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.

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.

Thank you!

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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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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Don't spoil children

I was in a restaurant today and I could see a boy and his mother having lunch there. The boy was about four years old and he ate some special meal for kids. The dish had two pieces of jelly on it and he accidentally dropped one of the jellies on the floor. He told his mother that he wanted to get a new one because it was ruined.
I thought his mother would say to him,
"Honey, you cannot get a new one because it was your fault. Be careful how you handle your things next time, OK?"
But hey, she unexpectedly said to the waitress,
"Will you fetch another jelly for him? He dropped it. He prefers a grape tasting one. Give him one of those"
I could not believe I was hearing that. I think she missed an opportunity to teach her son to be well-behaved.
I believe people should learn social rules or common sense at a young age. It might be too late to learn that when they grow up and of course adults, especially their parents, must have the responsibility to teach them about that.

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Racer Bike

My nine-year-old mountain bike has broken.It is blue and I ride the bike for work.I love the twelve-time-get-flat-tire bike.

Its rear gear or latch,I did not know exactly which,was not working when I was on my way home. Since then even if I pedaled my bike hard, it did not move any more.

The next day I took my bike to a bike shop to fix it. The shop worker said I needed about 10,000yen to get it repaired. Then he showed me a new racer bike. It had narrow wheels and it looked like a Tour de France bike. He said I could try to ride it and I rode it.It was an exciting ride. Smooth, fast and fun. He said only 10,000yen would pay for the racer for a month and I could get it. How many months? Four? Five? He said, fifteen, no interest.

Good-bye my racer. From tomorrow, I will ride the nine-year-old mountain bike again. We will live long together!

Milk

One of my sons, a freshman at a junior high school, belongs to a volleyball team in his school. He practices volleyball for six days in a week and he enjoys it a lot. I am very happy to see his joy.

I don't know much about volleyball but one thing is obvious; tall players are more advantageous for the sport. Unfortunately, he is not very tall now.

Recently, someone told him that the more people drink milk, the taller they will be and he drinks milk as much as he can; at breakfast, lunch and before sleep at night. I think he will be taller soon and I hope he won't get any stomach troubles due to drinking too much milk.

Karate

I have belonged to a karate organization since 2000 but I was not able to practice in the dojo, which means the place of practice, for three years because I have been busy at work. I sometimes do karate practice all alone in my house at night so I cannot shout out loud and I feel stressed out.Usually, we practice karate in the dojo with loud shouts but I miss doing that now.

My Pension Plan

I went to the social insurance office for correcting my pension plan data today because  my data was incorrect.

The mail I got from the Social Insurance Agency said I paid the payments of the pension for only twelve years but I paid for twenty-two years. My ten years date had disappeared from the date!

When I arrived at the office it was jammed with people who needed to correct their pension date there. Millions of Japanese have gotten this type of pension problem. I needed one and a half hours to wait and correct it.

I hope the government and the agent will never cause the same pension problem again.

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Message on T-shirt

I can see many Japanese people wearing T-shirts which have English words or phrases on them. I did not care much about what words or phrases were on them, but since I have begun to be hooked on studying English I often focuse on them.

A few days ago,on a hot afternoon, I saw a couple walking ahead of me. Both of them wore T-shirt. The man's back said ANTIAGING and the woman's back said VICTIM. Were they antiaging victims?

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Sunfloewr

I saw some sunflowers blooming in my neighbor's yard. I realized that when I rode my bike for work this morning. I do not know why I did not notice until today, though I pass the side of the yard every day.
The flowers are small, the height is about 30 centimeter, but the color of yellow is bright and beautiful in the yard. Probably, the small sunflowers might be displayed in a vase in my neighbor's living room or hallway in a few days time. I also think it is quite early for sunflowers to bloom. It is still in the rainy season now and the sky has not been clear in recent days.
In my childhood, sunflowers meant tall flowers and they symbolized very hot summer sunshine. When I was in elementary school, we were raising sunflowers in the school yard. We had to go to school several times to water them during the summer vacation. We would hate doing that because no one liked to go to school in the summer vacation. To tell the truth, I skipped doing that in secret. Forgive me. That is all history now!

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Curry Plant

My co-worker is raising a curry plant in a small pot at our work place. The curry plant is a herb which is used for cooking and it has a strong smell of curry.

I heard only a leaf of the herb will make any curry tasting food. Normaly, curry powder is made up of twenty or more kinds of spices and herbs. Isn't it amazing?

I am looking forward to smelling and tasting the curry plant when it grows up.