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.
On the way back, the high-speed train “Shin-kansen” was so crowded with passengers. I had to be standing at the end section of a train car until the trains got to Takasaki where is a kind of mid-point between Tokyo and Niigata.
When the trains departed Takasaki, I got a non-reserved seat.
Finally I got to my hometown in Niigata Plain. Now I’m going to upload this post from the living room of my house.
Today, the weather was fine, and the sky was clear.
I could take a photo of Iide Mountains with some snow on top of it.
By the way, I went to a supermarket and bought foods a little.
Goldenrod
Japanese pampas grass
Ducks on the water
A Shrine in a Village
Persimmons on a tree
When I was a kid a half century ago, this was a timber bridge. Its width was so narrow that only a small vehicle could cross.
I could see snow on Mountain Iide(飯豊山地) with my eyes, but it was not clear on a photo. I have processed the above photo much.
I went to the old downtown area of Niigata today. I got an influenza vaccination on my shoulder in a small clinic there. Since it’s the “old” downtown, anything there is going down. I think the reason of declining comes from multiple factors; Japan’s aging society, spreading of commercial districts from city center to surrounding area due to motorization, the long economic downturn of Japan aka “lost thirty years”, and so on.
There used to be three Chinese restaurants in that district. I mean that “Chinese Restaurant” is of serving Chinese food cooked by Chinese people. Having visited there today, I got to know that two of three such restaurants had been closed and taken place by another shops. One of the three, only “鵬龍” survives.
After the flu shot, I took my lunch in “鵬龍”. 広東麺 was hot, so it took a time for me to eat. And then I got on a bus to JR Niigata Station. I just wanted to go home soon. Getting off a local train, I bought a small flower bundle in my village in order to offer to the altar of my deceased father.
Vehicles and Motorcycles are Prohibited on this Road
Goldenrods from North America are encroaching on Japan’s vegetation.
Gozu Mountains
Mountain Sugana
A Shrine by the River Bank
Ginkgo tree in the shrine is still green, but it will turn to be yellow soon
Chinese cabbages are growing bigger and faster that I thought
Leaf Lettuces are not growing well.
Radishes are still thin. I want them to be thicker.
It will probably be the only fig that I can get in this fall. Many figs fell down during drought in summer.
Black Persimmons. It is a rare species.
A Flower of Rose “Papa Meilland” was eaten by insects. So, its shape is bad.
A small Blue Berry Tree has got its Leaves Red.
That’s all for today.
I need to take my mother to a big hospital tomorrow morning. The hospital is located in very inconvenient place. It is too far to walk from the railway station. I don’t know why that location was selected at the time of planning. But they may say, it is next to the interchange of an expressway, so it would help a lot in the case of emergency of a patient in local area behind. But you know, an interchange of an expressway would never be constructed in the center of a city.
Anything on the ground in Niigata is planned, designed, and constructed with precondition that everyone in the society moves by a car. People without car would never be given a consideration at all. I have a driver’s license, but don’t have a car because I don’t like driving. I am not going to blame anyone who drives a car, but I myself feel uncomfortable to drive a car on the road, especially with a concept that an individual person’s car runs and occupies a certain area of public road. One concern is safety, and the other issue for me is that a public road often becomes a battle ground where each individual person’s interests crush, even though physical crush happens not so often (it should be). I know my driving technique is poor and is likely to make other people angry with me.
Anyway, I hope that the retest of tomorrow will not result in a major health problem of my mother.
Dates on the tape show when I put the persimmons into plastic bags; Oct.14, 17, and 20. I think I will be able to eat one a day from Wednesday.
Now almost three months have passed since I retired my job and came back Japan. Probably I spend these days with a little bit of lazy life style. It’s like; wake up in the morning at 6, then cook breakfast, eat it at 7, read English book with a dictionary until 9:30, then usually I work in the garden to care vegetables and fruits trees through the morning hours.
Today, rather than to work in my garden, I went to a supermarket before noon, because rainfall was coming according to weather forecast. I took my lunch with a watching video sharing site (the famous one). And then I have been watching a DVD of Japanese teaching training course from 2 to 4. But I was sleeping most of the time. I started practicing a piano at 4, cooking a supper at 5, eat the supper at 6:20, and now I am writing this.
Perhaps I will not be able to teach Japanese again. I am still trying to study teaching skills for the next time I teach Japanese language for foreign people. But I may give up the career as a Japanese teacher. I am not sure for this matter.
So, the task was to take an ID photo of my mother. The photo is needed for applying an issue of the National ID card. We visited a photograph studio in Niigata today. It was like shown in the photo above, but after several shots, the lady at the studio told my mother to make an angle toward slightly to right, and to make a little smile. I was wondering because such shot was not suitable for ID photo, but I understood why that lady took a such shots. She said that “smiling photo” was free of charge. I really thanked her. She knew and I knew that smiling photo would be used in the future.
When we got out of the studio, my mother went to a department store by herself, and I went to see Shinano River.
Recently a neighbor gave me eight seedlings of strawberry. I planted them today. Every time I laid black plastic sheet for ground cover, I felt it difficult to neatly place it on the ground. As for the onions, I planted about fifty of them. Since I chose the taller ones to plant, many shorter seedlings are still left unplanted. Will I dispose or plant? Actually, there is neither a place to plant remaining seedlings, nor my energy to do it.
After doing those works, I thought I was going to take my mother to the town of Niigata. Since an ID photo is necessary to apply for the issue of the national ID card “My Number Card”, I wanted to take her to a photograph studio in Niigata. She has never got a driver’s license, and her passport is expired long time ago. She doesn’t have any ID card with photo.
I talked to her at 11am. Then I realized that she was sleeping in the bed. I don’t think 11am is a time to sleep, but anyway, I had to give up my idea to take her to Niigata.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 