maiko-san

Today I'd like to introduce to you my old house in Koenji, Tokyo. I lived in a house with a garden when I was a pupil at Seikei Elementary School. In the Edo era aTokugawa General went on a hawk hunting to Koenji Temple from the shogunate headquarters. Now I'd like to show you some photos. The first picture shows  a balcony of the house, I'm sure you can see Hibachi, Shoji (a sliding door with white thin paper), Tatami and Fusuma (a sliding door with thicker various colored paper) behind the balcony. Everything is made of paper and wood. That is a typical Japanese house, presumably constructed before the 2nd War. For better or worse, Koenji avoided US air raids during the war. The neighbors on one side were Usui Yoshimi, who was a literature commentator and on the other side  a graveyard. In Koenji there are many temples where various trees stand. All kinds of birds came to them. I enjoyed hearing Japanese bush warbiers chirping especially in spring. Now I am going t...

Last Friday I woke up at 4:00 in the morning. I wondered why I was awake so early in the morning..  I took a sleeping tablet before I hit the hay. Immediately my ears started ringing ferociously. For a change I went out to the park nearby. First of all i sat on the bench in front of Okawa river. I met two cats, white and black. I took a picture of only a white cat. Because it was Friday the 13th. If I took a picture of a black cat, I thought unfortunate things would fall on me. Then i heard birds up in the trees chirping. I saw a couple of boats floating on the river. Everything is peaceful. I was hungry and went to Seven Eleven, convenience store which run 24 hours a day. I bought some curry-bread. Out of Seven Eleven I saw an older man walking backwards. A year ago I met him and talked with him a little bit. But not enough time. He had go to riverside to practice gymnastics with his friends. This time I approached him and said, "Good morning! " He said he is 76 -year -o...

On the early morning o the 1st of May my wife and my daughter went to see a movie entitled "Family life is hard for Men" directed by Yoji Yamada. The movie is about a family-life in suburbs in Tokyo where a wife declared her husband, "All I want is to divorce you!" when her husband asks her, What do you want for your next birthday?" For men it's a horrible movie. As for me I had an appointment to meet my friend named Hidenori at 11:00 am. He's in early 40's and works for the Osaka Government office. We got to know each other when we went to German school together. He came to the designated coffee shop all the way from Takatsuki. As usual we started reading aloud and translating a German book entitled "Dairy of a Young Girl"or "Tagebuch der Anne Frank".It was the 8th meeting since this book-reading-get-together started in 2014. It lasted 3 and a half hours. For sometimes we got stuck in translating in Japanese because of the ...