Living Apart From My Family

I have to live apart from my family for a while because of my job. Our company will open a new restaurant in Izumo whicg is 45 kilometers away from my home and I will work for the restaurant as a manager. I think I will have to work there in six months. I won't commute there because it takes a long time to go there. I will live in an apartment which my company rents. A new restaurant makes me feel excited but I will miss my family for a while. I don't know if I will be all right but I cannot do anything about it. The only thing I can do is come back home every week.

Driving with My Son

I went to Izumo public health department to submit some documents the other day. I was off that day so I took my younger son to Izumo. There is a nice drive along Lake Shinji between Matsue and Izumo. I thought the 40 kilometer drive would have attracted my son but while I was driving he was asleep in the car.
It took thirty minutes to hand out the documents there and my assignment was over; then we went to Yume Town, a large new shopping mall, to have lunch.
After lunch, we went to the Izumo Dome, a domed stadium. We were able to tour the dome freely. My son likes baseball so he was excited when he stepped onto the baseball ground in the dome. No one was there but us, so he could run from the batter's box to first base or could pretend he was a pitcher on the pitching mound. We took some pictures in the dome.
On our way home, my son was asleep again and he missed out on watching a beautiful view of the lake.

The Second Day of a Family Camping

It was fine on the second day of our family camping this summer.
My two sons got up early to find beetles in the woods but they did not find a lot of them.
My wife and I made breakfast; bacon, fried eggs, salad, miso soup and rice. I think having meals outdoors is the most delightful thing with camping. I love doing that very much.
After breakfast, my sons went swimming and played in the river which was across from the campsite. I fell asleep and I took a nap for a while.
Then we checked out of the campsite and had lunch at a restaurant in Kakeya and then we went to Yakumo Wind Cave where a very cool wind blew up from underground. We went down into the cave. The temperature was over thirty degrees Celsius outside that day but in the cave it was ten degrees celsius. I was almost frozen! The cave used to be used as a natural refrigerator for storing some agricultural crops in the summer for neighbors.
After that we went to a hot spa and bathed there then had dinner.
We enjoyed the two days of camping. I hope we will go camping in the winter next time. I think the idea of camping in the snow is really great.

The First Day of a Family Camping

Our family has just returned from camping. We went camping at Ogidani Campsite.
We went there for five years in a row.
It was the first time that we used a rented log bungalow; we used to use our own tent before. That was more comfortable using a log bungalow than I expected. The interior was wide and cool and my two sons loved the loft-style bed.
The weather was fine through the days we were camping and the air was cool.
I enjoyed playing tennis and volleyball with my older son there and I lost a tennis match 4-2 with him because he had learned to play tennis two years ago.
My younger son swam in the river which was across from the campsite. The water of the river was clear and crisp. He caught six rainbow trout in the river when the children's fish catching event was held there and we ate the fish at a barbecue. He even caught some dragonflies, beetles and cicadas. He looked very happy.
Before we had our barbecue, we took a bath in a Rotenburo, a Japanese style outdoor public hot spa. I think it is a luxury to take a bath outdoors when it is light.
We took a walk under a starry sky at night and we could see the Wain very clearly and big in the north. Then we played Uno, a kind of card game, until we went to sleep.

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Family Camping

My family, my wife, two sons and I, go camping every summer. Before my sons were born, my wife and I went camping alone together.
We are going to go camping in Ogidani Camp Site, Hiroshima Prefecture next week and we are all looking forward to doing that very much.
Ogidani is our favorite camp site because it has a river, a mountain, woods and open fields. We can swim and catch fish in the river, we can hike in the mountain and the view from the top is amazing. We can find beetles in the woods and we can play baseball or other ballgames in the fields.
My older son would be eager to play volleyball because he began to play that this April. My younger son is studying where he can find beetles in the woods. My wife is looking forward to having a barbecue. I will be happy when they feel joyful in the camp.
The camp will be only two days because of my job but I wish we could go camping for at least one week.
The whether forecast said it will be fine there on the days we are there so it is quite certain that we will have a good time at the camp.

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Fishermen Stopped Operations

About 200,000 fishing boats stopped operations to protest rising oil prices on July 15th. The fuel cost for fishing boats has tripled in price over the past five years so the fishermen are facing a difficult situation.
A friend of mine is a fisherman who owns some fishing boats and he has some problems in his business now.
Firstly, of course, he is in a struggle with the high-price of fuel. He mainly fishes squid so he uses a lot of oil because squid fishing needs giant lights and the electricity for the lights is produced by oil-powered engines; squid have a habit of gathering around lights in the night.
Secondly, he is facing a lower price of seafood. Japanese people used to eat seafood very often but now we don't eat it like we used to do so the price of seafood hasn't gone up any more.
I think the primary industries, agriculture or fisheries, are most important for a nation and that means the primary industries should be protected by the government or the citizens of the nation.
I hope the government will help these people immediately and ever after.

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To Point Out Mistakes

I am practicing writing essays in English to improve my English skills now. I have corrected my essays corrected by my teacher even though the essays do not make sense. Thanks to my teacher! I will acquire more English skills by doing that.
A Japanese professor, Goro Tajiri, who has been featured as a charismatic teacher in the world of Newsweek and is a former public junior high school teacher, explained his idea of leaning English in a Japanese monthly magazine ,AERA English; The most important tip for learning English is to have mistakes in your English pointed out by native speakers if you can manage it. I completely agree with this and the development of information technology makes it easier than before.
I also use IT to correct my English essays. I am really thankful to the Internet.
When my essays have been corrected, the mistakes which I made will improve my English. The mistakes make a big impression on me and I won’t forget about them. However, I make the same mistakes so often but I believe I am getting better by doing it!

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Water Shortage

We have hot days like a real summer these days here. I have never seen any rain drops in a week. I think it seems like the rainy season has finished here in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, but the Met Office have not declared that the rainy season has gone.

Recently, the authorities would announce it a few days after it was over. If the rainy season was be over now, I would be worried about the water shortage here. Our city, Matsue, often has a crisis because we do not have big rivers or dams in our city. Of course, we have a large lake called Lake Shinji, which is the seventh largest lake in Japan, but it can't be used for drinking because the water of the lake is brackish.

I hope someone will invent some equipment to make real water from salty water or brackish water and if it could be done any water crisis in the world would be solved.

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An Old Friend and Table Tennis

I went to a karaoke bar with my colleagues and met one of my old friends there. I think I met him for the first time in ten years. He works at the karaoke bar which is owned by his family. He is five years younger than me and we belonged to a table tennis team at the same high school. Of course we were not on the team at the same time but even after I graduated from the school, I often visited there and played with him and other members.

We talked about table tennis and our old teammates. He said that he is playing table tennis now and he sometimes takes part in some local tournaments with our old team members. On the other hand, I finished playing table tennis ten years ago because I was tired of playing table tennis for such a long time; I played for twenty-three years!

To tell the truth, I felt a little bit fed up with it then but while I talked with my old friend I surprisingly thought I would like to play table tennis once again with my old team members.

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A Birth of a Swallowtail Butterfly

My younger son keeps many kinds of insects. He even keeps caterpillars and one of them changed to a swallowtail butterfly this morning. The butterfly was beautiful in yellow and black. My son looked forward to watching the birth of a butterfly from a pupa but he missed out on the chance to watch that because the birth happened so early in the morning. He despaired at that and I felt for him. When a caterpillar becomes a pupa next time, he will get up early.

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