タグ: 独り言

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.

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.

在日本LQ老师做着什么?! 05

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I got on a local train in the morning.

 

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I could see a little bit of snow on the rice fields. The coldest weather hit Japan yesterday.

 

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There was an objet at the west entrance of JR Niitsu station.

 

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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.

 

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Dipping into soy sauce, I ate the first piece of Engawa Sushi.

 

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A close-up photo. Of course this is raw fish. Do you want to eat it? I like it.

在日本LQ老师做着什么?! 04

Behind the town runs a river.

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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 in Niitsu, Akiha-ward, Niigata, JAPAN

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.

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If you walk to the market from Niitsu JR station, this is the entrance of the market.

 

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I always buy Kimchi at Ms.Minami Yamashita’s shop. She is shy so she hid herself behind the board.

 

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Inside her cooler box. You can see there are Radish Kimchi and Cucumber Kimchi.

 

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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.

 

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There were some flower shops in the market.

 

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I like this old person’s fruit shop.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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I got back home, cut Chinese Cabbage Kimchi into small pieces, and then put it into a small grass container.

 

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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.

今週のお昼ご飯 w04

I am sorry but this post is written exclusively in Japanese.

冬休みで一時帰国し、新潟へ戻ってきた。お昼は自宅で済ませることが多く、写真に撮れるような外食は今週は２回のみ。木曜日に新津の駅前の多良富久さんでラーメンを食べた。

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モヤシラーメンにチャーシューをトッピング。チャーシューを２枚同行者にあげたが、逆に、写真に撮る目的で同行者のナルトをもらって載せた。以前のポストに、この多良富久さんへ来れば、トッピングとして山下南さんのキムチを食べられますと書いたのだが、もうキムチのトッピングはやめたとのことだった。山下さんのキムチはたいてい白菜四分の一で大きいが、お客さんに出す分は少ないので、無駄にしてしまうことが多く、お店としては提供できなくなったとのこと。新津の人がもっと朝市に行って、山下さんのキムチをたくさん買ってくれると良いのだが。

 

本日土曜日は新津の某所で回転寿司。

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１００円寿司は　あまり好きではない。

 

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最初にマグロ

 

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次にハマチ

 

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巻物も食べたくなったので、ねぎトロ巻き。

 

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エビ３種。

 

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しめさば。

 

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最後に１個だけのイクラの軍艦。本物のイクラなのか、コピー食品のイクラなのかは分からない。以上でお会計は７１５円。これを言ってしまっては申し訳ないが、安いだけで、おいしくない。１００円寿司は結局、後悔する。去年ボランティアで日本語を教えていた青年は、１００円寿司で一生懸命バイトしていたので、あまり悪くも言えないだろう。多くの人がそれぞれの場所で努力している。１００円で寿司が食べられることにもっと感謝すべきだ・・・しかし、うーん。

一学期の疲労がなかなか取れなくて、朝起きるのが辛い。２年生の会話の授業の教案作りをしているのだが、ぜんぜん進まない。この休みの間に可能な限り多くの教案・教材作りをして２学期に備えておかないと、学期の途中で破滅的なことになりそうだ。にもかかわらず、作業がちっとも進まないので焦っている。