2016.4.30

It was fine.

The last day of April, That means one third of 2016 is over.

I went to Shinagawa to attended the seminar for the instructor of Institute of Self Discovery. This is a two days course. Today there were seven participants. Five of them were the participants of the seminar for the advisors yesterday.
Yesterday we learned about three categories, Moon, Earth, and Sun, and 12 animals.

Today we learned the characteristics of each animal.

After that I went to Kawasaki to see a Japanese movie titled "Boku dake ga inai machi (僕だけがいない街)" meaning the town only I do not exist. It is a time traveling story. If one past changed, and the future would be  changed accordingly. It is a little bit difficult to understand all.
I am glad not to waste any free tickets this time.

2016.4.29

It was fine but windy.

It is a national holiday called Showa no hi (昭和の日), Day of Showa.  It is the birthday  of Emperor Showa.  When he was still alive, it was a national holiday called Tenno tanjyobi (天皇誕生日), Emperor's birthday. It became Midori no hi (みどりの日), Greenery Day from 1989 to 2006, and it became Showa no hi after that.

This is the start of Golden Week. If you take two days off, you have 10 days off. Many Japanese people travel during this time of the year. 
This year I have days off according to the  calendar. So first three days off, go to work one day and another three days off, and go to work one day again.

First three days I go to the seminar of characteristic psychology (Institute of Self Discovery). It divides people into three groups (Moon, Earth, Sun ), and 12 animals (wolf, bambi, monkey  cheetah, leopard, lion, tiger, raccoon dog, koara, sheep, pegasus) according to the birthdate.  There are four categories (nature, appearance, mind,  hope ).
Birthdate is a very important factor to make personal characteristics because it is a day human being start living on the ground by breathing from living in the water.
Therefore there are some similar tendencies for those who were born in the same time frame.

It seems interesting.

2016.4.28

It was rainy today.

After work I went to Shibuya to have dinner with my ex-colleague. It was the first time for me to have meal with her. The restaurant specializes kushiyaki (串焼き), roasted meat and vegetables on the skewers and cheeze fondue. Usually it costs yen 6000 but I got the half price coupon.
We enjoyed eating and chatting.

2016.4.27

It was fine.

Before going to the office, I went to two banks to transfer the money. I have one bank account, but do not have the other.
Having the bank account I spent yen 108 to transfer yen 8,000 as handling charge. Without having the other bank account I spent yen 216 to transfer yen 3,240.
I thought it would be free of charge to transfer money between the same banks so it was a bit surprise.  It seems they started charging about two years ago.

After work there was a welcome party for freshmen at the cafeteria. Since this is the first big event of the new academic year, I went to see it.
When I got there around 7 pm it was already started and people were eating,drinking,and chatting.
They had the BINGO game, photo contest, singing a song and taking group photos.
I enjoyed  Indian foods and drink.

2016.4.26

It was fine and warm.

Since I could get up early, I left home early. One of the good things of my work place is introducing the flex system.  The core time is from 10 am to 3 pm. So if we go early, we can leave early.
I decided to leave early to see another movie tonight. The theater I can use for the free tickets are limited, and there are only two places on my way home, Kawasaki or Yokohama. There are three free tickets valid this month and there are two movies I want to see in Yokohama which are available in the evening. I decided to see "The Revenant."
This is the movie Leonard DiCaprio finally got the Oscar. It is a revenge story of the father whose son was killed by the group member. There were many crises after crises. I felt actors and actresses are tough workers acting in the icy cold river and jumping from the cliff. I am always amazed by the animals. How can they be controled?
Any way he deserved to get the Oscar.
Congratulations!!

2016.4.25

It was fine and rather warm.

I have some invitation movie tickets valid within this month. There are some appointments this week and I thought there are not enough time to use every ticket. So I decided to go to see a movie after work. I chose "Spotlight " which is based on the true events. There is a subtitle in Japanese.  That is "Seiki no sukuupu (世紀のスクープ), meaing "Scoop of the Century." It was nominated to 6 Oscars at the 88th Academy Awards this year and became the winners of the best film and writing.
It was released f on April 15 in Japan. There were only few audience tonight.

2016.4.24

It was cloudy and rather chilly.

There was a big event to challenge the  Japan No.1 record making in my city.  Miura is famous for tuna, so we tried to make the longest tuna roll. The length we aimed this year was 560 meters. 1270 people joined the event.  About 23 % were Miura citizen, 22% were from Yokosuka, 22% were from Yokohama, and the rest were from other places. The farthermost was from Hokkaido.
This is the 10th anniversary and the last one because they cannot provide the venue in case of rain any more.

I have been interested in this event. Especially this will be the last so that I hoped to participate but when I realized the registration was over.  So I went there to register this morning.  There were 100 tickets today. But when I arrived a bit later than 11 am, they were already distributed. I was on the waiting list for No.37.  While waiting I walked around the town.  There were two stamp rallies.  One prize was the freezer packs, and the other was dried seaweed.
There were some attractions such as dances and chorus of the famous children's group named kamome jido gasshodan (かもめ児童合唱団).
I went back at the registration desk before 1 pm, and fortunately I got the ticket.  It was No. 945, and it was the place around 460 meters.
After the ceremony it started around 2 pm.  The seaweed was rolled one which I have never seen before.
Then the rice on the wrap was distributed, then tuna was distributed. Then we made the roll with the straw mat called makisu (巻きす).  All of us hold the 560 meters roll together and counted 10. It was successful. We made it!
After that we ate the rolls we made by ourselves.
They say to make this 560 meters roll 86 kg tuna and 240 kg rice were used.

I am glad to have joined this soecial event.

2016.4.23

It was fine and warm.  I expected to see the Golden Mt. Fuji this evening, but there were clouds and I could not see Mt. Fuji.

I stayed at home all day long doing house work.

First I called two credit card companies to cancel the current cards to renew them because I felt I ordered something from the website but they seemed to be fraud. I am not sure which card I used.  The goods arrived two days ago, but there was not enough information about its company.  Moreover the condition of cancel was different from what I read at the site.  There was a phone number written but I could not reach them.
The goods was made in the USA, but shipped from UK. There were no signature nor shipped date nor company name and address,  The customer service phone number seems in Thailand.  The paper was written in Japanese but it was not perfect Japanese.  I regret a lot to have clicked the site to get the sample.  I wrote to them to return the goods.  I hope everything will be all right.

Next I cleaned the refrigerator and sink, washed winter pants.

Then I cooked dinner.

There are still lots of things I should have done at home.

I got an email from my friend in Kumamoto.  She said during daytime she clears the house and at night she sleeps in the car.  They still have many earthquakes every day.  And she's worried how long their evacuation life would go on.  I hope they will be able to live safe and sound soon.

 

2016.4.22

It was fine.
They say today is Earth Day and also full moon. I do not know what to do on this day but for me it became a very special day and a good start to do something new.

I took a day off to attend Mr. Koya Yamakawa's open lecture at Tasho University in the afternoon. It is a Buddhist university which I visited for the first time. Buildings looked new and beautiful. The lecture was about 30 years of translation career. He used to be a government official and diplomat, and after 40 years old he started translating. The first book was "Out on a Limb" by Shirley Maclaine. I have read many books translated by Mr. and Mrs. Yamakawa and their own books for more than a quarter century. The lecture was fascinating. He sang five songs too. After the lecture I asked him autograph and picture.

After that I saw the photography exhibition at the same building of the lecture and visited the pagoda which I happened to find at the exit. On the top of the pagoda I happened to make friends with someone that also attended the lecture. We decided to have tea and started looking for the place. Then we happened to see Mr. Yamakawa again and we visited Togenukijizo (とげぬき地蔵) in Sugamo together. After that we had dinner together.
He kindly invited me to a special event in Shimokitazawa. We thought it was a concert, but it was not. It was the Empowerment Ceremony Vesak Fullmoon Festival presented by Yantara Jiro.  When we entered the venue, most people were wearing white clothes. I was so surprised to see them and felt a bit worried. I did not know what happened but it was something I did not know.

After coming back, I could see the fullmoon though it was rather cloudy. They say there are meteor shower too, but I did not see them.

There were something I was going to do this evening, but totally unexpected good things happened and I enjoyed this change a lot.

To my surprise I happened to become Facebook friends with someone that has a mutual Spanish-French friend who used to live in New York.

So many "happened to" things, but they must be necessity.

What a spiritual day it is!

2016.4.21

It was cloudy and became rain.

There was a lunch meeting and 15 people got together. One third was from the same office but two thirds were different, so I met about the half for the first time. After self introduction, the director made a presentation about the relationship between Japan and Korea. He used to be stationed in Korea for a few years.

After work I went to attend a seminar about Birthday Marketing. I like fortune telling by birthdate, but they say it is not fortune telling but statistics.
They divided the participants into three groups. Moon, Earth, and Sun. I belong to the Earth. They say those who belong to the moon like to heal people, those who belong to the Earth is realistic, and those who belong to the Sun are exaggerated.
It was such an interesting seminar that I decided to go to three days seminar to learn Institute of Self Discovery seminar  near future.

2016.4.20

It was fine.

After work I took the different route to the station.  There is the Fuji Film Squre which opens from 10 am to 7 pm on the way. The beautiful pictures caught my eyes.  Since the admission is free of charge, I entered.  There were three exhibitions.
It seems the exhibitions at Space 1 and Space 2 last for a week from Friday to Thursday, and exhibitions at mini gallery last for two weeks. And at the photography history museum there were other exhibitions which last for two months. 
They have a point card system, and you can get one point at one visit. With 12 points you can get 6 post cards or with 24 points you can get a calendar of the beautiful sceneries of Japan.
I hope to visit once in a week to see different exhibitions.

2016.4.19

It was fine and rather warm.
They say it was the first summer day yesterday.

In  the morning when I got off at the Roppongi station, I heard big voices and was wondering what was happening, quarell or fighting. There were people standing and watching making a circle. It was an open training of crime prevention for 10  minutes. I felt relieved.

2016.4.18

It was fine in the morning, but rained in the evening.

There was an open lecture in the afternoon, and I helped to set up the venue.  This time there were about 300 participants and the lecture was given in English and at the Q&A session it was done in Japanese. Therefore most people used the translating receiver.
There was a very famous person's name on the list, so I was a bit surprised. He looked a little bit different from the time he was active.

2016.4.17

It was a windy and rainy day.

I went grocery shopping in the morning.

And I went to Yokohama to see two movies in the afternoon.
I watched them by invitation tickets.
First one was a Japanese movie which was rather spiritual one. Its title is "Tenshi ni I'm Fine. (天使にアイム･ファイン)", I'm fine to angels.
The other was "The Danish Girl" which Japanese title was again quite different, "Lily no subete (りりーのすべて)" which means "All about Lily." It seems it was based on the diary of Lily Elbe who got a surgery of transgender from man to woman for the first time.

2016.4.16

It was fine.

There was a visitor in the morning. She brought me some dishes from the vegetable I gave from my garden.

In the afternoon I went to Shinjuku to attend a lecture. One of my friends from Ability Garden joined me. We  measured our TruAge.

After that I visited the newly opened bus terminal. There were so many people.

Then I went to Kamata to attend the live concert of my ex-boss at Panasonic. Three of my ex-colleagues also joined and we had a good time after a long time. It has been more than 6 years since we got together last time. They said there many changes.  How fast time flies!

2016.4.14

It was slightly raining in the morning but I did not use the umbrella again.

After work I had dinner at a newly opened Spanish bar at Daimon with someone I met at my ex-colleague's wedding last May.
We did not talk at that time, but it was interesting to talk someone from Kansai area.  The ways of talk between Kanto people and Kansai people are quite different, and they always say something interesting.
I chose the place and their dishes were delicious too.
So we enjoyed eating and talking. If it was Friday, I could have enjoyed drinking too.

It is a pleasure to know new people. Thank you for sharing time!

2016.4.15

It was fine today.

Last night there were big earthquakes in Kumamoto, Kyushu. It was grade 7 in Japanese scale out of seven. It compared to the size of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.
I have a friend there and called her. Fortunately she and her family memberes are fine. But since the hypocenter is the next town, it seems there are many damages in her neighborhood.
They still have had many aftershocks .
Since there is a volcano in Kumamoto, we worry about it too.
I hope everything will be all right soon.

Today after work I visited the Kimono shop which had a special thanks fair. I bought something small like tabi (足袋, literally means foot bag), socks for kimono and a net for washing washable kimono. I was not trying to wear anything, but one of the customers there  asked me to try one roll which she liked very much but  she knew it won't fit to her.  So I tried and it looked good. She was so pleased and gave me a small present. It was a surprise. I also got a souvenir from Nagoya from the staff. I am glad to have visited there today.

2016.4.13

It was slightly raining but I did not use the umbrella.
At night it started raining heavily.

At lunch time I called Morinda to order the additional goods which I can buy by Morinda points.  I ordered two items which consist of five days samples. I have not liked to take suppliments so I have not tried these things, but these days I have worried about my health conditions and decided to try them.  One is sugar control and the other is protein. If I like the sample, I may buy them.  It is nice to get them by points without paying anything.
I asked to deliver them on Sunday afternoon with the regular autoship Maxidoid. 
On my way home I noticed I may be out at that time, so I changed the delivery time at night by online.
How convenient it is!

2016.4.12

It was fine but cold today.
They say it is the coldest today and will be warm from tomorrow.

Today is the first day that I use the new commuting pass. I go from Misakiguchi to Roppongi via Daimon. The shortest travel time for trains is 1 hour 22 minutes but when I use it takes about two hours and costs yen 1142 for one way for 72.7km.
The commuting pass for one month is 32380 yen, for three months 92290 yen, and for six months 174860 yen. The longer, the cheaper.

2016.4.11

It was fine but rather cold.

There was an open lecture at school in the evening and nearly 300 people got together. The lecturer was a Japanese and there was simultaneous interpretation.
I am always impressed by these interpreters. How can they do?
To understand English is one thing, and to interpret into Japanese is another. Vice versa.
The order of Japanese grammar is different from English and even Japanese people would not understand the meaning until we listen to the end. But when it comes to end, the new sentence has already started.
So I wonder how they can manage.

2016.4.10

It was cloudy.

My money making tree has grown and I decided to plant some of them in the soil of the garden from the pot.  I hope they will grow without any problem.

After getting two mails which I asked to re-delivery, I went grocery shopping after a while. I went to two shops. I bought more than I expected.

After coming back I read a magazine which I bought at the seminar listening to the CD which was attached to the magazine.

There were many things I wanted to finish today, but I could not do so.

I could relax.

2016.4.9

It was fine.

I went to Tokyo to attend Ken Honda's one day seminar. This is the third lecture of three month seminar of how to accomlish the future you decide from the spiritual aspect.
There were five people at the group work  and all of them were unique this time too.
At the break I had chances to try to find the lucky colors and access bars.  They were free of charge.
I could see some people I met at the first and second seminar.
It was fun.

2016.4.8

It was fine and warm today.

April 8 is known as hana matsuri (花まつり) literally flower festival, or kanbutsue (灌仏会).
It is a celebration of Buddha's birthday in Japan. The reason why I say "in Japan" is when I went to Nepal, they said they have a different day for Buddha's birthday.
There is a custom at Buddhist temples to water amacha (甘茶) sweet tea to a little statue of Buddha.
I have done it before at the Sensoji (浅草寺) temple in Asakusa.

2016.4.7

It was raining when I left home so that I brought a big unbrella and used it after getting to the stations in the morning.
But in the evening when I left the office, it was not raining any more.
When I got to my local station, strong wind was blowing and petals of cherry blossoms were falling.

At lunch time I ordered the box lunch at 450 yen which includes rice, instant miso soup and about 7 dishes. They say only Thursday they offer this reasonable box lunch.

2016.4.6

It was fine but cool today.

After work I went to the station with a colleague who also started working on the same day. She happened to be an ex-coworker at the center before last. She happened to use the same railway so we enjoyed talking for an hour or so.
We have a mutual co-worker whom I worked with at the same university until this January.
What a small world it is!

2016.4.5

It was cloudy and chilly again.

April 5 is usually a day of entrance ceremony (入学式:nyugakushiki).
I have had many entrance ceremonies for myself, and six times while working at a local junior high school and once at a university I worked for until this March. 
There were two of them which I can't forget. One of them was for my junior high school and the other was the third year of my teaching career when I was in charge of my own class for the first time.
The former reason was I had to make a speech in front of everyone. I do not know why but I was not informed before, therefore I was so surprised when I was called suddenly that I could not speak well at all. I felt so bad.
The latter reason was I did not know how to behave when I led the students into the hall.
That is to say, when I was not prepared, I could not have confidence.
As Luis Pasteur says "Chance favors the prepared mind."

2016.4.4

It was rainy and chilly but I did not use the umbrella.

The new NHK 's morning drama has begun. It is the 94th TV drama which is a story of woman who created the ladies' magazine. It consists of the two periods: before and after the world war II. The title is Toto nechan (とと姉ちゃん).  Toto means father, and nechan means older sister. She has two younger sisters. After their father died, she behaved like a father.

I used to watch the program by smartphone. But the new office has a TV in the ladies' rest room. I watched there today. Two women were eating before I entered. They were studying English and French respectively after lunch while I was watching TV.

2016.4.3

It was rainy in the morning, but fortunately I did not use the umbrella, and it became cloudy and rather chilly in the afternoon on the contrary to the weather forecast today.

I went to Tokyo to attend a free publishing seminar from 1 pm to 2 pm. There were six participants who wish to publish the book.
They say every day more than 200 books are released and there are merites and demerits for both self-pubishing and commercial publishing.
They gave me a book about Writer's Income and Expenditure.

After that I went to the Meguro River (目黒川: meguro gawa) where is one of the most famous places to see beautiful cherry blossoms in Tokyo.  I started from the Nakameguro station. There were so many people along the river to see about 800 cherry blossom trees for 4 km long with 28 bridges. The view from each bridge was very nice. There were many food and drink stands here and there.
I met Professor Hagiwara with his beloved dog, Rana-chan at Tenjin bashi (天神橋). He used to work at UNIDO, and has been an African issue specialist, and was my teacher at the Ability Garden in 2004. We went to nearby Pizzeria and enjoyed talking many things including about his published book and the new book. Since this was a part of his special event "Find Rana-chan at the Meguro River, " and I was the 22nd visitor, he kindly gave me a prize.
After saying good-bye, I kept walking to Meguro station and took some pictures of cherry blossoms.
There was a sponge cake factory again near the Tenjin bashi, so I bought a small box of the cakes. This was the second Sunday in a row to find the sponge cake factory.

I am glad to see the beautiful cherry blossoms today.

2016.4.2

It was cloudy and rather chilly.
I went to Shinjuku to attend the monthly meeting.
Then I had lunch with three people and enjoyed chatting.
In the afternoon I attended a seminar for an hour and heard interesting success road stories.

At night I had a thank you & farewell party for the local representatives. It's been two years since we were in charge of the local representatives. And this is the last gathering. There were 8 people out of 10 attended. We went to the second party too. It was interestibg to know the local history.

2016.4.1

A new month has started. April is shigatsu (４月), the fourth month and its old name is uzuki (卯月) in Japanese.

April is the start month for Japanese people and academic year and fiscal year of 2016 have just begun.

My new life has also started. My new job is at Roppongi. After getting off the subway, I took underground way to the office. There were street museum exhibitions.

The cherry blossoms were full in bloom.

At lunch time I was invited to the welcome lunch.

The commuting time became a little bit shorter but working time became 45 minutes longer. Job description seems interesting. There will be some business trips. I am looking forward to visiting many places and meeting new people.