Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning
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.
It happens in winter. If I expose my finger in cold air for some time, my finger skin gets crack. This time, I got it on the tips of thumb. Every time I touch something, I feel stinging like ache. I need to wash foods and cook meals using water, these cracks are annoying.
And, snow fall; if the ground is covered with snow, it makes me reluctant to work on my field.
January: I was living in the residence for foreign teachers. This photo shows what I put on steamed rice. It’s “Furikake” in Japanese.
February: I had been in my house in Japan during winter break. It seems that there was a lot of snow fall at that time.
March: The spring semester had started at the time of this photo. There was still ice on the surface of the pond in the campus.
April: Some plum flowers were blooming in the campus.
May: Iris flowers around the pond
June: When I was in the campus, I cooked all the meals myself except lunches in weekend. This is a typical dish which I ate for weekend lunch.
July: Though the final examination had ended, I was still in the campus, cleaning the room, and packing my belongings into suitcases to come back to my country, Japan.
August: Summer in this year was quite heated. This photo was taken on the way to a mobile phone shop.
September: Rice were becoming yellow at the beginning of September. Some were already harvested, and some were still green.
October: Japan’s “Susuki” and “Tall goldenrod” from foreign country were competing each other.
November: Iide mountains of altitude of 2000 meters had got snow.
December: Snow has come to low altitude area of Niigata.
I usually write a blog post after supper. Today I worked a lot for the trellis for apple tree. It has been almost completed. And I received the result of chest x-ray test by regular mail from the city hall. I got the test on November 17th. And today is December 29th. It takes many days when it comes to works by public offices. Fortunately, the result was “no-problem”. If it said a further examination was needed, my daily life would be changed completely with anxiety. Since many relatives on my father side died of cancer, I think it is a kind like ticking bomb.
And now I am writing a blog post. I have already eaten a small package of snack. I decide not eating two packages; one at a night.
I am thinking about making a square trellis on which the apple tree “Shinano Gold” can grow its branches. In my design, four steel pipes are connected at the corners. In order to make like that, I had bought four clamps for steel pipes whose diameter is 25.4 millimeter. But yesterday I realized that the clamp didn’t fit the phi 25.4 mm (1in) pipe. It seemed that the clamp was made to be compatible to both phi 22.2mm(7/8in) and phi 25.4 mm (1in) pipe. Probably the clamp can fit for phi 22.2mm pipe. But for 25.4 mm pipe that I have, its flange gets angle and bolt cannot go into the threads. That means pipes cannot be connected at the four corners of the trellis.
I remembered that there are another phi 31.2 mm (5/4in) steel pipes on the shelves of the DIY shop. I expected that a clamp for 31.2 mm might be able to fit my 25.4 mm pipes. So, I got on a local train in this morning, to go to the DIY shop in the town next to my village. In the store, I checked whether or not 31.2 mm clamp can grip 25.4 mm pipe. But I was disappointed by the fact that the clamp is too big to grip and fix 25.4 mm pipe. I saw the price card. Just one clamp costs three hundreds and some JPY (about 2.5 USD), which I thought expensive. I came to think that using clamps for my trellis was a kind of excessive quality too much. I left the DIY shop without buying any clamps. I wasted time and money for trains.
When I got back home, I tried thinking to other ways to connect two steel pipes at right angle. Actually, the problem has not been solved yet. I am still thinking to find a good way. Probably I will get a better answer tomorrow.
Today’s lowest temperature was -1 and highest was +2 Celsius degree (30 to 36 in Fahrenheit). Although the outside was cold, I had been out of my house, but in a tiny hut. The hut was built about twenty years ago when my father was still alive. It is made of polycarbonate corrugated sheet for the roof and wall, and of steel pipes for its frames. Even the inside is almost like outside because there are a lot of gaps, but no wind blows inside, I can feel a little warm in the hut.
The inside of the hut has long been a mess. Since I came back my home, I keep to try tidying up the hut. And the hut is now going to be a fun place to be, not to say it’s a secret base. Today I was staying there for three hours in the morning to make a trellis using steel pipes. I am going to set up a trellis for an apple tree. It is common that grapes grow on trellis. And in my area, farmers use trellis for growing pear trees. But I don’t think it is usual to use trellis to grow an apple tree.
There are six apple trees in my garden. Two were planted by my father who passed away five years ago. So, I don’t know the names of those two. Four are planted by me; Ohrin, Kougyoku, Alpus-Otome, and Shinano-Gold. Ohrin and Kougyoku are old varieties, Alpus-Otome is almost exclusively for pollination. Shinano-Gold is a variety that is new and very delicious. What I want to do is to make that Shinano-Gold tree bigger so that I will be able to harvest many apples from that tree. In order to do so, there must be an area such that leaves can extend wide. This is the reason I want to set up a trellis for the apple tree. Since the branches of apple tree are soft and flexible, I expect that it is possible to grow the apple on trellis. I hope that the result is coming in two years.
I think it would be better if those trees and illumination things continue to be there until the new year, we Japanese surely remove everything. This time, I have put five color bulbs on my window and lit up them like from seven to nine p.m. Time was not so exact, but I turned them on after supper and off before going to bed. Since I bought them about twenty years ago, they are not LED lights but conventional bulbs. Those bulbs consume 20 Watt, not much, but use more electricity than LED, I guess.
Other Japanese remove all the Christmas decorations, so I thought that I also need to do something with my five color bulbs. What I did was not removing them, but changing from five color to mono color bulbs. Does it make any sense? I am not sure.
I am living in a residential area in small village surrounded by vast rice field. Population is not much. I am sure that my illumination is not seen by many people because very few people walk or drive on the road by my house in the night. But I would like to say that here is a lonely place with less people, I want some lights be there.
It seems they will run out before spring come.
Since I don’t use pesticide, insects or worms have eaten a lot of green part of the Chinese cabbage as shown in the photo. I need to wash the leaves well and get rid of worms’ droppings completely when I cook this cabbage.
I wanted to get on local trains to go to Kanto region. Because using local trains costs only a half of bullet trains (Shinkan-sen). But influenza is now prevailing these days. If I got on local trains for many hours, it could increase the chance to be exposed to flu virus. Perhaps I may transmit influenza to my mother after I get back to my house. This is the reason why I got on Shinkansen to go to Kanto Region near Tokyo.
Tickets of Shinkansen are expensive. In order to save money, I usually get on a car for non-reserved seats. Such a non-reserved seats are on the several cars on Tokyo side. Of those non-reserved cars, I like to get on the top car.
Since the Jo’etsu Shinkansen runs thorough snowy areas, there are water sprinklers all along the railways in Niigata area. By melting snow on the rails by water, Shinkansen doesn’t get delayed even in winter.
This time of year, almost of the time the sky is cloudy and dark in Niigata side.
While Niigata is under dark clouds, people in Kanto region enjoy clear sky.
And I saw Mountain Fuji through the window in the following morning.
The last time I visited there was seven years ago. Yesterday I went to Niigata and took a lunch in an Indian/Nepali Restaurant in Furumachi. I ate “A lunch set” that was curry, naan, salad, and plain lassi.
The curry was a little much. As I was eating, I came to think that dipping wouldn’t consume all of it. So, I used chop-sticks and ate a piece of Naan by submerging it entirely into curry. I thought, if you would eat two Naans, the amount of curry fit them. It was 1080JPY, but my stomach became quite full.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 