I took my mother to a local clinic to make a reservation for her health check.

Everyone in Japanese have to pay for health insurance. Thanks to the universal health insurance system, people like me can get medical services by paying 30% of total cost, and old people like my mother only pay 10%. If a healthy person hasn’t seen a doctor for long, he/she would lose most of money for other unhealthy people. But the idea of the universal health insurance is helping each other. And everyone has a right to get a health check once a year.

I have already got this year’s health check in August right after I came back in Japan. At that time, it was too hot. The highest temperatures were like 35 Celsius every day. I thought I would take my mother to health insurance once it gets cooler in autumn.

Now it’s near to the end of September, and it has got cooler a little, wind blow is comfortable. Today I took my mother to a local clinic to make a reservation for her health check. Although I know that my mother would soon forget the date of the check, I didn’t attend in the examination room. I let her go into there alone, because it was better for her to activate her remaining ability to make an appointment with doctor. Probably she would forget the date, but I knew that a nurse would give  me a memo for the date and time afterwards.

She could get several checks, but she refused tests of stomach and breast cancers. Actually, no one has died of any cancers in my mother’s relatives. Her families are very excellent people as for health. So, she is okay, but I am not. Because most of the people on my father’s side have died of cancers. I know that my brain comes from my mother and my body comes from my father. I think, some day in the future, I will be diagnosed that cancer tumor growing inside of me. Once it happens, my life will change forever. I have to spend my precious days until the day like that coming.

Anyway, I have to take her again to the clinic in the coming week. Checks are only for weight, height, blood pressure, urine and blood. It will not take much time.

As they grow, their number need to reduce by picking; Red radish and Carrots

I came back in Japan in July. Since then, I have been pulling the weeds, getting rid of roots of the weeds, cultivating soil, and planting seeds of vegetables in my garden. This work still continues. Though my garden is small tiny one, but there are a lot of things to do. Now in September, it’s the time to thin radish and green leaves. This is to give them a space for growing more by reducing the numbers. In this process, If it’s a small sprout, I just throw it. But now they have grown, I don’t waste them, but eat. Today I picked some red radish and carrots. Since the radish and carrots are still small, I use their leaves. In the supper tonight, radish’s leaves were used in Miso soup, and carrots’ leaves were cut in small and stir-fried with sausage.

Don’t go watching TV while keeping a FIRE on the Gas stove.

I have told my mother the same thing again and again. But the failure repeated.

When she wants to drink coffee or tea, she puts a fire on the gas stove in the kitchen. Usually, it takes several minutes until water gets boiled in the kettle. She can’t wait for it, and then goes to her room to watch TV.

In the case of boiling water, sometimes it ends up drying up in the kettle. Worse is the case of cooking, food inside becomes charcoal, and the pan no longer to be used. Thanks to the modern technology, the gas stove in my kitchen is set to stop in thirty minutes. But quite often these vapor and charcoal happens within thirty minutes.

It is sad to say, but because of her age, my mother can neither learn from the failure, nor to use the knowledge of new experiences in order to avoid repeating the same thing to happen.

Given that situation, I thought I need to do something for the matter. Not allowing her to use the gas stove is one thing. But at the same time, I have to give her a way to drink hot coffee herself so that she can activate her remaining ability.

I know that if a Gas company employee look at this, the person would give me a strong warning. But this is my solution for the time being. I put an Induction Cooking Heater on top of the gas stove in day time between the time I finish cooking breakfast and the time I start cooking supper. Of course, I close the gas valve when putting the “IH cooker”. Actually, the switches of gas valve are right under the switches for burning. But once I close the valve, my mother cannot open it herself.

I made this stuff by myself. By the way, three burners are good for busy cooking.

Pictures of the Campus in which some Water Fronts are

Tonight, I don’t think of what to write. Instead of writing my bad English, let me upload the pictures which I took in September, 2019. I just want to keep the name of the university secret.

I had spent four years to be a Japanese teacher. When I took these photos in 2019, I thought my dream had come true. But at that time, I didn’t know what was coming after the first semester.

It’s Autumn; The air is cooling down, and Ginkgo Smells.

I went to Niigata today. I needed to use an Automated Teller Machine in the city. When I walked a pedestrian road along the wide street in front of the JR Niigata Station, I felt the smell of Ginkgo. It’s not a good flagrance, if not odor. But it is sure that smell makes me realize that the autumn has come.

Just under the JR Niigata station is the Bus Terminal

Toyoko Inn and Bus Terminal

JR Niigata Station

Many Ginkco Fruits were on the Ground, smelled.

After using ATM, I quickly returned home by getting on a Local train.

In the afternoon, I tried watching DVD in my house. The DVD was about teaching Japanese as foreign language. But I slept while playing it. Nothing was left in my memory.

40-Minute Walk under Cloudy Sky in Sunday Afternoon

The Left Peak is 1012 meter and the Right Peak is 1293 meter in Altitude

A Path on the River Bank

The Machine was left on the Ground, Probably because of Weekend

Gun-Hunting is Prohibited in this Area by Niigata Prefecture

Muddy Water in the River. Rainy days has continued Recently.

Rice Fields and Gozu Mountains

A Rice Field whose Rice has already been Harvested.

A view from the Bridge.

I went to Soto-sect Temple for Obon Pray on August 18

Though it was a thing one month ago, my mother and I went to a Buddhism Temple. There is a cemetery behind the temple, and my father’s grave is there. August 18 was a little late for “Visiting a Grave in Obon”, but I chose the date. I thought it was difficult for me to call a taxi because there are so many people coming back from Tokyo area to Niigata during Obon season. But August 18 was still a busy day for the taxi company. When I made a phone call in morning hours, the person of the company told me to call again in the afternoon.

The temple is located in the middle of vast area of Niigata Plain. It is surrounded by Rice fields, and I could see some orchards of grapes and peers through the taxi window. We didn’t get in the main hall this time, but I have got in the hall many times for memorial services for my deceased father. There are thick wooden columns in the hall. And the columns have color changes at lower position. The chief priest had once told me that those color changes are traces of flood in the old times. The temple is near to the Shinano River which is the longest river in Japan. Since the main hall was built 250 years ago, it must have been some occasions of flood.

My mother and I went to the cemetery behind, and I prepared for pray. I placed two chrysanthemum bouquets right and left on my father’s grave. And then I put a fire on a bundle of Incense sticks. But I could not put a fire on three candles because of winds. Since we were making the taxi wait for us, I gave up the candles. We prayed shortly and got back to the parking lot in front of the main hall. If we had left chrysanthemum bouquets on my father’s grave, we would have made the chief priest removed them afterwards. So, I took the bouquets, brought them in front of the main hall, and offered them to the big Kan’non Statue.

About a half an hour taxi ride took us home. That’s it for the grave visiting in Obon of this summer. By the way, I have a suggestion. It is to move the time of Obon season from August to September. It is too hot to go to a temple in the current Obon season. Thanks to the global warming, now the summer heat is more and more becoming dangerous to the old people like my mother. Japan’s Obon is held in accordance with the solar calendar. If we have Obon in the lunar calendar, we will be able to go to a temple when the temperature is more comfortable in September like Chuseok in Korea.

Random Photos at This Time Around in Two Years Ago (September, 2023)

For the new second-year students, it is the time to change their major. Some of students leaves Japanese course for other majors at the beginning of new school year. Since most of them are usually good students, knowing a particular student is leaving Japanese major makes me disappointed in some extent.

But I think I should not complain or criticize those students who changed their major. Because, in most of the cases, their experience of learning Japanese for one year will no longer be useful into the future. And they have to study hard in order catch up other classmates in the new major they have moved to. it must be a tough decision to make, I guess.

I wish them a fruitful learning in the new major and a bright future to come with new knowledge. And if they will, it is possible to learn Japanese by themselves.

I made Three Bottles of Apple Jam using “Kougyoku” that I got in my Garden

An apple “Kougyoku” is a little sour. The apples are suitable to be processed with heat, rather than eating fresh. Since I had put three of them in refrigerator, I made jam in the early evening today.

There are many ways to make apple jam. Today I made it by grating the apples. Apple peels are rich in pectin, so, I wanted to use those peels in the jam.

Many cooking recipes on the web say that sugar must be 50 percent of weight. But I am not sure about this 50%; Is it 50% of weight of fruits, or 50% of the entire weight of jam? Anyway, I don’t have a cooking scale, so, I just put a lot of sugar in the pan by intuition. I think the sugar must be 50% of the weight of the jam in order to keep the jam longer.

Though I forgot to take a picture, I did “boiling disinfection”. I closed the lids of bottle loosely, put the bottles in a big pan, boiled water in the pan with gas fire, and then closed the lids tightly by my hands with gloves.

I got three bottles. I will use them for toast of my breakfast from tomorrow morning. It will save some cost of living.

Some have been harvested, some haven’t in the Rice Fields of Niigata, Northern part of JAPAN.

Though I showed you the same kind of photo recently,

Rice was already harvested in some rice fields

Beyond the Railway is a Residential Area.

I think they are a rare kind of sunflowers

Head-down; It seems Rice Grains are heavy for the Stem

Today’s highest temperature was 31 Celsius degrees. It was still hot. But since tomorrow, the highest temperature will be below 30 Celsius, according to the weather forecast. Will it be the end of summer? I hope so. This summer was an extraordinary hot one. I have been feeling very bad through this summer because of the heat. I hope I will be able to be more active in this fall.

桃李の月餅、五個入りです。

Nothing has to do with rice fields in Niigata, but I found a photo that I took just one year ago, on September 17, 2024. It’s “MOONCAKE”. I bought it in the supermarket in the campus.