still missing

I came back home from the English conversation club and some shopping just before noon. I was very satisfied with all of the things, because I could enjoy the conversation club very much. After a while, my husband asked me where his door key was. Then I noticed that I had brought his key with me to the club by mistake. Each of us has our own key. Two keys have similar key holders, whose color and shape are almost the same. No doubt I opened the door with his key and went into my house. So the key must be lost somewhere inside my house. I began to look for it after lunch, however it’s still missing. I am now down in the dumps.

Today I learned some words about bad feeling in the conversation club. Then I never thought that I would use those words soon.

being “under the weather”---不快な, 加減が悪くて
being “down in the dumps”---憂鬱な
feel queasy---- 気持ちが悪い、むかむかする
throw up---吐く

I Kiss Your Hand, Madame

Yesterday our instructor of the hula club gave a word of command to us. “Stand on your left leg! Hold your right ankle with your right hand! Stretch your left hand to the left side!” My left leg shook so much badly that I could not stand-and vice versa. Our instructor kindly helped me stand, saying “I Kiss Your Hand, Madame.” (“奥様お手をどうぞ”の原題) By the way, our instructor is a lovely lady. The sense of balance fails while aging. I need to stand on one leg from time to time.

on such a cold day

It’s been freezing cold for the past several days. Our town was slightly covered with snow early in the morning, but it didn’t accumulate so much and melted completely by noon. I was scheduled to take a hula lesson this afternoon. I hesitated to go to a sports center for a while. Some twenty years ago, I had broken my leg while playing volleyball on such a cold day as today ,and ten years ago, I had injured my arm when I had slipped down on a snowy road. Those bad memories flashed across my mind. At the last moment I decided to go out. There were very few passengers on the subway train. Forty percent of the regular members in the hula club were absent. Our instructor told us to be careful not to sprain our ankles while dancing because accident is apt to occur on a severe cold day. We did more warming-up exercises than usual. Anyway, I came back home safely and my blood circulation was improved.

A chat

A friend of mine came over to my house this afternoon. We talked about our New Year holidays over green tea, Japanese cake and dried sweet potatoes which I had bought in Shikoku. Her ninety-year-old mother-in-law had come to her condo to eat New Year’s dinner with her. So, she prepared a special menu for her elderly mother because she has weak teeth. She thought that soft foods like pumpkin soap and tofu were suitable. Her mother seemed satisfied with her kind hospitality. However, once the sukiyaki party began, her mother ate meat and konnyaku very quickly, which I think seems hard for elderly people to eat.

haiku in English

I went to the Cross Cultural Center in my city to take a lesson of haiku in English yesterday afternoon. Five members gathered. We submitted three〜eight haikus. The number of haikus we should submit is not set. Meanwhile, in the Japanese haiku club to which I belong, we should submit five haikus regularly. As usual, our American teacher edited each of our haikus. She always teaches us proper usage of English words. It’s very difficult for me to choose appropriate English words from a lot of vocabulary.

We had a coffee break for a while. One of our members came back to Japan from South Dakota in the U.S. A. just ten days ago. She showed us many pictures and told us interesting stories she experienced there for two months. She felt so funny when she saw some wild turkeys crossing the road in the morning of Thanksgiving Day.

Kids wearing colorful jackets

I often see many children going home after school on my way to or on my way back from a nearby supermarket in the afternoon. There is no school uniform for elementary school in my area. They are wearing colorful jackets and pants these days. Most of them are well coordinated.

One day, at a traffic light, I heard a girl saying that she wouldn't answer any questions of others. Another girl soon answered back, "Won't you answer even our teacher's question?" Two girls seemed angry with each other. They were in an ugly mood. I recalled my childhood then and felt nostalgic. I used to quarrel with my friends about a trivial thing. So trivial thing! Happy, good days!


severe cold
kids wearing colorful jackets
jump around

Bible class

It was freezing cold this morning. I hurried to the subway station to attend the first Bible class of the year. Once I started to walk, I didn't feel so cold as I had expected. All of the five members were present. Our pastor had a slight cold.

Today's teaching was that famous phrase "Man shall not live by bread alone.(Luke 4:4)". There is no limit in pursuing our wants. We pursue fine clothes, brand bags, luxrious accessaries, fame, social position, etc. However, if we succed in getting those things, we experience vague dissatisfaction. I am not a Christian, but I know that I need to nourish my soul. Our pastor told me to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness in order to nourish my soul. Just as our body needs daily food, so does our spirit. The room was warm comfortably and the first snow was falling outside.

Aging society

It was cloudy with rainy spells here today. The weather gradually got better by the evening, but it is still freezing cold. I feel most comfortable in a kotatsu, a Japanese heating device.

Japanese society is aging rapidly. In 2007, one in five Japanese are over 65 years old. It is said that in 2050, one in three will be over 65. With that estimate, there is no need to build more new roads today. I think it is more important to improve transportation facilities so that the old can easily use them. Although I live in a relatively big city, there are many stations without escalators or elevators. There are lots of improvements that need to be made to public transportation, not only for the old but also for the disabled.

Sanuki-udon, wheat- flour noodles in Sanuki

It is very cold and the sky is covered with thick layer of clouds. The coldest season of the year has already set in.

Nice to meet you,○○○. Thank you so much for your kind comment. I can't find out where you are and I don't know how to reply to your comment as I am a beginner. If I could know your URL, I would visit you and leave a comment for you.
Yeah, Sanuki-udon, wheat- flour noodles in Sanuki(Kagawa Prefecture) is very delicious. It is sold here and there in Shikok. This time each of the tour members was given a bag of Sanuki-udon as a small gift by the travel agency. It took eight minutes to boil it and it was very chewy to bite and was very,very good. One of the relatives sent me Sanuki-udon last November while he was traveling in Shikoku. The udon was very easy to cook. It took only 60〜90 seconds to boil. It had not been so firm compared with the one I was given this time by the travel agency. The taste was good and cooking that udon was a piece of cake.


a piece of cake---非常に楽なこと、簡単なこと

the 88 Temple Pilgrimage of Shikoku

I took part in a one-day bus trip as part of the 88 Temple Pilgrimage of Shikoku the other day (Jan.13). The weather was fine as if it were congratulating me on my first trip of the year. Before the trip, I expected to leisurely take in the scenery of Shikoku, looking for some inspiration for composing haikus. However the trip was filled with candles, incense and sutras. I had to chant the sutras of Hannyashingyou 般若心経 14 times while I visited six temples. I had neither enough time to take pictures, nor to walk around freely for very long time. The experience reconfirmed to me that the trip really was a temple pilgrimage. Most of the tour members were in their fifties. I found a tiny stone image of Jizo 石地蔵 at one of the six temples.


take in---(映画・芝居などを）観にいく / 訪ねる、見物する

Japanese haiku club

This afternoon I went to a community center to take a lesson of Japanese haiku for the first time this year. There were twelve members including our teacher and an assistant teacher. One new comer has joined us. I am a beginner of Japanese haiku. I started to study it only nine months ago. Kukai, a haiku gathering, is really exciting. We compete each other for a good score. As usual, we submitted five haikus of ours and chose five haikus from all the haikus we submitted. All the names of composers are not shown. I hoped someone would choose even only one haiku of mine. And it is the most honorable when our haiku is chosen by our teacher. My result was so so today. I got 5 points out of 60 points, or one twelfth, or about eight percent of all the chosen haikus. I was very happy that one of my haikus was chosen by my teacher.


重ね着の色のとりどり襟元に---1point

渦なさず戸惑える如冬の潮---2points

初旅や潮風吹き抜く島に立つ---2points

Needless to say, I am in a beginner's class.

the twelve animal signs of the Oriental zodiac(干支）

This is the Year of the Mouse. I happened to find cute 狛ねずみ instead of 狛犬 at one of the shrines along 哲学の道 in Kyoto last November. The name of the shrine is 大豊神社. This shrine is also famous for its wonderful camellias and dedicates Daikokusama. Kojiki 古事記 says that Daikokusama was saved by a mouse. 大黒天 Daikokuten is one of the 七福神 the Seven Deities of Good Fortune.

the disaster's 13th anniversary

At 5:46 a.m. on January 17, 1995, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurred. The number of victims is 6434.

I sometimes check foods for an emergency after I experienced the earthquake. Fortunately, there was not so much heavy damage in my area, however, lifelines like water, electricity and gas inevitably stopped. Imagine that you can't access all of them all of a sudden. Eelectricity was restored at first and next was the gas. Water was the last. I couldn't wash my hands and face. Of course, I couldn't cook. I gradually faced a shortage of drinking water. The biggest problem was the toilets. Sorry for my dirty story. A water supply truck came to my area in about three days. I was really relieved at that time. Today I checked the expiration date of emergency foods in my closet near my door. I have been storing kanpan dried bread, senbei Japanese rice crackers, arare rice biscuits, canned bread ,candies and so on. Needless to say, bottled water is indispensable. Small vinyl bags and a pair of cooking scissors are very convenient for emergencies. Knives and cooking boards are not necessary. You can cut vegetables or meat with scissors and mix them in a venyl bag. I need to get used to survival cooking to deal with a natural disaster.

Winter memory

I visited my hometown, Shiga Prefecture, about this time of last January. Hira mountain range on the far side of Lake Biwa was so beautiful. The mountain range was capped with snow. I could enjoy the hazy scenery of the mountain and the lake, retracing my faded memories of my youth. Shiga is surrounded by mountains, a so called basin. The temperature there is about two degrees lower than in Kobe. We had much snow there back then, but recently not so much. I didn't go back to my hometown during the New Year's holidays of this year. My hometown is calling me!


hazy mountains
far beyond the lake-
retracing faded memories of youth

Tondo, fire festival of the New Year

The sky cleared up all day long. It was warm and mild like spring.
Today is the day of Tondo, a fire festival of the New Year. This event is also called Dondo, Sagityo, Otakiage, etc. Sagityo in Shiga Prefecture is held in March. Minatogawa Shrine in Kobe held the event from 9:30 this morning. My husband brought Shimenawa, New Year's decorations at my door and old charms to the shrine. Many New Year's things were burnt and amazake, sweet drink made from fermented rice, was served to everyone who joined the event at the shrine.This year, things go quite well in my home. Last year I missed the opportunity of Tondo. I could neither burn shimenawa in my yard, nor thow it away as a garbage. So, my husband brought two shimenawas to the shrine today. Most of the big Kadomatsus, New Year's decorative pine trees, in front of the stores were cut into pieces and removed. Matsu no uchi, the New Year week is over.

Men and cooking

A man shouldn’t enter a kitchen. That conservative teaching still survives in my generation. Some classmates said their wives don’t allow them to enter their kitchens. I was very surprised to hear that, because my husband didn’t mind entering my kitchen and I allow him with great pleasure. After retiring, he has become more interested in cooking, I’m very pleased with this phenomena. Am I a bad wife? Men in my husband’s family tree are said to be good cooks from generation to generation. If I am unable to do things because of illness, he will be able to survive by himself.

the Bridge of Madison Country

I watched an American film the Bridge of Madison Country again on TV last night. I was more impressed with Francesca's (Meryl Streep) way of living than before. She chose to live with her husband , devoting herself to her family including two children. After parting from Robert(Clint Eastwood), she lived for another 20 years, keeping 'the sweet memories for only four days' deeply in her mind. The last time I was not quite happy with her choice. Now I feel that her way of living is beautiful. Farewell scene in the rain was fantastic. I moved to tears again. And the scene of scattering her ashes around the Covered Bridge after her funeral was also impressing. The novel by Robert James Waller is being sold at the nearby bookstore. I'd like to read it if it is written in easy English.

Winter roses

It began to rain around three this afternoon. Now it's raining slightly. Only one rose is blooming at the corner of my front yard. It is not so gorgeous as a spring rose. Also, needless to say, the number of the roses has decreased in winter compared with in spring or autumn. The winter rose in my yard has got wet with cold rain and looks lonely. The faint red color of the flower makes me feel sadness and pity. I feel a touch of pathos in it. The Japanese word of 冬薔薇、winter roses, is a seasonal word in Japanese haiku.



old friends gather
carrying a half century of history
winter roses

Cool the room in winter

It was mild today too. The weather is holding. It is likely to rain tomorrow.
When I was sweeping outside this morning, I noticed one of the air conditioners was whirring loudly. It was a strange sound. To make matters worse, I found a mass of ice around the joint point between the outside appliance of the air conconditioner(shitsugaiki) and its hoses. The mass of ice was big and its diameter was about 10cm. Immediately, I ran to the room which my daughter’s family had used during the New Year’s holidays. Surprisingly, the air conditioner was working and its surface was covered with thick ice, about 3cm deep. It may have been working to cool the room since my daughter’s family left my house on Jan.2. Speaking of January 2, it was a very cold day. Why did it work to cool the room on such a cold day? I am now puzzled. The ice is melted and waterdrops keep falling from the electronic appliances still now.

new shoji, new paper sliding door

It was another fine and warm day. TV news said some dandelions have already come out somewhere in Japan 59 days earlier than the average year. Warm winter is comfortable, but soon I’m concerned about global warming. It’s said glaciers are melting gradually year after year and some islands are facing a crisis in that they are gradually sinking under the sea. Global warming is really scary. However, I bathed peacefully in the warm sunshine through new shojis this afternoon. I repapered them at the end of last year. It’s easy for me to repaper them because I used to help my mother do so in my childhood. However, I’ve never experienced to repaper a fusuma. I intended to try doing that in December of the last year, but I gave up. Today I asked a nearby home center to repaper three fusumas because Buddhist service for the dead of my family is approaching I’m planning to hold it at the beginning of February



shadow of a bird
suddenly flashes across
new shoji

the first lesson of hula dancing

It was very warm and mild today. I sweat a little on my way to the subway station this afternoon. I went to a sports center to take a lesson of hula dancing for the first time this year. The sports center is two station away from the nearest station. I was welcomed by lavish smile of staffs as usual. Of course, I smiled back to them. I am healed by their smile whenever I go there, though they might smile to customers from the commercial point of view. Anyway, smile is smile. It comforts me. My teacher is young and cute. Moreover, she is good at joking. Her joke makes me feel relaxed and comfortable. Today, she told us that she would adopt the step of modern hula from this new year. We had learned classical hula until the end of last year. I don't know in detail about the difference between modern hula and classical hula so far. Anyway, I am learning hula to be in good shape. Furthermore, I can enjoy hula music.

seven-herb rice porridge

On January 7th we have a custom of eating rice porridge containing seven herbs. It is believed that if we eat that, we will keep our health throughout the year. Actually my stomach is a little fatigued with New Year's food. It may be good for change to eat the porridge after eating osechi, traditional Japanese New Year's meal. It must heal my stomach. Seri, nazuna, gogyou, hakobe, hotokenoza, suzuna, suzushiro. Oh, it's difficult for me to say all of them in English. At least, there is suzushiro, radish in my refrigerator. I hope a set of seven herbs is sold at a nearby supermarket. I'll go to the store later.

Warm weather

It was sunny with cloudy spells here today. The weather looked like early March. It was so warm that it felt as if spring had already come. I went to see my family doctor. Today was the first consultation day this year. I had been worried about the result of blood test for about two weeks. Lady Luck smiled on me today! The result was good. It seems I have no trouble with my stomach and bowels so far. On my way back home, I took a walk for a while. Fragrant wintersweets(蝋梅) are already in full bloom. I touched the petals of the flowers. They were cold like icy glass. The buds of plum blossoms are still tight.

Happy New Year

May this new year be filled with good health and happiness for you and your family!