タグ: Niigata

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

This is a blog post only for the purpose that I wanted to upload something. Today is Sunday but now almost over. I have been exhausted by hardworking for online classes. I should have taken a rest whole of yesterday without uploading a blog post which was actually so unpopular that no one visited.

Walking across railway, I got to rice field. The sky was dark because now it is late autumn. This is my hometown in Niigata Prefecture, JAPAN. Climate at this time of year is always like this. It’s wet and chilly. Living here under this circumstance might make you nerve wrenching. But you know, you can never have a choice for your birth place.

Cherry trees “Sakura” are Japanese favorite. People want to plant sakura trees anywhere. Yes it is beautiful in blooming. But I’d say their leaves are also beautiful in autumn.

Leaves had become beautiful, but it was a sign that they would soon be falling down onto the ground. They will turn to be soil that is where they came from, I am not sure, though.
Actually when I took photos of these leaves, rain became strong. I gave up taking photo like yesterday, and went to a supermarket. I bought some foods like fish and chicken for supper. I planned to cook fish today and chicken tomorrow. Since I got rosemary, I am thinking to cook chicken with tomato sauce and rosemary.

On the way back from the supermarket, I dropped by a small park. No kids were there.

The sun goes down and it’s getting dark.
17:30 – Cooked supper
18:30 – Ate supper
19:00 – Checked students’ homework
21:00 – Wrote this post
22:00 – Uploaded this post

My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)

So I decided to eat this bitter persimmon because part of it became so soft.

Some slices that were so soft were sweet a little. Some slices that were not so soft were tasted as if remaining some bitterness. My conclusion was simple. Sawashi-gaki was far better than this. I mean, sawashi-gaki is persimmon that got rid of bitterness by strong alcohol.

I went out with my Olympus camera when I finished the online conversation class for sophomore students at 4p.m. on Friday. So it was getting dark already. Now it is late autumn. The top of the Mountain IIDE was already covered with snow.

I heard these days voices of swans flying over my head, I mean, in the sky. They are coming from Siberia to Japan to spend winter time. I saw one of them on Saturday morning. She/he was alone, though they are always in herds. I wished her safe migration.

Leaves in my garden have turned to red and yellow, although this happens in everywhere in northern hemisphere in this time around, anyway.

This region is cold, so it is impossible to raise rice crops twice a year. The paddy fields are left as-is through the winter.

Farming people like to plant flowers at the edges of their fields. When I took these photos, rain started falling. I gave up taking photos and came back house.

I wish if I had more time to practice this.

Because of corona virus pandemic and my hectic job for online teaching, I don’t have chances to go outside for these months. If there is a chance for me to go outside world, it had been to go for a walk one hour, or to go shopping in the morning market in Niitsu. I went to Niitsu this morning. And what I saw when I got off the train was a locomotive pulling passenger cars. The steam locomotive runs only on the weekend as a sightseeing train.

But anyway, my destination is here, the parking lot that turns to be a morning market on the dates with 1 and 6.

Every time I come to Niitsu morning market, I buy Kimch from Ms. Minami Yamashita.

This is her cooler box. There are three types of Kimchi; Chinese cabbage, Radish, and Cucumber kimchi(s).

This is the information of her Kimchi selling. Her Kimchi is available in Niitsu, Gosen, and Suibara.

Another shop.

I was interested in mushroom of 250 JPY, but I didn’t buy them.

Flower shop.

I bought one basket of these Shuyo-Ringo(s).

So this is a photo of what I bought today in the Niitsu morning market.
8 apples “Shuyo”: 800yen
11 persimmons: 500yen
1 Chinese cabbage Kimchi: 500yen
1 Radish Kimchi: 500yen
2 Pears “Niitaka”: 400yen
1 Radish with green leaves: 100yen
1 Bitter persimmon: 100yen
——– 2,900JPY in total

There is an issue about persimmons. Since Niigata is in northern part of Japan, most of persimmons here are bitter because of chilly climate. You can get naturally sweet persimmon, if you were in Hiroshima or Wakayama because they are warm places. The issue in Niigata is how to get rid of bitterness from the persimmons. There are three ways to do that:
1) To make persimmon dry fruits; You peel off, tie with code, and hang them outside under the roof. You might need some nets as a protection preventing birds from eating them.
2) To use chemical reaction of strong alcohol; You put the upper part of persimmons into alcohol that is stronger than 40%. And put them into plastic bags to keep them airtight for several days.
3) is surprising one, You just keep the bitter persimmon until it gets sweet. I don’t know how long it would take. There is a moment between ripening and rotting. So it must be a very short period of time. In that moment, the bitter persimmon becomes sweet. It is not “You eat when you want to eat”, but you have to eat when it happens. I know a person who said that it tasted rotten when she ate this type of persimmon. She said she would never eat any kind of persimmons again. So it seems that bad experience left trauma about persimmon.

Today I found this type of bitter persimmon. A lady explained to me. She raised her sample persimmon. “See, this is a little early. You keep it more time, then you can eat this sweet”. I have been interested in this type of bitter persimmon for so long. I asked her to sell that sample to me. It was 100 yen. Shown in the photo is the one. Part of it looks ready but other part of it looks still early to eat. I will tell you the result.

There were a little chilly autumn days recently. I thought the mountain Iide might have got snow on the top. As I expected, I found that there was snow on Wednesday 28th.

These sparrows had been somewhere for one month or so. It was the season that there were a plenty of rice grains in paddy fields. They liked rice better than bird seeds that I give them. But now the season has changed, they have com back to my garden.

A ginkgo tree has not become yellow enough. It would be still earlier to be the best color.

Another yellow thing in autumn is this introduced species from north America. You can see this flower anywhere in Japan at this time of season.

A river and the mountain Sugana-dake. Soon the leaves will be yellow and red on the mountains.