Weeding

Now it's noon. I've already had lunch alone. What lunch are you going to or did you have today? My lunch was the rest of today's breakfast. Not bad.
In the morning I would have gone to work out, but I changed my mind. I started weeding. Until last Friday definitely it had been summer, not suddenly it has been fall.

I said to myself " you did a good job". --- I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, covered my neck with a towel, was wearing gloves, of course wearing long pants. And before weeding I used bug splay. But -- I was bitten by mosquitoes lots! Do you know that people whose blood type "O" are easy to be bitten by mosquitoes.
And I did too much, so suddenly it's getting dark. It looks like rain.
Do you know that it is said that after someone would do unusual things, rain comes?

To Tokyo

This Sunday Yuki and I went to Tokyo to see an exhibition.

SHINSEISAKU exhibition is being held until October 1 at the National Art Center in Roppongi.
Why did we go there?

Our elder daughter T's work is on display. And to our delight she won a prize.

We went to see it with my younger daughter M, my mother and my mother-in-law.
Before going to the Art Center, we had a wonderful lunch in ROPPONGI.

It's a typical Japanese cuisine. For our daughters YAGIKIU must have been better, but this time we were with 84 year-old woman, and 76 year-old woman. So in such a opportunity, this Japanese cuines is suitable. Of course M ordered one more dish, it was TEMPURA.

It is a wonderful thing for T to win a prise, and we are very proud of having such a daughter. And the work this time was very huge. I was very surprised to see it. I'm very impressed my daughter T who is 146 cm tall, has such a strong power to make it.
And another thing made me very surprised --- it is that the carrying cost from her workshop to the Art center was 19000yen one way. And her work is moved to KYOTO to be on display on another exhibition. But she has to pay the carrying cost, it will be around 20000 yen.
Though she works hard, it's really difficult to keep making works.
We'll support her as much as we can.

Anyway congratulations T
After we arrived at Utsunomiya, we dropped by a wine bar and celebrate the day.

 Thanks of her, we met all members of my family, and we had a good weenend.

Outdoor Activities

1,What kinds of sports have you tried?
 I've "tried" ping-pong, swimming, KARATE, tennis, squash (indoor tennis?), ski,and so on. Now I try to go to workout at least once a week, and sometimes play golf at a golf range.

2,What sports are you interested in now?
I'm a little bit interested in golf, because Yuki plays golf. I'd like to have common sports to enjoy with him.

3,What sports would you try from now?
If I had a chance I'd like to try horse riding.

4, What sports equipment do you own?  What sports equipment would you like to have?
Once I used to have many kinds of equipments, such as ski, skate, tennis rackets, ping-pong racket, bathing suits, snorkel and fins, and so on.
Now I have a set of golf.
I'd like to have a bathing suit

5, What are your favorite outdoor foods?
In summer I like to eat a whole  salty cucumber. In winter I like to have hot AMAZAKE, which is sweet a drink made from fermented rice, with ginger.

6, What flower or vegetable would you like to try to grow at home.
I'd like to grow tomatoes, eggplants, OKRA, such as summer usual vegetables, but it's difficult to let let them bear. So I grow herbs, like basil, Shiso, and so on which are really useful as spice.

Do you have any more questions about outdoor activities?

A wonderful concert

Last Saturday Yuki and I went to a concert. This time it was a trio concert consisting with a piano, drums, and a bass. The pianist was Yamashita Yousuke, who was almost 70, the drummer was almost 60.
Their music gave me lots of energy. I wonder where they keep their enthusiasm for music. I was really impressed.

This time we went to the down town by bus, it means we (mainly Yuki) was able to drink.
So before the concert we dropped by a wine-bar, and had a light dinner.

 

Well, last Tuesday, it was the day for me to play the piano at KARAKU tea room.  There were some customers to listen to me. Though I'm not a pro pianist, I played hard, carefully, and calmly as much as I could. Performing in such a place as KARAKU gives me energy. But to perform, I need to practice. For me it is difficult to keep practicing constantly. Sometimes it's troublesome.

 

 



Classical music makes me thoughtful.
Jazz music makes me positive.
Music is wonderful, isn't it?

Friday

From this Saturday we have a three-day weekend in Japan, I'm thinking what I'll do. Because of going to clinic most of every day, the pain of my neck is getting healed little by little.
Yesterday, I went to clinic and to go to gym. I didn't use machines that trained muscles of necks, shoulders. I used the others that trained lower body.

This Wednesday a lady who were from South Africa came to teach English to me. ( I decided to take her private lesson twice a month to have opportunities to speak English, and to improve my speaking skill.) We talked about clinics in Japan.

When we cut somewhere, we go to "GEKA", which is a surgery clinic.
When we break legs or somewhere, we go to "SEIKEI GEKA" , which is an orthopedic surgery clinic.
When we strain or twist somewhere, we go to an orthopedic surgery cinic or "SEKKOTSU IN", which is bone-setter.
When we have an ache on somewhere, we go to "SEITAI IN", which is a kind of massage clinic which does acupucnture or acupressure. And at some (or most) SEITAI IN, we don't get covered service.
At SEKKOTSU IN and SEITAI IN, we get Asian treatmeant.
How about  in your country?

Monday

Now I've just come back from --- an acupressure & massage clinic nearby.
Since Thursday my neck pain has got worse little by little, so I decided to go there instead of workout. After the treatment now I "can" turn up my neck, even though I feel pain.  Once or twice a year this symptom occurs to me, and sometimes it causes a bad headache. Fortunately this time I don't have headache yet.


This weekend I went to art galleries.
At one gallery, the exbition of YAMASHITA KIYOSHI was held.


The other was an exhibition manged by young ladies who graduated BUSEI art college where is in Utsunomiya. The works are "fresh", "young" and powerful.

A new week has started. Tomorrow is the day for playing the piano at KARAKU.
I don't have lessons  at night, so for a while I'll take a rest. Let's enjoy this week.

communication

Are you good at communication? I think foreigners except Asian are good ice breakers in Japan.
I read an article about how to communicate with person you might have a little trouble with.(It is not a person you don't like.)

The article said "At first listen to him or her at least five minutes."
I think five minutes is too long.
Since I finished my PTA activities I have had few people I have trouble with to communicate. (Because I don't need to communicate with such people.)
But even when I "have to " listen to my husband, my mother  and my mothers, five minutes is too long.

The article said ;
Usually people get calm after five minutes speaking what they want to speak. Then you should start saying that "well, it's my turn to tell my opinion". Or you can serve tea for them to refresh the atmosphere.
If you can't find any points to agree with, you need to find out meeting points in a gray zone.
You can't continue avoiding such people, listening to people who have different points of view might get you a new thinking way.

Organizing

I know there are too many things for the capacity of my house. Open space must be the most luxury in this house. To tell our excuse, we have many interesting things like musics ( so we have a piano, guitars, bass), sports (so we have tennis rackets, two bags of golf clubs), English ( so I have lots of books)  even though we don't have a storage room.
Anyway I 've kept throwing away ten things (including tiny things) every day. Today I threw 7 old instruction handbooks of appliances which we don't use yet now and 3 direct mail postcards.

The other day on the news paper some people posted about "organizing". They were interesting. I'll show you.
person 1"Anyway I'll throw away".
person 2 "I won't put things away, I'll use them to put things I see."
person 3 "I invite someone to my house regularly, so I have to organize our house"
person 4 "when I buy one new thing, I throw away one thing that is not used for more than two years."
person 5 "I store all photos in the PC, don't print them, just keep some printed photos."

Anyway I have to keep throwing away ten things. Well, well it's time for the last lesson today.

September

Now it's September. it's getting cooler and cooler, though it's till hot in the day time. I put FUTON instead of a cotton blanket.
This weekend, Yuki and I really enjoyed.
On Saturday, in the morning, Yuki went to playing tennis, and I went to workout.
And in the afternoon we went to the golf range, though most of time he was practicing, I was reading a book. And I dropped by a cafe. I like the cafe owner who is a woman in the same generation of me. Did I tell you about her cafe? First she started to show her garden, then she started to serve tea, then she opened her cafe. The view from of her cafe is wonderful. Here is UTSUNOMIYA.

Then we went to  a library, and grocery shop. At night we went out for dinner on foot. Recently I knew that an inexpensive good restaurant  was nearby. Yuki enjoyed beer and SYOUCYU, and I shipped Cold sake a little.

While we were having dinner, Eri-chan who lives next to our house came.

 

On Sunday, we started to organize our parking lot. We need some things to do it so that we went to some home centers. Our daytime errand had done without problems.  While we went shopping, we had lunch at an Italian restaurant.

 

And finally it was the time for an big event.  A concert of YAMASHITA-YOUSUKE was held at a private studio. The owner's couple is a big fun of the Jazz pianist, So they asked him to come to their private studio, and he came there in (kind of ) private.