Effects of an extremely hot summer

Japan experienced record high temperatures in this summer.

Also summerlike high temperatures continued till the end of September.

Finally, it's getting colder and we can feel the coming of autumn lately.

During the summer, we had many effects of horribly hot weather, such as the increased number of people with heat stroke or the increase in beer sales. There are still many effects of the extremely hot summer now: poor rice crops, poor sales of autumn clothes, escalating vegetable prices, a delayed the mosquito biting season or the many bear sightings and attacks in Japanese cities.

Those effects of the unusual weather have led to uncomfortable situations. Fortunately, I haven’t suffered a serious effect, such as having a heat stroke or a bear attacks, but I’m a serious victim of mosquito attacks.

At the end of August, I watched a news report about mosquitoes. According to that news, this past summer mosquitoes became less active than ever, because of the violent heat and dry weather. And it said that, if the hot weather with the temperature reaching over 30 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) continued, they would probably die. It also said that, from the end of September with the weather getting colder, they would become active like they usually do in the summer — this fall seems to be the “itchiest” autumn ever.

And in keeping with the news, I have been bitten 8 times by mosquitos since October began. And, the mosquito bites are happening in pairs — one on each arm, one on each wrist, one on each ankle and so on. Worse still, my skin got red and hard, which made the bumps looke like there were small red mountains on my body. It looked like a good example for teaching line symmetry for children.

Since about 10 years ago, it has been said that the weather has been really strange. I’ve been hearing the abnormal weather news every summer and winter, for a long time. So, I actually don’t remember what normal weather is. I only remember that in Japan, the summer was hot and the winter was cold.

When I was child, the Japanese climate was characterized by four distinct seasons and I enjoyed seasonal events and eating seasonal foods in each one. I used to go to beaches or pools, eat a lot of watermelons and set off fireworks during the summer. During the winter, when we had snow, I made snowmen and had snowball fights with my big brother or friends. I ate lots of Mikan (mandarin oranges) and compared the color of my palms with my classmates.

 About details of comparing the palms' color is here!

Now the strange weather issue is not only a Japanese problem. Hot spells, cold spells, heavy rains and dry weather: they happen all over the world. Basically, I don’t like abnormally hot or cold weather. I like spring or autumn when the climate is mild and comfortable. But if I think about recent weather problems, I would prefer having seasonable temperatures such as hot summers and cold winters to losing our four distinct seasons. I want to enjoy each season like before, because I was born and raised in Japan, where the weather has four beautiful and distinct seasons.

According to the forecast, in Japan, it will be cold as usual from tomorrow. Also, we will get a colder-than-usual winter. I’m not sure that I can enjoy cold winter from the bottom of my heart, but I’m really happy that my mosquito issue will be gone. Good-bye, out-of-season mosquitoes!

Let’s write your name in Chinese characters

For many Japanese, it’s really important to choose among the vast number of Chinese characters, when they decide their child’s or their grandchild’s name. There are tons of Chinese characters which have the same pronunciation, but different meanings. For example, there are three Chinese characters and all of them are pronounced HASHI in Japanese.

橋 ← This HASHI means Bridge in Japanese.

端 ← This HASHI means Edge, End or Marge.

箸 ← This HASHI is Chopstick.

Japanese also care about the character’s stroke count. In Japan, there is a kind of name fortune telling, “姓名判断（Seimei Handan).” People’s fortunes are read from the number stroke in the character. There are super lucky numbers, pretty good numbers or horrible numbers.

As you can see in the picture above, there are some patterns of combinations which read your fortunes from the different angles. This “Seimei Handan” is favored among older people than younger people. They know it’s a superstition, but they hope to give their child or grandchild a lucky name or happy life by choosing the perfect Chinese characters and the excellent number strokes. Maybe they want to do everything that they can do for their precious ones. If I were them I would do the same thing. Many people care about it, not only when they decide personal name, but also when they decide their company’s name. In this way, many Japanese have to think about the meaning and stroke count of Chinese characters. So, they think really hard and take a long time when they choose the name. Actually, even though when we choose Hiragana or Katakana, we care about their stroke count, too.

These are a list of good or bad numbers for one’s personal name fortune. (Generally, it’s said that when you decide your company’s name, the good numbers are different from the personal names’ ones.)

最大吉(Sai Dai Kichi) : Super Excellent — 6, 15, 24, 31, 47 and 63.

大吉(Dai Kichi) : Very Good — 1, 3, 5, 11, 13, 16, 21, 23, 29, 32, 33, 37, 39, 41, 45, 52, 65, 67 and 68.

吉(Kichi) : Good — 7, 8, 17, 18, 25, 35, 38, 48, 57, 58, 61, 71, 73, 75, 77 and 78.

凶(Kyou) : Not Good — 14, 22, 26, 27, 28, 30, 42, 43, 46, 49, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56, 59, 72 and 74.

大凶(Dai Kyou): Bad — 2, 4, 12, 34, 36, 40, 44, 54, 60, 62, 64, 66, 69, 70, 76, 79 and 80.

最大凶(Sai Dai Kyou) : Very Bad — 9, 10, 19 and 20.

※ About more details of the numbers, you can check on the URL below. (but only in Japanese)　

More details of the numbers

There are several different ways to count the character stroke or read your fortune by character stroke count. So, don’t be depressed, even if your stroke number is not good. If you check your name on a different web site, you might find a different result.

If you’re interested in writing your name in Chinese character, please check the list below. These are names that I could change into Chinese characters. I want you to make sure that I decided the Chinese characters by only the pronunciation. It means that I didn’t care about the meaning of them. And more, I can’t guarantee anything even if something happens to you because of using the names from the list.

I want you to enjoy looking at the list, just for fun. I hope you can find your name in it!

Sightseeing in Tokyo

We visited Tokyo Tower to celebrate my best friend’s birthday, as she requested. It was my first time there in more than 20 years.

When I think of Tokyo Tower, the wax museum and the aquarium are the only things off the top of my head. I really loved those 2 places. Their kitschiness and tackiness were one of the attractions for me. While our cab was heading to Tokyo Tower, I was filled with anticipation and I hoped that they had not changed.

“What is that creepy thing over there?” When we got off the cab, there was a strange pink thing in front of the ticket booths. It received visitors and took photos with them. I’d never seen such a weird shaped character before… but for some reason, I actually liked it. I thought, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m expecting of Tokyo Tower! This kischiness… thank you, God! Thank you, Tokyo Tower!! ”

According to the brochure, his name is “Noppon,” and he is one of the Tokyo Tower’s characters. Actually, there were 2 of them, and they’re brothers. The one in the red overalls is the little brother Noppon, and the one in blue is the older brother. Unfortunately, we missed the big brother Noppon, but we took photos with younger one.

After the photos, we headed to the main observatory first. There are 2 observatories at Tokyo Tower. The main one is 150 meters high, and has 2 floors. The other one is called “The Special Observatory,” which is 250 meters high. It costs an extra 600 yen to visit the special observatory. Depending on the crowd, you have to wait to go up there. We had to wait for about 1 hour.

For the first 15 minutes, we enjoyed the beautiful view and took photos. 15 minutes was enough to get a good view of everything, because there were so many people and not many spaces. So, 20 minutes later since we had arrived at there, we went straight to the observatory’s café for a beer.

While we were drinking, we talked about where we were going to eat. The restaurant, “Tokyo Shiba Toufuya-Ukai” is located near Tokyo Tower. As can be expected from the name, it’s a restaurant that specializes in Tofu. Also, there is a huge beautiful Japanese garden and you can enjoy the garden view while you eat. Beer, the nice restaurant and the freaky pink character —what an interesting birthday!! About 40 or 50 minutes later, we went to the higher observatory. The view from the special observatory was so beautiful, but we didn’t have much time because we hadn’t visited the wax museum or the aquarium yet. It was too bad that we couldn’t visit the aquarium, which looks like a tropical fish store, because it closed early. Anyway, we ran to the wax museum.

At the wax museum, there were so many wax figures that didn’t look like the people they were supposed to be. Take a look at the pictures below.

Just in case you can’t tell, let me explain. The wax figures of the Beatles (left), the wax figure of Audrey Hepburn (middle) and her picture from the scene in the movie, Roman Holiday (right).

I think it’s amazing that Tokyo Tower has shown these low-quality wax figures for such a long time — Tokyo Tower deserves praise! After we fully enjoyed Tokyo Tower we made our way to the restaurant.

The restaurant was completely silent and it made us forget that we were next to Tokyo Tower, which is very crowded and one of the most famous sights in Tokyo. We had good time eating good food and enjoying the beautiful views in the silence, and we felt like we were traveling. Finally, we toasted to her birthday with a tasty birthday cake and white wine.

I usually don’t visit sightseeing spots, famous or popular places in Tokyo. I always visit and spend time in familiar places. I still don’t like crowded places, but sometimes it is really fun to visit places I don’t go to often.

If you are interested in “Tokyo Tower,” “Noppon,” and “Tokyo Shiba Toufuya-Ukai” you can check the URLs below.

 
 "Tokyo Tower"


 
"NOPPON details" (only in Japanese)


 
"Tokyo Shiba Toufuya-Ukai"











 

Cleaning up

Yesterday I cleaned my entire place. This time, I cleaned all of the windows, too. They looked like leopard patterned windows because of the rain and dust, since I didn’t clean the windows for a long time.

While I was cleaning the windows I remembered a question which was asked me before — “What would you do if you could wipe the slate clean?” When I was asked that question, I didn’t really think about it. But this time, while the dirty windows were getting to be clean, it reminded me of it.

“What would I do if I could wipe the slate clean?” I couldn’t come up with anything. It didn’t mean that I haven’t done anything bad or wrong; of course, I have some… no, many regrets.

If I could see my future like in the American TV drama “Flash Forward,” if my future was horrible I would try to avoid it. I also wish I could see my past by stepping into a time machine and give some advice to me like the Japanese animation “Doraemon.” But actually, I don’t want to erase anything that I felt or thought or did from my past. Even though they were bitter, sad and awful, they are parts of my history.

Even if only one piece was missing from my past, my life would change a lot. If I changed my past I wouldn’t be in the same situation as I’m now. Maybe I could have been happier, or have a brighter future, but I wouldn’t want to lose lots of memories that I can’t buy, whether they were good or bad.

As I said, I’m not completely satisfied with my past and current situation. Also, I sometimes do things I regret, especially when I’m drunk. I have a lot of embarrassing memories that I hate to talk about, but I don’t want to sweep them clean. That’s because I’ve enjoyed my life up to now and I believe I’m a lucky person. I’m surrounded by many nice people who always care for me, help me and have good time with me. Even if a super horrible thing happens to me I’m sure I can get over it, and I’ve done so. When I’m really feeling down, they always help me out of the dark situation I’m in. Once the nightmare changes into a good old memory, we can drink for several hours while talking and laughing about it. I can appreciate the importance of them, and enjoy having drinks with them, because of my terrible past.

I think everything which happens to me has a meaning or a reason. About 11 years ago, I lost my father suddenly. Unfortunately, until he died, I couldn’t recognize how much I was protected by him and I had a happy life because of him, which I took for granted. His death was an unthinkable sorrow, but it opened my eyes and taught me how awfully happy things were.

I always try to think like that when I have to overcome hard situations — think of my happy sweet histories as chocolate bars, and think of my bad awful histories as potato chips. If I always eat only chocolate bars, I’ll be tired of eating them and I won’t feel they’re sweet or good, even though they’re awesome. Then, I will definitely want to eat something salty. Here comes potato chips. If I eat potato chips in between chocolate bars, I can really enjoy tasty chocolate bars more than when I eat only them. In the same way, we’ll lose feelings of the happiness, if we only experience dreamlike things. We can’t appreciate our current situations even if we’re happy now. We sometimes feel fear, anger, sadness or disappointment in our daily life. Because of that, we can find happiness, and we strive to be happy or try to make our life better.

For me, the nightmare things give me a chance to take a closer look at my attitude, behavior, situation and myself. They also give me a chance to realize that I’ve earned my place in the sun. I think that a bad event sometimes has the possibility to become a kind of a spice of our life, depending on how we accept it.

After the cleaning, I looked at the windows again. The shiny beautiful windows are OK, but the dirty leopard patterned windows were not so bad. If I see them from a different angle, I can enjoy feeling like I’m at a safari park even though I’m in my house. In the future, maybe I’ll face a variety of issues that I want to eliminate from my life. Even so, I want to trust that I can overcome them and change them into good memories. It’s just like how I miss the leopard patterned windows now. So, my answer to the question is this — “Nothing. In my life, there is nothing that I want to wipe clean. I don’t need to clean up anything.”

English essay

Why do I write English essays, even though my English isn’t very good?

I have several reasons, the first of which is learning English. I have only a limited vocabulary, I know that I need to build it up, but I don’t like to memorize and I can’t learn by rote. What I mean is, if I try to memorize something that I’m not interested in, I’d forget it after 5 minutes. After thought, I decide to learn vocabulary by writing English essays. If I write an essay I will write about something that I’m interested in. It means I can learn about things I’m interested in. It’s a good idea, if I say so myself.

The second reason is that I like to write. For me, writing a letter or an essay slakes my desire to create. I really like the process from beginning to end. First, I choose a topic and think about it. Then I see many images and ideas in my head. While I try to cast my ideas into shape, I organize my images and ideas over and over. I also enjoy expressing my situations and feelings using a lot of onomatopoeia. In Japanese, there’re plenty of onomatopoetic words and I think sometimes they help people visualize images easily. Many people tell me my writing seems like talking, because I use a lot of onomatopoeia and quotation marks. This process makes me feel like I am making a plastic model. There are only tiny parts at first, but they are going to be put together to reveal the whole picture. I am so happy and excited when I can describe my ideas as I like. The process of creating something has an irresistible attraction for me.

The last reason is that I can organize my thoughts by writing. When I’m writing, I look for words or phrases that precisely explain my thinking or feelings. In Japan, there are many subtle nuances and a lot of onomatopoeia which are difficult to explain in English. That’s because I need to be clear in my thoughts and feelings when I write an English essay. Choosing correct words and phrases helps me to understand myself; what I’m thinking about or how I feel. So, I can’t finish writing an essay when I can’t form a clear view of the topic, because I can’t explain my opinion even to myself. Even though writing helps me to organize my thinking and understand the unconscious part of myself, I don’t want to write in Japanese. If I write in Japanese I can describe my thinking very clearly, but sometimes it might blurt the whole story out. On the other hand, I want to make sure what I think or feel, but I reluctant to describe in details all of my thoughts.

 

This is why I write English essays. Today I learn these words — “rote,” “onomatopoetic,” “reveal,” “irresistible,” “precisely,” “blurt something out,” and “reluctant.” I’m not sure I can use them correctly next time, but I’m going to keep writing English essays and interweaving them with new vocabulary.

Trick or Beer!

“Nothing better than an after-work beer. Cheers!” My friend and I gulped down beer in a fantasy world. All of my cells enjoyed drinking cold draft beer, too. Actually, we didn’t work that day. We visited Tokyo DisneySea with the thought of riding the Tower of Terror and having a beer while eyeing Mickey Mouse.

Oct. 2nd, it was a beautiful day. About 2 and half hours had passed since we arrived at DisneySea. It was the first day of nice weather we had had in a while, but we were still standing in line to get on the Tower of Terror. I was thirsty and starving, because I hadn’t eaten anything since morning, and my leg had gotten bitten by a mosquito an hour earlier. A horrifying thing was that I had to wait for another 30 minutes while battling with hunger and itches. While we were waiting, we tried to only think about something fun, such as having cold beer with some nice snacks after this.

We had patiently waited out our turn. How could we wait such a long time? There was no doubt that Mickey Mouse’s magical power had been working on us, because we hate to stand in line and usually we don’t outside of DisneySea. Additionally, between Sep.9 and Oct.31, DisneySea is celebrating Halloween and it is decorated for that. Maybe ghosts helped to increase Mickey’s potency more than usual. Last time when I visited here, I waited for an hour and half to ride it. This time I had to wait for 3 hours which doubles the length of the last time. If I come here next time, will I wait for 6 hours?

“Oh, no… yieeeeeeep!” I felt my stomach float like yo-yo. “Uh-oh, yieeep!!” We waited for 3 hours and rode it for only a couple of minutes, but we were so excited we forgot about the long wait. We could reach our first objective. When we got out of the Tower of Terror the sun had almost set. The rest of our objective was having a cold beer. We were desperate to search for a place where we could drink beer.

“Hey, look! There is a stand selling beer!! Now, we can have a cold draft beer and sausage, whoopee!!”

We downed a glass of beer in one gulp. Cold beer coursed through our bodies. “Another one?” “Sure, why not!” We enjoyed having beer with tasty snacks — black pepper flavor popcorn and bone sausage — in a fantasy world. The wind felt so good. That was our ideal weekend at DisneySea, even though Mickey and Minnie Mouse were missing.

                                                      

Drinking a couple of beers brought about a pump-priming effect. We embarked on an adventurous journey to find other places where we could drink alcohol. Drinking beer then riding an attraction which we didn’t have to wait long; it was like a sandwich. While we were looking for nice restaurants and unpopular rides, my friend pointed at a map and said to me, “Look at the map, there is a Mexican restaurant here! It has wine also.” “Sounds yummy! Let’s go!!” We scurried to the restaurant — “Two glasses of white wine, french fries and salsa sauce, please.”

                                              

Now, we slaked all of our desires by drinking chilly white wine. We ended up enjoying drinking more than riding attractions. When I look back now, we didn’t see Mickey and Minnie Mouse, but we could enjoy an early Halloween at DisneySea in our own way — Happy Halloween, Trick or Beer!

 

 
 
 
 
 

Getting out of my rut

Since I can enjoy watching movies again, I’ve gotten carried away with watching a lot of movies in a short time. I tried to watch many genres that I didn’t like very much before.

About a month ago — there were many movies that I hadn’t seen yet, on a pay TV channel’s program guide. It had been a while since I last recorded and watched movies on TV, so I decided now was the time to get my money’s worth. I thought that it was a good time to get out my “movie” rut of always choosing the same type of movies. I thought I could try enjoying some kinds of movies that I normally don’t really like.

First, I started with a movie which I was interested in anyway. Then I tried a movie that my friend really wanted to watch, and then, a film with big stars. After that, I watched my favorite types of movie. When I was watching a boring movie, or one I couldn’t get into, I just kept watching and looked forward to the next one. So, I decided to watch my favorite types’ of movies in between them as motivation.

 

“Well… it was OK. How about next one?” About 2 hours later… “I see… hmm. Let’s move on to the next one!” — I watched all of the movies above just like this.

I ended up only enjoying the movies that were from my favorite genres anyway. I enjoyed “Sunshine Cleaning,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “The Wrestler” which were movies that I really wanted to watch. “Harsh Times” and “Doubt” are OK, but they are a little bit heavier than I expected. The movies that my friend talked about are typical chick flicks: “The Ugly Truth” and “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I told her that I saw them and how I felt. “The most memorable scene is when Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper are talking on the boat, in the movie, He’s Just Not That Into You — Ben Affleck really likes his girlfriend but he doesn’t want to get married. Not because he will lose the chance to have fun with other girls if he gets married, but because he doesn’t believe that marriage is the only way to prove how much he loves her — I completely agree with his attitude!” She said to me, “Generally, most women feel a tugging at their heartstrings when we see girls’ situations, feelings or lines in chick flicks. I have no idea why his attitude resonates with you.” Yep, that kind of makes sense.

Anyhow, it was very difficult to change my taste in a single month. Instead, I realized my taste in movies clearly once again. Basically, I don’t like movies that are too much commercial — a big budget, big stars, a bumper crop of CGI with a cheap or clichéd story. My favorite movies are “NUOVO CINEMA PARADISO(Cinema Paradiso),” “Apocalypse Now,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Primal Fear,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Negotiator,” “The Butterfly Effect,” “Match Point,” “Rear Window,” “Psycho,” “The Prestige,” etc.

 

 

 

 

I can’t explain my taste in movies in word, even though I have looked at a list of my favorite movies again. I like suspense, drama, comedy or crime with a good story. I’m not comfortable with watching Sci-Fi or horror movies. Actually, how I get into the movies is more important than their genres.

When I watch the famous scenes from “Apocalypse Now” — helicopters sweep over the sea and napalm the jungleplaying Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” — I really get into the aggressive scenes without CGI and the movie’s world as usual. When I watch “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” it delivers tons of laughs. It also touches my heart and I always cry at the ending. When I watch “Cinema Paradiso” I am always reminded that I like movies and I am happy and lucky person who could get a job in the movie industry. I can watch movies over and over if they are my favorite. Even though I already know the whole story, I am excited, laugh or cry at the same scenes all the time.

The other day, one of my teachers asked me, “Who is your favorite main character from movie and why?” I couldn’t answer her question right away. The next day I found an answer. I have 2 favorite main characters who are in the Italian movies, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. The first one is from “Cinema Paradiso,” Alfredo, played by Philippe Noiret. The second one is from “The Legend of 1900,” 1900(Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900) played by Tim Roth. Both guys could find what they really love to do, and they kept doing that until the end. I always feel that I want to be like them when I watch those movies. If I can find something that I really get into and I have a talent for that…There is nothing that would make me happier than doing that until I die. The music in the films by Ennio Morricone also creates a deeper feeling.

As a result, my “getting out of my ‘movie’ rut” operation didn’t succeed this time. I half expected that getting out of my rut would not be so easy, but I’ll give it a try again someday. Not only the “movie” rut, but I’ll try to get out of all of my ruts, too.