2017.1.31

It was fine.

The end of January. It has been already one month since the new year 2017 started.
How is your 2017 so far?

I have stayed in Florida about a third, attended many seminars, workshops, and convention, and been to many shrines for the first visits of this year.

I attended an English workshop in the afternoon today. It was again very useful for my job.

I left the office soon after that to attend a monthly meeting in Yokosuka. After the meeting we had a birthday celebration of  our leader. I am fortunate to belong this group.

2017.1.30

It was fine and rather warm.

I had lunch with a colleague who happened to be my ex-colleague of JICE at the terrace for the first time. The sun was shining and it was warm there and very refreshing.

After work I had dinner with my ex-colleagues of the previous job at a restaurant in Shirogane where I went to last month. They gave me a coupon last time and we could eat a course dinner of five dishes and a drink at a very reasonable price.
We enjoyed the reunion and eating and talking. 

I had enjoyable meals today.

2017.1.29

It was fine.

In the morning I went to Kimono Style Miya to have my hair set, makeup, dressed, and taken pictures.
Today's kimono is Roketsu zome (蝋決染め), which is one of the dying styles using wax. Obi and bag are ensamble and they are Kumiori  (組織り), knitting strings.  When I saw the bag for the first time. I felt in love with it. It is so cute. It looks small but there are rather bigger space inside.  The hair dresser tried to make the same hair style as Nanako Matsushima who is a Japanese actress he saw last night on TV.

After coming back, I went to see Yose (寄席), the vaudeville with my primary school friend in Misaki for the first time.  Seeing vaudeville with kimono is one of the things I wanted to do since last year.
So I am very glad to make it come true.
There were four speakers. Each one was interesting.

It was a nice day.

2017.1.28

It was fine.

I walked to the station because I had a party tonight. There were Kawazu zakura (河津桜) blooming at the station. It is still cold but spring will come soon.

There was a symposium of ISD and Kirei design which I learned last year up to instructor's levels.
At the award ceremony, both of my instructors were awarded. Congratulations!
Megumi was the guest, and her main character was a moving around tiger which is the same as mine, therefore it was very interesting.

After that I attended the party and got to know many new people. It was fun to talk with people who have something in common. 

Thank you everyone.

2016.1.27

It was fine and a bit warmer than usual.

After work I went to the Fuji Film Suare. There were two  new exhibitions. I liked the pictures of waterfalls, rivers, stars and ice. Someday I want to take pictures of stars around the polaris.

I went to have dinner out at Shinagawa. Since it is Friiday, there were full of people. I am glad that I booked the seat. The foods were delicious. We sat at the counter. There were ham and cheese which attracted my eyes. Cheese were served by being melted though we did not order.

2017.1.26

It was fine and cold.

After work I went to a seminar of REIKI for the first time. I have known the word for more than 10 years but I did not know exactly what it is. Since I got an invitation ticket to experience it, I attended. It was amazing. So interesting. I felt like learning more. Unfortunately I cannot attend the recent schedule, but I hope to attend in May.

I invited my friend to join. She also enjoyed this experience.
It's been a while since we met last, but we enjoyed talking.

2017.1.25

It was fine and cold.

At lunch time I attended a seminar regarding disaster management. I thought this would be useful for a researcher who is researching about disaster management before I listened. However it turned out not only for that researcher but also another researcher who studies about land acqusition it was very useful information.

There are many things we cannot judge from outside. So we should try anything first, then we should judge from its  experience.

2017.1.24

It was fine and cold.

The other day when I went to Misaki I bought preserved fish  foods. There were three different tastes, so called Kasu zuke (粕漬け), Miso zuke (味噌漬け), and Saikyo zuke (西京漬け).
Kasu zuke is tuna pickled in sake lees, Miso zuke is tuna pickled in miso, and Saikyo zuke is Spanish mackerel pickled in Saikyo miso which is white sweet miso eaten in Kyoto.
For the last three nights I ate one of each by having baked in foil.
Kasu zuke was more salty than I thought.
I liked Saikyo zuke best.

2017.1.23

It was fine and cold.

I went to post office to pay the fixed property tax (固定資産税: kotei shisan zei) in the morning. Since I inheritated my father's house and land, I need to pay them by myself from the next fiscal year. I wanted to pay them by credit card but it seems they only accept money transfer or automatically bank account deduction, I applied for the latter and enrolled.

There is a good news for Sumo fans. Japanese sumo wrestler, Kisenosato (稀勢の里) will be promoted to the 72nd Yokozuna (横綱). It's been 19 years for Japanese wrestler to be a Yokozuna since Wakanohana (若乃花). Congratulations!!
 

2017.1.22

It was fine but very windy and cold.

I slept long.
In the afternoon I went to beauty salon to have my hair cut and perm.  Here are pictures. How do you like my new hair style?

There has been something wrong with my smartphone these days and I could not receive emails from last night. So I went to Softbank and I could receive them after having deleted some unused applications. I'd better get the new one, but they will release the new one next month or so.  So I will wait for a while.

Then I went shopping.

2017.1.21

It was fine and beautiful.

I took a bus tour visiting Seven Lucky Gods (七福神めぐり: Shichifukujin meguri) in Hakone from Odawara, so I started the day very early.
I happened to find this tour by the newspaper I subscribe. It contains not only visiting seven shrines and temples but also Mishima Sky Walk which was constructed about a year ago and the longest (400m) suspension bridge in Japan and lunch and taking hot spring bath. It costs yen 6980 and those who wished to visit Mishima Sky Walk needed to pay yen 1000 and Hakone Checkpoint for yen 500. I think this is very reasonable and worth attending.
It started at 8:30 in the morning and ended 6 in the evening.
I bought a square hard paper at the first shrine and got stamps at the each shrine and temple for yen 200. In addtion I brought my own stamp book and got stamps for yen 300 each.

The panoramic view at the Mishima Sky Walk was superb.
Mt. Fuji was so beautiful.

Hakone check point was recently renovated and worth seeing.

Lunch was volumy.

There were some outside baths and I enjoyed all of them at the hot spring place.

After the tour I met my best friend from high school living near Odawara and had nice dinner.

It was a nice day.

2017.1.20

It was cloudy and cold. They say it snowed in the morning in Tokyo.

After work I went to Fuji Film Square. There were four new exhibitions. Some of them were allowed to take pictures. Since there were some cats' pictures, I recommend to those who are cat lovers to visit there. I like both cats and dogs and other animals too, but I dare not to have them because I love traveling more than having pets.

After that I went to some banks because today was a pay day.

Then I went to attend the explanatory meeting of Speed English Learning.
We Japanese learn English at least for three years, usually 6 years, and some for 10 years, but we can't speak it fluently.
At this program, after only two days, they make students to speak. So as an ex-teacher of English, I wanted to know how they do.
They say to master something, people need to spend 10,000 hours.  But if you concentrate for 20 hours, it is also possible they say.
It was interesting, but it is not my way of learning.

I am glad to be in time for the last train.

TGIF

2017.1.19

It was cloudy.

After work I attended a workshop for e-mail announcement writing in English. This was the first time experience for me to attend today's instructor's lesson. I was impressed by his broad experiences. It is fun to know about new things.

2017.1.18

It was fine.

I could get up earlier than usual, so I left 30 minutes earlier than usual this morning.

After work I went to the Fuji Film Square again. There are five exhibitions now. Yesterday when I visited there, I liked some pictures from the landscape parts. And one of the pictures of the Photo Contest of Civil Engineering Facilities attracted me the most. It is a mosaic art picture of all the applied pictures. Please check the following link.

http://www.jcca.or.jp/achievement/photo_contest/mosaicart/PM01.html

They kindly gave me a calendar.

The exhibition lasts until Thursday January 19. If you have a chance, please visit there.