I finally had a carry of 200 yards.
We are now in the middle of a Golden Week holiday, it’s usually in the first week of May.
This time if we take 1,2,3 of May as day-off it was going to be 10 days long.
Many people from overseas are enjoying weak Japanese Yen. That’s great. I remember when I was young me, my friends, we were benefited by opposite situation and enjoyed shopping abroad.
We have a handful of Costcos in Japan.
We go shopping once a month, usually buy bread, pizza, eggs, and snacks.
What we can buy depends on what Costco offers at the time we go there.
We enjoy what we can buy, but lately we are obsessed with this potato chips.
It’s baked, it’s delicious.
In the previous shopping we could not buy it, so this time we purchased two of them. One big box got 12 boxes so we got 24 small boxes.
My mom loves this too, so we were happy to have enough.
We go shopping once bread is consumed. One bag of breads contains around 36 ea, and we eat 6 of them in the morning, so it’ll be in one week we will again visit Costco.
These days, Japanese Yen is weak therefore the prices might not be affordable like used to, but we like the air Costco has. It’s like we are visiting a grocery store overseas.
Even if Corona related controls eased, cats and mom may use our support and taking trip is not easy for us. When there is limitation, we enjoy what we can do.
Forget about overseas trip, instead we can visit Tokyo, such as cruising around Shinjuku gives us a fresh experience. Or we can go to Kamakura for Daibutsu (the great Buddha). And professional sport season is fully bloomed.
It’s already end of March, a professional baseball opened the season, JLPGA opened the season, and for rugby One-League they will have the final round in May.
We will go enjoy Dena’s baseball games, Canon Eagles’ rugby matches, and JLPGA’s golf tours. There is PGA tour in October, this is the final year so we hope there might be Tiger Woods. Hopefully it’s not going to be crazy hot this summer.
I think we had the cold day with 10 Celsius before last week, then today we are at 25 Celsius.
The warm air causes itches with yellow sand from China. It was unusual at this time of year.
I got worried that the trees in our back yard suddenly became taller, I trimmed them down to prevent a bee’s nest. The recent extreme heat somewhat accelerated more of them. We found three or four nests last summer. Instinctively I got scared. They won’t sting but may harm children in our neighbors.
Summer comes earlier compared to a decade ago.
We don’t have a decent long enough rainy season these days, shorter spring, instead we welcome an early summer at the end of March.
We have no one to blame, we will live extreme heat if we have one this summer.
It’s been one year since my first course at the university.
While working as a contractor in HR at a pharmaceutical company, I’ve completed 12 courses. There are 8 courses left.
Also, it is getting warm, it’s time to start looking job descriptions on the web which might be applicable to me one year later. In parallel, it’s good idea seeking a possibility of changing my current contract to other department where handles data for the company.
Latter would be preferred but not sure it would happen.
I’m juggling work, life, study for a year, the balance so far is good.
Less time on weekends but we rarely go out so as a result it has not affected much. When I look at a bright side of studying, it gave me a chance to know that I can learn new things at my age, I didn’t feel I can’t remember this much because I’m old, that’s a valuable finding.
I’ve chosen two-year course, and thinking it might be possible to extend it to four-year course, time will tell.
In computer science major, in each term each group holds about 40 learners, I’m not sure how many active learners are out there in total, maybe 50-60 groups.
In the current group, there is one Japanese beside myself. We are attending from different countries and regions. I think that’s what makes it easy for us to accept peer’s opinion, listen, before negate. The learning environment is very nice and comfortable.
I’m learning about a transistor and a logic gate, how they came about, their primitive structures and so on.
It’s unthinkably long way to iPhone from those gates.
There are real life developers and engineers in the course, they are for a degree. Others also for a degree but struggling to make due date for assignments. I’m struggling too and that’s fun.
Visiting temple to reclaim a calm mind.
About a week ago, we watched someone was visiting this temple “Kenchoji-temple” 建長寺 on TV.
Behind of the temple is a famous Kamakura Gakuen (鎌倉学園) stylish building. Contrast of old era and modern era.
It’s in Kamakura. We haven’t been there for a while, and today is a national holiday, so we took a quick short trip.
Kamakura is about 30 km away from our house. we left at 10:00, drove about 40 minutes to arrive, then walked around for an hour.
We refrained from taking pictures of inside of the buildings, as it’s a holy place, and it’s better enjoy quietly the air and atmosphere.
We prayed at several halls, offered incense sticks.
Another thing we wanted to try was “Kenchin-jiru” けんちん汁, it’s a miso soup said to be invented at Kenchoji-temple. Like 建長寺=けんちょう-じ Kencho-ji became けんちん-じる a name of well known miso soup.
Of course it’s a temple meal so it should be a vegetable dish.
However, ingredients are fried with sesame oil and also tofu is in it therefore its nutrition is good and balanced.
We visited a soba restaurant in front of the temple. Here. Gosan Bekkan.
It was delicious, we were happy and became full.
Kenchin-jiru recipe by MAFF
Ingredients:
こんにゃく、ごぼう、れんこん、にんじん、大根、さといも、豆腐、干ししいたけ、小松菜
Konjac, burdog, lotus root, carrot, radish, taro, tofu, dried shiitake, komatsuna, and kelps for making soup.
Konjac, x1
burdog, a half
lotus root, 10cm
carrot, a half
radish, 10cm
taro, 2-3 pcs
tofu, 1 pack
dried shiitake, 5 pcs
Komatsuna, a bunch
Cut all vegetables into a bite size and fry them in a pan in sesame oil 5-10 minutes. Radish became half transparent, then pour water (200ml water/ per bowl). Remove a scum and add kelp soup stock, add soy sauce as needed.
You can eat boiled soba with the soup, boil soba (100g per person) separately and add it into a soup bowl. It’s a Kenchin-soba!
Overall, the short trip was nice without traffic. We arrived at home 13:00, a three-hour sightseeing tour.
Just like this place, there are several famous temples, and one Daibutsu in Kamakura, so we will visit Daibutsu sama next time.
It’s a second time we saw snowing after the beginning of the year on 1st Jan.
I know it’s a little of snowing, but in Tokyo or Yokohama it’s called much snowing as it’s giving much impact on traffic and commuters already. Some highways were closed and trains are delaying.
And
My older brother, as usual went to the office in Tokyo, so we assume he would not come back home tonight.
I’m on my fifth term from February, and it’s a last term of annual year for me.
By the way, there is a rugby match Canon of Japan vs. Blues of New Zealand. And we will be there on Saturday.
Unfortunately, François “Faf” de Klerk and Jessie Kriel of Canon had injuries and went back to RSA. I hope they will heal soon for their test match in July, and also strongly hope them to come back to the field with full strength as soon as possible. There is an obvious difference between having them or not in the field. A speed and how a game goes or moves.
Also one more RSA player Kwagga Smith got injury and undergone surgery.
What we as rugby fans in Japan can do would be humbly waiting for their return.
https://x.com/jim_ontheright/status/1741739588714955246?s=46&t=3_AuizOvqjHFHAH-M5wHhA
We experience earthquakes quite often, and kind of are used to it.
However, it does not mean we are not scared or surprised by them. We get scared and pray for safety of anyone we care of.
Today, there was M7 level earthquake in Ishikawa prefecture at Japan sea side, and it still is continuing. in Yokohama, where at Pacific sea side had magnitude 3 earthquake here. My mother and my older brother were out and on the car so they didn’t notice it. Anyway they were back safely fortunately.
We are all very sensitive about earthquakes in winter as it reminds us about 2011.3.11 earthquake.
All new year tv programs are taken over by emergency news reports.
It’s been more than decade, and it seems come to checking us when we are forgetting and taken off our guard.
It’s anyone’s call, there is only a little we can do, the force of nature is mighty.
My driving distance reached close to 200 yards.
It’s the Year of the Dragon in 2024. I heard a leap year will be abolished soon.
What was like your 2023? I hope you had a wonderful 362 days so far.
Talking about a leap year and leap day. When I was in junior high school I had a classmate who was born 29 Feb, she was joking about her age is four because her birthday will come only every four years. What is going to happen to her if a leap day is eliminated? I wonder.
It’s already 28th December, we have three days to 2024.
I studied many this year, and I will need more studies in 2024.
My credits count 21/60 to date. Everything is going well.
I hope all your dreams come true in 2024. Onwards and upwards!
Maybe after one year or more, finally I got my clear sight back.
Last Sunday I went to see an eye doctor and took detailed examination. It’s first time after years, probably a decade.
I take health checkup annually at clinic but their eyesight check is simplified one. My eyesight has been good for years in the examination results.
But now I need to read textbook every day and stare at computer screen longer than used to, I was not able to continue reading recently due to my distorted sight. I tried eyedrop and it worked hours at first but eyes got used to it and I started having headache because of blurred vision.
No one can avoid getting poor eyesight by age.
One day I had lunch with my friend, she is a bit younger than me and she got bifocal glasses, that was surprising and encouraging.
When I could see I have never imagined if my eye sight goes one day. It gradually did and now I can’t see my fingertips clearly.
I remember when my father asked me to read newspaper for him, he was not able to read due to illness. He said he read same line over and over, his eyes couldn’t move to the next line. Now I feel that, it’s really a pain that I can’t read words.
And today I received my new glasses, it’s lightweight, durable, and allowing me to see a hangnail.
To be able to see, to be able to stand and walk, and to be able to eat from mouth are significant skills of life.
Cats come down at 4:50, every morning without being late.
I prepare milk soaked bread for G san, and add dry food for Chobi and Choro, and clean litters then I’m allowed to go back to sleep for 20, 30 minutes.
Boiled apple 