Park in Winter

By the mid of December, many trees in this park fell their leaves. Silence stayed on the water. The lawest temperature of this day was -5℃.

Ducks were swimming under the warm noon sunshine.

Metasequoia leaves turned red. 水杉

This kind was believed to have been extinct. But in 1946, extant trees were discovered in China. Scientists called them living fossils. 

This is a sundial. The park administration office adjusts its direction in accordance with four seasons.

These are popular maple leaves called Momiji.

A waterfall in a garden.

 

Haniwa

Haniwa are clay sculptures of ancient Japan made from 3 to 7 century. They played important roles in spiritual ceremonies.

Cute horse. Its legs were made short and thick to hold the heavy clay body firmly.

She wares her hair in a disk shaped knot. 

This roof shape is similar to that of some Jinja shrines.

A man playig a kind of harp.

He is carrying a farming tool.

This horse wears bells on its chest.

 

Home-made Quiche with Bacon and Spinach 用菠菜和燻肉做的法式鹹派

😄

Stay warm.

Wearing several thin layers can be more effective than fewer thicker ones. (by PHE)

跟只穿一件厚毛衣和厚襯衫相比, 多套較薄的幾件衣服能更有效地保暖你的身體。

 

White Box in Autumn

???

👇

💝　😄　💝

This type of sweets is called Namagashi, which is made of rice powder and bean jam.

It is served in a tea ceremony. The host select proper sweets to meet each season the ceremony is held. Autumn can be roughly divided into three periods, they are begining, mid and late. In addition, the weather shows its many different faces such as sunny, rainy, warm, cool, chilly and cold. Hosts know nature well.

Tea ceremonies are held as "onece-in-a-lifetime encounter". Sweets are a part of representing this theme.

Cosmos 秋櫻

Guests eat a sweet before having a cup of bitter green tea. Sweetness remaind in a mouth will make fresh bitterness stand out.

Ginkgo leaf with small pieces of gold foil. 

銀杏葉帶著金箔片

Persimmon. This stem is a piece of walnut.

Maple leaves　雞爪槭葉

Cute bird with a ginkgo hair ornament

Chrysanthemum and its leaf 菊花

Inside is adzuki bean jam. I love it. 豆沙

 

Curry Lunch 咖喱午餐

I had a curry lunch last Sunday. The naan was fluffy and chewy. Two curries smelled good and made my stomach active.

The left is vegetable curry containing radish, green beans and potato.

The right is chicken curry with fried eggplant.

I  heard that three spices are basic to making curry. They are turmeric, cumin and coriander. I will try.

BONSAI Exhibition 盆栽展覽會

It takes 30 to 50 years to make Bonsai Trees like below.

Skilled artisans often cut unnecessary buds, leaves and thin branches, always thinking deeply about the tree shapes in the future.

They sometimes wind a wire around a branch to change its shape better.

Trees never stop growing upward and getting unkempt. Art of Bonsai is based on ceaseless communication between plants and humans to achieve both excellency and growth.

This is a Chinese Juniper bonsai, representing a hash natural environment in high mountains.　

圓柏樹(台灣玉山圓柏有優美自然造型)

This type of tree shape is called Kengai, which means a tree growing on a cliff. 懸崖五葉松樹

This is an azalea tree, having red flowers in May. Azalea bonsai needs lots of water.

They say you should water them in rainy days even holding an umbrella.  杜鵑花樹 品種名晃山

Huge maple bonsai about 3 feet in height. 

古槭樹約有一米高

Maple twin in Hyde Park?

Excellently twisted pine tree. 典型松樹形

 

Comfortable Deep Breath Under Cirrus

I like to see clouds in every season. Last week I saw two types in the east sky. These clouds in the low sky are often seen in summer and high ones in autumn. The sky is not clear.

This is the west sky at the same time. There are no summer clouds. Can you feel refreshed by these autumn ones? 秋天的卷雲

 

Typhoon Has Gone

 

Typhoon Shanshan did not cause damages in my area.

This tropical storm appeared in the Mariana Islands on 22nd August.  The distance between the Islands and Japan is about 2,500 km. Shanshan struck the southern Japan on 29th. 

It was a very powerful one. The lowest air pressure was 935 hectopascal and the maximum instantaneous wind speed was 50 meters per second or 112 miles per hour. The wind of 60 m/s is said to have a power to break utility poles. 50 m/s is also very dangerous. 

Shanshan moved eastward over Japan slowly and came out to the Pacific Ocean on 1st September. It was a very slow-moving typhoon because Westerlies, which can move typhoons faster, were not located near the Japanese Islands this summer. The slow move caused long time rainfalls. Many places recorded that rainfalls by Shanshan alone were more than total of August in a normal year. 

Ninomiya Sontoku, a well-known agronomist in the middle of 19th century remained an aphorism.

 

No one knows,

this autumn

Our rice harvest might suffer heavy damages 

by rains and storms.

Never neglect our daily work,

go to rice fields to do the weeding as usual. 

Slow Moving Typhoon

It rained all day long today. Typhoon Shanshan is moving slowly over western Japan. Its speed is only 10 kilometers or 6.3 miles per hour. Shanshan is still located 900 kilometers far away from the area I live, but it has been continuously bringing thick rain clouds even here. 

 

Stay Cool

Although half of August has passed, it's  still too hot. I have not slept well at night without turning on the air conditioner. News says many areas in the world suffer heat damages this summer.

I took this photo 10 years ago when the plane I got on passed above Mt. Fuji. I would be glad if you could feel cool by this. 冬天的富士山頂

 

Er Hu 二胡

Have you ever heard relaxing sounds coming from this musical instrument "Er Hu"?

I took the four-time lessons for beginners.

Er Hu is a Chinese instrument having two strings. In case of violin, the horse hair on a bow is separated from its strings. On the contrary, Er Hu's hair on a bow is inserted between two strings. Players move the bow to the outer string for higher sounds and to the inner string for lower sounds.

I enjoyed many Er Hu performances on Youtube, but I never knew at all the bow is not separated from the strings. 

In the first step, we had to learn how to pull and push the bow smoothly to lessen the screech noise, blurred and unstable sounds.

In the second step, we practiced the scales. This instrument has no fingerboards. The teacher taught us how to stop the strings with fingertips.

Anyway, we managed to play "Twinke Twinkle Little Star" with a certain noise pollution.

New try brings new joy.

 

The Sea In The Rainy Season 2024

I went to see the sea last Sunday. This area is in the rainy season. The horizon is not clear. Some children are playing on the beach.

This is the same beach in last December.

Waves come up to the sand from the front and side.

 

Rose Garden

All the visitors are enjoying a great variety of roses in the harmoniously mixed fragrance.

Tall pine trees surround the garden. 

Old kinds were registered in 1920's and new ones were in 2010's. I didn't know that breed improvement of rose was so popular.

Have a nice weekend!