name is “Princesse de Monaco”Persimmons on the tree are getting colorWhat I bought today. I have already eaten the horse mackerels by grilling
Oh, by the way, I wrapped one persimmon three days ago in order to get rid of bitterness. I didn’t expect, but it had turned to be soft. If I had waited some days more, it would have melted. So, I have already eaten it just before. It was not good. Soft but not sweet. I guess that is because the persimmon was not ripened well. I will try again to remove bitterness of persimmons with fully yellow one.
I cook for me and my old mother every day. What I always try in my cooking is to avoid a processed food and to cook from the scratch. I go to a supermarket frequently and always buy food that is natural ingredients. I need to buy vegetables, fruits, fishes, egg, meat, and so on. luckily enough, I don’t need to buy green vegetables recently, because I can get them from my garden.
Daikon Leaves that I got from my Garden
Daikon leaves eventually become too hard to chew. So, it is important to use young leaves by thinning in early stage of their growing
I cook, because my mother can no longer cook, though it is still okay for her to boil water with a kettle, and to wash the dishes. Old people gradually lose their functions in daily life. It is more obvious in the case of dementia. The important thing is to let them do what they can do by using their remaining functions. My mother still has one important function, that is shopping. She can go to a supermarket and a convenience store nearby (, though she uses cash).
Salad that my mother bought today from a convenience store.
Going shopping by herself is basically good, however, here’s another problem. She buys what she wants to eat like oily food and/or processed food which her son is trying to avoid. When she comes back home, she shows me what she bought. And I always see those unhealthy foods. I wonder what is inside salad which says its expiry is the morning of the day after tomorrow. I feel the taste of chemical preservatives whenever eating a such salad.
A lot of chemicals are being used in the processed food
It seems that most people like the taste of processed food of convenience stores. But I don’t like them. For me, taste of those foods is just of chemical seasonings. Therefore, I cook by myself from the scratch with natural ingredients.
I went to a town next to my village today. I had to go to the branch office of the city hall to get the national ID card of mine. The card is called “Mai Nambaa Caado (my number card)”, which is often shortened as “Maina Caado”. This “Maina” sounds like “Minor”, but nothing has to do with minority kind of things.
Railway
I got on a local train to go the next town.
Water Drinking Place
On the way, I found a facility to serve drinking water. But is there anyone who drinks water here?
Shrine that I visited on the way back
After I got the card, I walked to back to the JR station. I know there is a shrine near the railway, but today was the first time for me to visit this shrine.
Glass Wind Chimes
Today was a windy day. These wind chimes were making sounds with wind blow. I didn’t know why there were so many wind chimes in this shrine.
Chilled Noodle “Hiyashi Chuuka (冷やし中華)”
I wanted to eat a hot Rahmen for my lunch. But I found that the chilled noodle was still available. The Hiyashi Chuuka is summer-only menu, but now it’s month of October. I guessed they were still serving it because the summer of this year has been too hot and lasted long.
I found that a persimmon fell onto the ground in my garden this morning. Since its color was not orange but pale yellow, the fruit had not ripened enough yet. Although I was going to throw it at first, but changed my mind and decided to remove bitterness. I am expecting that I will be able to get some 20-30 fruits of persimmon within a month. Even though it’s just one persimmon, I thought it could be a practice of removing bitterness from persimmons.
Persimmon and strong alcohol (must be more than 40%)Soak the stem part in alcohol.Put into plastic bags and tightly seal them (I used three bags)
Let me wait for ten days. I will post about if it has become sweet or not.
It has been rainy today. I had worked in my garden for one and a half hours in the morning. But then, the rain started falling. I didn’t go anywhere. I just stayed inside watching DVD for Japanese education until 4 p.m. that is the time for piano practice.
There is one software that I need to learn. That is for writing a music score. Actually, this is not the first score writing software for me. About 9 years ago, I learned another software. But it was limited for its functions, I thought I needed to get a more sophisticated software to write music scores so that I would be able to use for my music playing.
I bought “Avid Sibelius” in the summer of 2022. There was another famous score writing software, which was “Finale”, but I chose “Sibelius” probably because of the name. I like the famous composer Sibelius and his music. That was three years ago. However, I still cannot use “Sibelius”. Although I could use another score writing software before, I have had no idea as to how to use Sibelius. It is impossible for me to do “Intuitive operation”.
But now is the time for me to learn it. Recently I wrote that music is part of my life. Thinking about the rest of my life, learning how to use Sibelius is so important. I am going to learn with so-called “Video Sharing Site” (you know the name of it,) as in the following photo.
Sibelius is running on left monitor and I am referring to a Video on right monitor
I was cultivating a place to plant onions’ seedlings in this morning. Then a neighbor came to my field. He wanted to see how I was doing with my vegetables and fruits trees. At the end of the talk, he gave me seedlings of strawberry as the photo below. Actually, I had also grown strawberry in my field several years ago. But it was a little difficult for me to grow strawberry well. And then I had given up because I was too busy because I was working as a Japanese teacher on line at that time.
Although I thought that working for vegetables in this season would be over when I have planted garlic and onions, now I have got another plant that is strawberry in eight pots. Although they are not many, I need to make a place to plant them and take a care of them. If it’s going well, I will be able to get some strawberry in May.
Shiso is a plant that is often used in Japanese food. We like its color and flavor. There are two types with purple and green leaves. I don’t grow them, but purple and green Shiso are in my garden as weeds. Today, I picked up some seeds and pickled them with soy sauce.
Green Shiso, it’s just a weed in my gardenShiso Seeds with stems. It is easy to take them off from the stem using your fingers.I poured Soy sauce into the BottleSoy sauce is too much. But I can use this extra soy sauce for seasoning of other food
By the way, the following is an episode when my grandma on father’s side died. She was a mother of five sons. After the funeral, people shared her relics. To do that, sons’ wives took what they wanted in the order from the first son, second, third, fourth, and fifth. My father was the third son. When my mother’s turn came, the first son’s wife and the second son’s wife had already taken valuable relics. Only “Shiso seeds pickled in soy sauce” remained there. So, my mother took it. I don’t know what the fourth and fifth wives got, but anyway, shiso seeds are not valuable stuff at all.
I confirmed this episode at the supper tonight. My mother said that she has a different personality from the first and second sons’ wives, so she didn’t care at all.
Today I made it. I will wait two or three days to make the taste better. Surely I will eat it putting on a white and hot rice.
Today has not been a productive day. I worked in my field three hours in the morning. What I was doing was to make a place to plant onions’ seedlings. It was not a hard work, but I got tired much. The only thing I did in the afternoon was shopping in a supermarket. I took some photos on the way.
Bicycles Parking Lot
Monthly Parking Lot
Don’t hit the Wall by a Ball
Rules in this Park
I want to plant bulbs of garlic soon and seedlings of onion in this month. After I plant these two kinds, there will be not much work for vegetables until the spring 2026 come. But I have to work a lot for fruit trees. Although my garden is by no means an orchard, I have planted a lot of fruit trees in my garden; they are apples, grapes, citrus, figs, plums, pawpaw, persimmon, kiwi, and so on. Actually, I cannot get many fruits from those trees, because I couldn’t take a good care of them in the past six years. Now it’s the beginning of October. I think I will not have many good days to work from now because the weather is going to be worse towards winter. Time is always limited.
Although two days in weekend turned to be working days, I think my (ex) students are now having fun in 8-day holidays. I guess some are going for travel, but most are back in their hometown.
I took the following photos on mid-October in 2023. Scenery in the campus will change fast as the season goes.
In fact, I erased the “symbol” of the university in order not to be identified. Do you know that?
I am going to write about one of three major nutrition. It’ not about carbohydrates and fats, but Protein. When I worked as a Japanese teacher in a university, I had lived in a residence in the campus, and cooked almost of all of my meals by myself. A lot of foods were available for me to cook. I could buy many kinds of vegetables and sometimes buy pork and chicken. However, I felt that I needed to take more protein if I cooked and ate foods that were available to me there.
My solution was to bring 3 kilograms of protein supplement when I came back from Japan at the end of summer and winter breaks. It seemed to me that 3kg was enough for one semester. As I expected, 3 kg lasted in spring and fall semesters in 2024 until the end. However, I consumed all the 3 kg one month earlier in the last semester. It was still mid-June. Since I planned to leave there in middle of July, at that time, I didn’t think it’s a major issue. I just tried eating chicken breast more than usual.
But I got a problem. I think it was the end of June or the beginning of July that I got my elbow aching. It’s on right hand. The pain has continued since then. Even though I came back Japan, it didn’t seem to get any better. And then one day in August, I got an idea that perhaps my pain in elbow might have come from lack of protein. Once I noted it, I went to a supermarket, bought chicken breast a lot, and ate them. To my surprise, I felt that pain was eased a little by eating chicken breast which I thought protein rich food. But it was not effective enough and soon I realized that buying a lot of chicken breast every time I go to supermarket was cumbersome because it’s too heavy to carry to my home.
Then again, I bought 1 kg of protein supplement from Amazon. I shake three spoonfuls of white powder and milk, and drink it in every lunch. Still, my right hand’s elbow continues to ache. I wish the pain in my elbow get better soon. My biggest problem is that I cannot play my electric bass. I had not played it since July. I love playing music. It is part of my life. So instead of playing bass, I play piano a little these days. Of course, it’s just a little so that my pain would not get worse.
My one of three basses; The strings are intentionally loosened because I don’t play it for so long.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 