My Hometown Matsue

I uploaded a new video on YouTube. I made the video spending my spare time for about one week. I like it. Please take a look. (^^)

Kuri Gohan / Autumnal Equinox Day

September 23, it's Autumnal Equinox Day today and Japanese national holiday.

My tennis friend, Mr. Kobayashi gave me dozens of chestnuts the day before yesterday.
So, I cooked Kuri Gohan or 'boiled rice with chestnuts' with my wife Kiyono.

I had bought peeled chestnuts when I cooked Kuri Gohan last time. But this time, chestnuts wore hard skin.
Though it took longer time for preparing or peeling chestnuts' skin, cooking delicious food was fun to me.

My family members all enjoyed the beginning of the autumn season by eating autumn delight.

The recipe of Kuri Gohan

Peel the chestnuts.

Cut some vegetables.

Rinse four cups of rice.

Put them into a rice cooker with water.

Put some soy sauce, sugar and one spoon of liquor.

Turn the cooker's switch ON.

Wait for about an hour.

Then, yummy Kuri Gohan will be ready.

Business Trip to Mizonokuchi

I went to CANON Mizonokuchi Training Center for taking lectures of management skills last Wednesday and Thursday.
The lectures were, to say the least, not exciting nor interesting to me, but I could have been able to refresh myself by forgetting about daily routines.
It was a crispy sunny day on Wednesday. I took pictures near the Training Center at the afternoon break, as I did when I went there three years ago.
I walked along a small stream, looking flowers and butterflies for ten to fifteen minutes.

The view from the 7th floor of the Training Center

Miami Little Habana/Havana

The final part of our trip to Florida, 2009 is visiting a downtown in Miami.
To tell the truth, I hadn't expected much for the Miami downtown, but Little Havana was a really wonderful town worth visiting.

Southwest 8th street or Calle Ochos is a Little Havana’s main street.

Once you go to Calle Ochos, you almost feel like you've been transported to a Hispanic and Caribbean culture island.

It is said that, since the Revolution, more than 300.000 Cubans have emigrated in Miami area.

You can hear Cuban music from colourful stores and restaurants. There are Cuban grocery stores where you can buy not only local foods and tropical drinks but also hand rolled cigars.

I drank a cup of coffee in a souvenir shop: the taste was strong and too sweet for my wife Kiyono, but it was very nice for me.

The Maximo Gomez Park (or Domino Park) is where the older generation of Cubans meets to play dominoes.

Local farmers opened a tropical fruits shop at the street.

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.