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.
I have got another hot day today. Highest temperature of the day was 35 Celsius degrees. I worked in my garden at 5 a.m. and planted seeds of green vegetable this morning, but other than that, I had spent most of the time in house, turning on the air conditioner.
Since some of my students take a look at this blog, I think it would be better for me to take pictures and upload them so that my students could know what my current life is like. But it was too hot to go outside to take pictures these days. The followings are photos that I took five years ago.
Main Dish of Breakfast on August 30, 2020Two TomatoZinnia Flower after RainMorning Glory that is close to the Original SpeciesSwallowtail Butterfly
Month of September started today. But I didn’t take any pictures today, so, I just upload pictures that I took ten years ago. It’s not exactly 10 years ago, because I took the following pictures on September 3rd in 2015.
Today’s post is not about today, but about what I saw in the last days of my staying in the campus. At that time, I walked around the campus and took a lot of pictures. There is a pond at the northeast of the campus. When I went there on July 14th, I saw some lotus flowers.
Tomorrow is the first day of the school year 2025-2026. I just imagine that Japanese major students whom I know are coming to the classroom as they did in the last semester.
I planted seeds of cabbage ten days ago. But I was disappointed by the result. As shown in the photo, I got very few sprouts. Although I want to plant those sprouts in my garden, they are insufficient in number.
Cabbage Seeds Resulted in Poor Germination Rate
So, I went to a different shop today, and bought another package of cabbage seeds. It costed 440 JPY, not cheap. I hope this time I could get more sprouts.
I hadn’t written a blog post for three weeks from 4th to 24th this month. During those days, I was making a system of microphone, amplifier, and speaker so that my mother can talk to me from the first floor to the second floor in my house. Making it from the scratch is impossible. I just connected several circuits that were already assembled.
Not only because I was making this, but I had to get rid of weeds and to cultivate the soil in the garden, and I had to bear the severe heat of the level of disaster. These are the reasons why I could not post anything these three weeks.
And I realized that I had lost viewers from the country where my students are. From coming Monday, they are going to the classroom again. But they will not see me there. I am wondering if some of them would remember me, or just forget because I will not be there.
I used only salt for taste, didn’t use any seasoning nor spices. This is the way Japanese grill fishes. We eat grilled fishes with natural taste. And I made notches on the fishes so that gas fire effectively can heat the fish meat.
Severe summer heat continues. Since I don’t have my vehicle, I have to walk to a supermarket. Go-and-back is a little less than two miles. I don’t walk this distance in the middle of the day. So, these days, I go shopping right after my supper in the evening.
Tonight, I found some horse mackerels were remaining in the refrigerated shelf of the supermarket. They were fresh fishes for Sashimi (raw fish). But the time was already past 7:30 p.m. There were not many customers in the store. It was highly likely that no customers would buy them until the closing time at 8:30 p.m. If it’s a small shop, those fishes would turn to be grilled fishes and appear on the shelves next day. But because it’s a supermarket, I thought they would be disposed as a waste after the store closed in one hour. I didn’t want them to be wasted. I bought one package in which two horse mackerels were packed.
When I got to my house, I quickly started processing. Now the main dishes of tomorrow supper have already decided. I hope that storing one day in the refrigerator could make the taste of fish meat better.
Horse Mackerels for Sashimi that I bought TonightHorse Mackerels that I processed at 8:30p.m.
The new semester will commencement next week. But I haven’t prepared for the semester at all, because I had quit the job as a teacher for Japanese language.
I have written nothing on my blog for these three weeks. It’s probably because heat of the summer is very severe and I am exhausted for six years of hard working.
Anyway, soon the students will come back to the campus, although I will not be able to see them.
Amid the heat of 35 Celsius, I walked more than 30 minutes. I had an appointment with a telecommunication company at 10a.m. Like other rural area, the shopping district is always located in remote area from the old town. All the customers are supposed to come by own vehicles to a shopping mall. So, people like me without a car have difficulties to buy a thing or get services which other people can get. I am a minority, and people having a car are majority in this society.
I bought a Samsung’s Galaxy. When I said this on the video call, my older sister seemed to laugh at me. Actually, I don’t understand why she looks down Samsung products. I just bought what a store clerk recommended me and I thought it had enough performance.
Vegetable Rahmen
When I got out of the store, the sunshine had become even stronger such that I could worry about heat stroke and damage on my skin. It would have taken another thirty minutes for way back to the JR station. I walked, but stopped frequently under the shades. I called my mother using the mobile phone that I had just bought, to say I could not get back home by noon. She told me not to hurry to come home, rather, to take a rest somewhere in the town.
So, I got into a Rahmen restaurant near the railway station. And ate “Vegetable Rahmen” of 880JPY there. Other than me, there was an old man in the restaurant, drinking alcohol in the middle of the day. It was around 12:30 on week day. But there were only two customers in the restaurant. I could hear only sound of cooking and voices from TV. It was very quiet. Clearly it showed to me the declining of a local town in Japan.
Today I went to Niigata because I wanted my ID photo. Actually, I had tried to take my photo by myself with my digital camera. But it was so difficult to make my photo a good one with right lighting, straight direction of face, and good color contrast. I wasted more than two hours yesterday and I gave up the idea to take my photo by myself. So today, I went to a photo studio in Niigata. The studio told me to wait for 30 minutes for processing my photo.
The outside, under the summer sunshine, was too hot. But I walked to Bandai area of the downtown Niigata. An idea came to my mind and that was to go to the observatory in the nearby tall building. There is a 20-story building which is also an office of the famous local newspaper company. I remembered that there was an observatory at the top of the building. I thought it was good to kill thirty minutes.
Toki Messe Building Standing by Niigata West Port
There is a tall building in the photo above. That building also has an observatory. I have been there several times. The observatory has a good view from south-west to north. But you cannot get good view from North east to south.
Bandai Bridge on Shinano River and So-called Niigata Island
You see a tall building with sharp triangle roof on top. That building also has an observatory. But the view from there is limited only from north to South. You cannot see the west. That means you cannot enjoy the view of the sea and Sado island on the west. Actually, if you are male, you could see them by going to men’s restroom. I am a man, so I am not sure whether or not female people can see the west through toilet window. If they can’t, I think it is clearly one of sexual discrimination against women because man can get ocean view while women can’t.
Today’s my conclusion is that the best observatory in the downtown Niigata is where I went to today. It is on the 20th floor of the “Mediaship” building in Bandai area. The second best is of Toki Messe. If you want to take a good picture of Shinano River, Toki Messe is better than Mediaship.
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