Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum

I visited the Ernest Hemingway House with my family in Key West, Florida in early April this year.
The Hemingway Home & Museum is located near a prominent lighthouse close to the Southern coast of the island.
It's a wonderful crisp sunny day for both driving 129 miles (207 km) from Miami and visiting several tourists' spots there.

We joined a guide tour in the museum.

I've never met Ernest Hemingway before, of course, but my image of him was very close to the tour guide himself.

The way of his explanation of Ernest and the stories of the site were worth the admission fees.

Key West was one of the top priority places in my trip to Florida.
We enjoyed great views while driving and visiting the beautiful Key West island very much.

Tennis Tournament in Kiyohara Industrial Park

I took part in the Kiyohara Industrial Park Tennis Tournament yesterday. The tournament this year is different from the past ones in several points.

First, it is usually held on the first Saturday in September, but it's held in August this year.

Our company, CANON offers part of employees to take promotional examinations on the first Saturday in September. One of my tennis friends had been unable to participate in the tournament because he should take the exams. I was happy to ask him to attend the tournament this year.

Second, my closest tennis friend Mr. Ogata was transferred to Tokyo Head Office in the end of August. Our branch has been targeted to reduce the number of employees as a part of our company's slim down policy to fight against the world wide economic recession. I feel sad that we have to compete the tournament without him this year.

The result was that we became a runner-up. We won the tournament two years ago, but all three doubles teams were defeated by the winner's three teams at the final this year.

We promised to win next year.

After coming back home, my wife advised me that the shorted way to win the tournament next year is to ask the winner's team to become one of their members, lol.

"Robert Is Here Fruit Stand" in Florida

For visiting the Everglades National Park, we stayed three nights in Homestead, Florida in early April.
It took a couple of hours from our hotel to Whitewater Bay area of the Everglades where wild dolphins were living.
On our way to the park, we found a cozy fruits shop called “Robert Is Here Fruit Stand.”

They offer various tropical fruits, vegetables and milkshakes made from their fruits. We had a cup of Canestel or egg fruit milkshake which was completely unfamiliar to us. The taste was very nice: I promise you can enjoy it!

They also featured a mini petting zoo where there were emus, donkeys, goats, parrots, ducks, chickens, geese, tortoises and more. Amazingly they lived in the same area together! The staff members were feeding animals with fresh tomatoes and watermelons there.

My Summer Holidays End Today

My company CANON offers employees summer holidays from August 8 to August 16 this year. It’s the last day of my holidays today.

I went to my hometown Shimane prefecture on August 10 and stayed 6 days at my mother’s house and came back here in Utsunomiya yesterday.

I enjoyed every minute meeting my 84-year-old mother, my brothers, my sister-in-law and relatives.
My mother living with my brother and sister-in-law has a garden next to her house. My mother loves growing flowers and vegetables in the garden.

When I was living in Shimane, I did not care much about living creatures in the garden.
But now, I live in the 4th flour of a condominium, when I go back to Shimane, looking at those living creatures is always great fun to me.

Track and Field Race and Summer Festival

My younger daughter Rina took part in the Utsunomiya Citizens’ Track and Field Race today. She won both 200m and 800m races. Congratulations Rina!

Rina holds four certificates. She got lower two certificates in the 1500m race and the 800m race in May. Upper two certificates were, 200m and 8000m, given to her today.
She is a member of track and field club of her junior high school. She usually attends a junior-high 800m race or a 1500m race , or both.
She said that today’s race was for amateur athletes, so some of stronger runners would not attend today’s race.
That ment there would be an ample chance for her to win even the 200m race.
It was the first time for Rina to compete the 200m race, but she won the race.

She had finished the races in the morning and came back home to go to Miya Matsuri.
Miya Matsuri is a summer festival in Utsunomiya city.
Many people wear Yukata or summer version kimono to enjoy the festival.

She changed her clothes from her running uniform to Yukata, but still kept wearing her running shoes on, and ran to the Tobu department store to meet her athletic club friends.

Everglades National Park

Leaving behind Thomas A. Edison Museum in Fort Myers, we headed for the Everglades National Park in south Florida.

Where is the best place to visit in Florida? It's very difficult to answer.

But, if you like the nature, the most I want to recommend you to visit is the Everglades National Park.

Disney Resorts, SeaWorld and Universal Studios are, of course, very nice and worth visiting.
But, to watch and feel the wildlife by yourself is quite different from those theme parks or museums.

I uploaded two videos taken in the Everglades National Park. One is featured with wild dolphins and the other is with wild birds and alligators on May 3 and April 26.

Today, I've uploaded pictures of alligators living just next to the route US41. Those alligators always hear the sound of traffic.

Marine Day

Today is Marine Day or Ocean Day in Japan. It is a national holiday celebrated on the third Monday in July.

I did not go to any beach nor place which commands the ocean view today. What did I do today? I went to the mountain area in northern Tochigi to play tennis with my friends yesterday and came back today.

I can't remember when was the last time for me to go on an overnight trip for tennis. I'm sure it must have been more than fifteen years ago.

I enjoyed playing tennis in a country area and staying in a beautiful place.

I took following two pictures from the balcony of my hotel room.


Flowers were blooming nearby the tennis court. I don't know the name of the flower, do you?

Thomas A. Edison Museum

We went to Fort Myers on our trip in Florida. We cooked waffle with honey by ourselves for breakfast at the hotel we stayed. Hot waffles were really delicious.

Do you know who invented an electric waffle iron?

...

Yes, Thomas A. Edison did in 1910.

We went to Edison Museum or “Edison and Ford Winter Estates” in Fort Myers after finishing our breakfast.

There are three tours. The lab tour is 15 minutes and the estate tour is an hour and a half, and the gardens ...

We took the lab tour. After the tour, we watched a video about Edison and looked exhibitions carefully in the museum.

The upper left picture shows an original electric waffle iron.

There was the first banyan tree in the U.S. planted by Edison. The tree, it is said, originally only 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, covers 400 feet (120 m) now.

Some say that it is an overpriced exhibition, 20$ per person but I really enjoyed staying at the Estates.

Dunlop Tennis Tournament

I took part in "Dunlop Tochigi Preliminary Tennis Tournament" today with my company colleague, Mr. Ikeda.
It was my third time to participate in tennis tournaments with him.

As competitors' tennis skills were quite high, we were defeated at the first round match. Then, after that, we joined a consolation match and barely won the match thanks to the opponent's repeated miss shots. lol

It's in the middle of rainy season now in Japan.

We've been having rainy days and cloudy days half-and-half recently in Tochigi. I'm satisfied with having been able to play tennis today.

We can enjoy seeing hydrangeas here and there these days in Utunomiya.
I took these two pictures in Isoyama shrine in Kanuma city.

:-)

Take Me Out to the Tampa Bay Rays

We went to the Major League Baseball team Tampa Bay Rays' ballpark called Tropicana Field.
The ballpark is located in St. Petersburg, Florida.

For no baseball game was held on the day, we had nothing to do but walking around the stadium to see nearby area.
After walking about half around the ballpark, luckily we found one entrance gate was opening.

I asked one of the maintenance workers of the baseball field to let us come in to take a glance at the inside of the stadium.

The worker at first had said NO, but I asked again and again, then told us, “OK, come in but quick, very quick.”

We walked inside the playfield for a few minutes and took some pictures.

I thought I would someday watch a real major league baseball game in the States and sing a song 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame.'

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is a song which is the unofficial anthem of baseball. The song is traditionally sung between the halves of the seventh inning of a baseball game.

My wife Kiyono loves the song.

'Take Me Out to the Ballgame'

Take me out to the ball game

Take me out to the crowd

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

I don't care if I never get back

Let me root, root, root

for the home team

If they don't win, it's a shame

For it's one, two, three strikes

You're out

At the old ball game.

WAL*MART and Panda Express

Visiting tourist spots and eating at luxurious restaurants must be fun to most tourists. Of course they are also great fun to me.

But, sometimes I want to go to local supermarkets or franchised food shops where I buy food and drink to eat at hotel.

Do you know why?

One of the reasons is that I’m the only driver in my family while traveling. So, I can’t drink as much beer as I want when I eat at a restaurant in the States. On the other hand, I feel very relaxed drinking beer at a hotel.

Another reason is that it’s fun for me to find differences of size of food and prices comparing to those in Japanese supermarkets.

No need to say, everything is cheaper and bigger in the States than in Japan.

Who eats that big size ice cream, and how?

Melons are far far cheaper in the States than in Japan. I guess that one melon costs approximately one tenth!

I’m a fun of Panda Express fast food shop. They sell delicious foods at low prices with lovely free fortune cookies. The Fortune Cookie is a thin, crisp cookie baked around a piece of paper with words of wisdom.