Music Days in Utsunomiya

We’ve had a series of music concerts at the front yard of Futara-yama shine, or Banba-Hiroba, next to my condominium since a month ago.

From the world famous sax player to unknown amateur singers, I often ran into a mini concert when I was walking into or out of my condo.

I enjoy the moments of coming across a concert and listening to the live music with other passers-by.

About Saxophonist Sadao Watanabe

Born on February 1, 1933, in Utsunomiya, Japan; son of an electrician who played and taught the biwa, a four-stringed Japanese lute; married Mitsuko Itoh, 1957; children: Mako.Education: Graduated from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA, 1965.

Started playing clarinet in his teens, later picked up alto saxophone; formed a “Jafro” band (jazz and African music), joined pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi’s Cozy Quartet, worked with Big Four Band, c. 1950s; became leader of Cozy Quartet, 1960; performed and recorded with Chico Hamilton and Gary McFarland in New York, 1965-66; returned to Japan, formed a quartet, started a jazz school, 1966; performed at Newport Jazz Festival, 1968; began hosting radio program, 1969; performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 1970; organized Bravas Club festival (later known as Kirin the Club), 1985-; toured North and South America, Europe, and Africa, 1990-92; organized charity concert for Great Hanshin earthquake victims, 1995; toured Brazil, 1995; visited Tibet, 1996; toured Southeast Asia, 1996; traveled to Kenya, India, and Tibet to film the documentary, Sadao Watanabe Explores the Last Unknown Regions of the Earth, 1997; published his book of photographs, Vanishing Tibet, 1998; toured Europe, including the Montreux Jazz Festival, 1998; toured with Four Beat Band, 1999; worldwide tour to celebrate 50 years playing jazz, 2001.

Awards: Swing Journal, Best Japanese alto saxophonist, 1959-1987; Sluing Journal, Jazz Man of the Year eleven times, 1968-87; Art Festival Grand Prix Award (Japanese Grammy) for Sadao Watanabe Recital, 1977; Ministry of Education Award, 1986; City of Los Angeles Citizenship Citation for promoting friendship between U.S. and Japan through music, 1988; Honorable Cultural Award, Tokyo, 1995; honorary doctorate degree, Berklee College of Music, 1995; Medal with Purple Ribbon, Emperor of Japan, 1995.
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Utsunomiya Museum of Art

 My wife and I went to Utsunomiya Museum of Art last Sunday.

The museum is located in a forest of northern part of Utsunomiya city. It takes just half an hour by car from my condominium.

The collection of the museum includes world-famous paintings drawn by such as Marc Chagall, Rene Magritte and Vassily Kandinsky. Marc Chagall is one of my most favorite artists.

Needless to say its rich collections, the location of the museum gives a wonderful impression to us.

A Cactus Flower

A cactus flower bloomed several days ago. I don’t know how often a cactus blooms but I’m lucky enough to have been able to see the flower only two weeks after I had bought it.

The first picture was taken the day I bought it. The bud was already slightly colored pink.


 The left picture had been taken one night before it bloomed. The size of a bud became pretty big.

During the flower was blooming, the whole atmosphere of our condominium turned as bright as its color of the flower.

Memory of Matsue Castle

Like every city does so, my hometown Matsue city has changed a lot in several decades. How has it changed? It became easier to drive, having wider streets, tourist friendly signs and information offices, having lots of well-known franchised shops like McDonalds and Starbucks, and newly built attractions for tourists.

I’m happy and proud of seeing those changes but, at the same time, I feel sad that well known narrow streets disappeared, small parks I used to play were replaced with tall buildings’ site and large supermarkets drove away small mama-and-papa shops.

I took the first picture from a Matsue-Ohashi bridge viewing Mt. Daisen to the east. There must not have been such big electricity towers.

Second picture was taken at the front yard of Matsue Castle. There were play fields and tennis courts there thirty-five years ago. I used to play baseball with my classmates after school. That was great fun to me at that time. But now, ball games inside castle site are prohibited.

Castle tower viewing from an opening between cherry blossoms is a few exceptions of unchanged scenes in downtown of Matsue.

I realize that I can go back to my current home town but can NOT go back to the city I lived forty years ago.
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On A Rainy Day In Matsue City

I have never spent days in Matsue, about 90 minutes from Tokyo by air, in April since almost thirty years ago.

I usualy go back to my hometown Matsue in summer. Flowers in my family’s garden in April were quite diffret from those in summer. In the same way, it’s always sunny and hot in summer, on the contrary, I had both a rainy day and sunny days last time.

Plants and flowers viewing at my family’s home in a rainy day were new to me, so they were very attractive to me.

I took pictures in my family’s garden using a cellphone-built-in camera. I think quality of pictures taken with a cell phone becomes far better than a few years ago.

Don't you think so?



Cherry Blossoms at Night

Night viewing of illuminated cherry trees is popular in Japan.

I walked to Futarasan or Futara-yama shrine last night; Several big cherry trees were in full bloom there. I also was able to see the full moon behind cherry blossoms.
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I'll Be Back to My Office Tomorrow.

It took exactly one month to resume work.
General affairs division and administration division members have been restoring our offices with help of general construction companies since several days after the earthquake on March 11th.
Most of rubbles were cleared and the infrastructure such as electricity and water was almost back, according to the email from my boss. So, all engineers including me are allowed to go back to our offices tomorrow.
I feel half happy and half worried about stepping in the same building from which we barely escaped at the day of the disaster; we still have aftershocks everyday in my city.
But, sooner of later, we should confront it. That is tomorrow.

By the way, using this long days off, I went back to my hometown Shimane prefecture for a couple of days. I met my mother, my brother and my sister there. I enjoyed earthquake-free short holidays.

I show you some pictures taken near my mother’s house using a cell-phone-built-in-camera.

New Books and an Old Book

Japanese school year starts in April and ends in March.
April 1st is the beginning day of a new semester.

My elder daughter Emi left us and moved to Tokyo, about 110km from Utsunomiya city last week. She lives in her college dormitory now. Her new college days have just started.

At the same time, younger daughter Rina became a second grade high school student. The other day, Rina brought back new text books for second grade students.

The contrast of an old book that was used by Emi for a whole year and new books that Rina got is quite interesting, isn’t it?

Perigee Moon in Utsunomiya, Japan

 According to CNN news, the moon was said about 14% bigger and 30% brighter one week ago. Having read the news, I looked up at the sky from my room, found a slightly bigger moon and took a couple of pictures of it.

It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?

I’m wondering how long it will take my office to recover? My boss sends emails regularly about how operations to restore the office rooms were going on. He said the day before yesterday that part of electricity supply was back but water was not back yet .

Sigh.

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(CNN) -- If the moon looks a little bit bigger and brighter this weekend, there's a reason for that. It is.
Saturday's full moon will be a super "perigee moon" -- the biggest in almost 20 years. This celestial event is far rarer than the famed blue moon, which happens once about every two-and-a-half years.
"The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," said Geoff Chester with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. "I'd say it's worth a look."
Full moons look different because of the elliptical shape of the moon's orbit. When it's at perigee, the moon is about 31,000 miles (50,000 km) closer to Earth than when it's at the farthest point of its orbit, also known as apogee.
"Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the moon's orbit," the NASA website says.
This full moon will rise in the east at sunset and should look especially big at that time because of what's known as the "moon illusion."
"For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low-hanging moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings and other foreground objects," according to NASA.
Even though it may look close enough to touch, Saturday's full moon will still be at a healthy distance -- some 211,600 miles (356,577 km) away.
As rare as it is, it may be worth a look. Miss it and you'll have to wait until 2029 to see it again.

Utsunomiya Central Park

All employees in my office including myself have been told to stay home till repairing our office damaged by the quake should complete. We don't have to work.

More than a week has passed since the earthquake on March 11.
Yes, I know: the damage is too severe to repair it within a week.
I got an email from my boss last Friday, saying that it might take another one week to repair the office at a usable level.

I recently feel tired of staying home and watching TV news about the quake or firefighters’ work against the nuclear power plants.
I think it’s true that not a little Japanese want to look brighter side of things as well as understanding current situations.
So, I went to Utsunomiya Central Park to see flowers today and yesterday.

Plants and flowers, of course, didn’t care about the quake or N-plants at all. They were just blooming as beautiful as they had been one year ago.

Damages Done by The Earthquake in Utsunomiya

Thank you for kind messages. We are receiving messages, encouragements, offers and supports from many countries. These kindness will help us and our lives. I never forget you guys.

The sign says, "DANGER: Do not come close." in Futara-yama shrine.↓

The wall of a parking lot has fallen and hit the car.↓

Gravestones have fallen over in a cemetery.↓

A Powerful Earthquake Hits My Town, Utsunomiya.

When I was working, suddenly a strong quake hit my office. My colleagues and I hid ourselves under each one’s desk.
In the meanwhile, not part but the whole ceiling in my office room collapsed and fell from the above.

White dust smoke covered our room. I heard one of women in the office was crying. After the big trembler ceased, I heard a voice asking me help. I removed a big fragment of ceiling covering his desk and rescued him who was trapped.
Then, I saw that some PC monitors fell but still kept emitting lights between broken ceiling boards on desks in the dark.
My boss, my department manager, a division manager who was holding hands of crying woman, colleagues and I barely escaped from the 4th floor of the building in a heavy white dust smoke and various piles of rubble.

On hearing a big sound of falling the ceiling and having kept my body in a small space beneath my desk, I thought a death myself as reality for the first time in my life.

I was very scared at the time but all my family members are safe.

Emi Passes College Entrance Exam.

Congrats to Emi on passing the exam!

  Emi holds certificates of passing exams.

Emi has successfully passed her college entrance exam; Sophia University is the name of the college in Tokyo. The college is her most favorite one and she was studying to target the college for a whole year.

To celebrate the outcome, we, my family members went to an Indian restaurant named ‘Gitanjali Mahal’ where she requested for lunch last Saturday.

 We also had a lunch party in an Indian restaurant named ‘Taj Mahal’ when Rina, my younger daughter, had passed a high school entrance exam exactly one year ago.


To be honest, I prefer ‘Taj Mahal’ to ‘Gitanjali Mahal’ in terms of its food taste, furniture in it, its music and an overall atmosphere.

But, anyway we were all happy to have been able to have the occasion together.

Flowers of Cineraria Are In Full Bloom

It's sunny and warm day again in Utsunomiya today.
Thanks to the warm weather these days, flowers of cineraria in my room are in full bloom right now.

I walked to a shine next to my condominium. Not only cineraria but a couple of cherry trees were in full bloom.

The building behind the flowers is the condominium in which we are living.

Flower Buds of Cineraria

I went to a flower shop just in front of my condo to buy some flowers the other day. I found a grass pot that was full of flower buds. I didn’t know the name of the grass at that time, but without hesitation I bought it back. Then I put it on a same size empty glass pot and put it on a window frame at home. It seemed that the grass pot was floating in the air.

After that, I found its name, ‘cineraria’ on the web.

I’m looking forward to its flowers blooming.

It’s A Sunny Winter Day.

Last Friday, February 11th is the National Foundation Day of Japan. It was a national holiday in Japan. So, today is the final day of three-day weekends.

I wanted to do a lot of things but did little for three days. It snowed both yesterday and the day before yesterday. I just got relaxed at home for two days.

It’s a fine day today; I headed to tennis courts by car, but snow still covered the courts.
I couldn’t play tennis but trees and park fields covered with snow near the courts were beautifully shinning in the morning sun light.

It was worth visiting for me even without playing tennis.

Pigs In A Car

When I was driving on my way home from tennis courts, I happened to be behind a two-story-truck which carried lots of pigs today.
One of them was seriously staring at me for several minutes, so I was obliged to take his pictures when I stopped for traffic signals.
Of course, I didn’t know what was in his mind.
But, I felt a lot of things in my mind.

The signs behind the truck say “From Our Green Stock Farm To Your Dining Table.”