Business Trip to South Korea #2

After landing on Gimpo International Airport, my boss and I took a taxi and headed to Suwon; about 30-minute-ride brought us to the hotel we had booked.

Suwon lies approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Seoul. It houses one of CANON subsidiaries and many Samsung Electronics factories.
It was heavily raining.
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Business Trip to South Korea #1

I went on a business trip to South Korea with my boss. The work itself was very meaningful and the time after work there was also very wonderful.

The only bad thing during the trip was its weather.
Rain, rain, rain, rain, cloudy, and rain.
I saw a clear sky only from an airplane.

Summer Festival

The other day, I took pictures of summer festival participants in front of my condo.

When I checking pictures, sometimes, I realize myself how little I know about Japanese traditional festival clothes and gears. For example, what are the wood sticks they are holding in the first picture, how do they use them and purposes?

Are there special meanings of the hats and caps they are wearing in the fist and the second picture?

Please tell me if you know some.

JAPAN Wins The FIFA WOMEN'S WORLD CUP GERMANY 2011

In the early morning today, Japan won the world cup football game in Germany.

I got up early and watched TV. It was a very exciting game.

I was happy to watch the live game.

People Celebrate Tanabata, A Japanese Star Festival

On my way from office to home on July 7th, I found bamboo trees decorated with colorful streamers, stars and small pieces of paper on which children wrote their wishes.

Those were Japanese traditional star festival decorations. I remember that I celebrated star festivals when I was a kid and that I wrote wishes and put them on a bamboo tree.
But, I can’t remember what kind of wishes I had at that time.

According to legend, the Milky Way separates two lovers Princess Orihime and Cow Herder Hikoboshi, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month. Tanabata celebrates the meeting of the Orihime and Hikoboshi.

-------------------Legend of Star Festval----------------------
Orihime (Weaving Princess), daughter of the Tentei(Sky King), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (Milky Way). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone.

Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (Cow Herder Star) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa.

When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven.

In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again.

Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving.

The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.
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Miyaichi-Sai, Summer Festival Is Held in Utsunomiya Today.

When I was taking a nap this afternoon, I overheard a sound of drums from outside. I got up, took an elevator to the ground floor and jumped out of my condo to see what’s going on outside.

Men and women, young and old, they were, not doing anti-government protest nor shouting against nuclear power plants, but they were enjoying their first summer festival in Utsunomiya, though it's still in the middle of a rainy season.

The scale of the festival was not so big as Miyamatsuri festival due in early August but I was able to get energy from them.

A Looooooong Cake

The other day, when I walked around a nearby shopping mall alone, I happened to find people making a very long strawberry cake together.

I asked them what’s going on?

A guy told me that they were making a 1000m-long strawberry cake to celebrate a five-year anniversary of Yataimura or a Japanese style pub mall.

After completion of making the 1Km-cake, I was presented two pieces of cake from them.

I brought them back home and enjoyed the yummy cake with my family.

One Day Weekend

Due to the big earthquake hit in Japan, my office was closed for a whole month from March 11th to April 10th. To compensate the one moth none-working period, the employees have to work even on Saturdays. So, my weekend is only today.

I played tennis in the morning, came back home, cleaned up my computer and took a rest for several hours at home. I should get up very early tomorrow as usual and head for my office. Sigh.
My body always complains me to get two days weekend.

Cactus Flowers

Three big cactus flowers bloomed at the same time in my house last week. The same cactus had only one flower in early May.

It gave us wonderful atmosphere same as last month.

Unfortunately, those flowers were in full bloom only for two days.

The name of the cactus is “Bijyomaru” in Japanese. The Japanese name literally means a beautiful lady.

I don’t know who named it but the cactus fits the name to a T.
Don’t you think so?

Track and Field Competition

I went to see a prefectural high school track and field competition a couple weeks ago.
My younger daughter 16-year-old Rina took part in 1,500m race of the competition. She could barely join the sixteen-member-finalists of the race. Then she ran through the goal line as 16th.

She has been a member of track and field club since she was a junior high student.
Yes, she keeps practicing long distance running over five years.
But, she couldn’t beat her own record that she got when she was 13 years old.

Like many women athletes, she seems to be struggling against becoming rich female body.

Business Trip to Mitsukaido

I went to a Canon affiliated company in Ibaraki prefecture on business from last Monday to Thursday. I stayed in a small town called Mitsukaido.

I only walked around in the town in the early morning and after work at night.

Strange to say, I rarely met people in the town. The town seemed like a ghost town.

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?