A Spring Day in Futara-yama Shrine

It’s been warmer and warmer in Utsunomiya.

It had been raining in the morning, so I gave up playing tennis and lazily took a morning nap after eating breakfast.

I slept for a couple of hours and got up around noon. Luckily, it cleared up in the sky.

I went to Futara-yama shrine to feel a spring breeze. It’s about a ten-minute-biking away from my home.
Going up along stone steps, I found several religious people and lots of pigeons as usual.
A small difference was that I found a full-bloomed white plum tree in the shrine yard.
It’s beautifully blooming in the sacred and warmer spring atmosphere.

I couldn’t ask for a nicer spring afternoon like today.

I’m sure that an exciting cherry blossom season is coming soon.

Quiz "Guess Who He Is"

One of my office workers asked me to find some pictures of my own which were taken when I was a small child.

The office worker was in charge of designing my department’s web page. About one hundred people are working at the same department.

The web page contains a monthly quiz that shows some pictures taken at their younger age and guess who he is or she is.

The answer of the next month quiz is me.

Can you answer the quiz correctly by just seeing those pictures?

It Snowed in Utsunomiya

After snowing two days consecutively, yesterday and the day before yesterday, it became sunny day today in Utsunomiya.

I played tennis with my friends today on Sunday as usual.  It covered beautifully with snow near the tennis courts.

I enjoyed both playing tennis and taking pictures of beautiful snow-covered nearby scene.

My Birthday

I had my 51st birthday yesterday, on February 6th.

Kiyono, my wife bought a birthday cake for me at her favorite sweet shop as she did on my birthday last year.

This time, she asked a staff of the sweet shop some candles. We put them on the cake top and lit them to celebrate my birthday.

I bought a birthday present to me by myself last year. The present was a trip to Florida with my family. I still vividly remember the wonderful trip. Honesty, I can’t believe that the trip was the event almost one year ago.

I’m vaguely thinking of buying a present to me again but don’t know what it would be.
A tennis racket, a bike, a camera, a PC, an iPad, a trip …

The thinking process itself can be fun to me.