happylife

Preparation for moving

I'm a little bit busy now because I have to prepare for moving to Vancouver. There still remains ten days before leaving Tokyo, but I'm going to leave for a domestic travel tomorrow. I found that I hadn't gone out of Tokyo even once during four-month stay this time. All I did was just staying in my home struggling against some health problems. It's too empty! So, I have decided to compensate for the four-month emptiness with the coming ten days of joyful actions. I will go to a domestic resort, meet with my old friends, and have tasty Japanese dishes.

Reading

I finished reading "The Da Vinci Code" yesterday. It was a book intellectually interesting and thrillingly speedy. But after reading it, what I felt most strongly was that my reading skill got improved. As I mentioned before, the book was full of religious unknown words and French phrases, and in reading through such a hard book, I've got a new kind of reading skill. That is, to read a book not reading word by word but grasping the whole meaning of larger unit; a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter. Now I feel I can read any English text with a lot of unknown words. I feel happy because of this improving  of my English skill.

Pitty ducks

When I was walking around my house, I saw several ducks swimming in the Kanda river. They were swimming against the flow, searching for foods. The water is dirty, cold, and even stinks. They looked far from happy to me because there are no food, the water is bad, and they have to swim hard so as not to be flowed. What a difference from the happy ducks in Beaver Lake in Stanley Park. They were enjoying swimming in a beautiful nature field. I want to let them know that they had better move to a better place. If Vancouver is too far, still there are much better places to live in in the world.

A day after snow

The snow fell heavily last night melted gradually cooling the air today. So it was a very cold day. I kept staying in my home without going even one step out. I was sleeping until noon, and had a second sleep from three in the afternoon to the dusk. I have spent a too lazy day. I am just like a hibernating bear. As I had enough sleep, I'm now fully awaken. My day is starting from now today.

Fighting between old and new media

Fighting between Live door and Fuji television is one of the hottest tropics in Japan now. Live door is a famous and new Internet portal company and Fuji television is one of the largest public TV key stations. In the beginning of this month, Live door got a lot of stocks of Nipponhoso, which is a large radio company and is also the parent company of Fuji television. The volume of stocks Live door got was more than one thirds of the whole stocks of Nipponhoso, which means that Live door has a chance to manage Nipponhoso and also has an indirect control on Fuji television. Fuji television and Nipponhoso were of course astonished and announced yesterday a new but tricky plan in which they're going to issue more stocks which only Fuji television can buy. Both the ways in which Live door got the stocks and Fuji television announced are gray in law, and this fighting is going to be left to the court. I think this is a fighting between old ages and new ages. Older generations who have less interest on the Internet may feel more sympathy on Fuji television and Younger generation may hope that Live door wins this fighting. As I have a feeling that not only Fuji television but others are stuck in a rut, I have a stronger sympathy on Live door. But unfortunately as of this moment, Fuji television seems to have an advantage.

The first spring storm

It was a windy day today. The wind was obviously different from the wind before yesterday. It was warm and a little bit dusty. We call this kind of wind in this season "haru ichiban" which means "the first spring storm." And we Japanese know by this storm that spring is coming. It also has the meaning to me that I have overwintered in Tokyo against my original schedule. But my body trouble has almost gone away and I've got the air ticket back to Vancouver. I'm going back on March 11. I'm really looking forward to the crispy air and the clear sun light in Vancouver.

Point promotion

In Japan, there are several mass sales stores of home electric appliances. They are selling a lot of electronic gadgets at low prices. Shinjuku is the hottest battle field of those stores. In order to get more customers they are offering so called "point promotion" which is a kind of member service. Once you become the point member and get a point card, you can use the card at purchasing something to get some points. The points have the value equal to cash in the store. For example, if you pay 10,000 yen at the store with the point card, you can get 1,500 points which is equivalent to 1,500 yen. How much percentage you can get depends on the item you buy. This service is very effective to enclosure a lot of customers and I am the very victim of it. Today I went shopping to the store and spent extra money I didn't estimate before.

Ice wine

It was a few years ago when I happened to see a bottle of ice wine. I thought then it's a kind of alternative drinks or cocktails. I sometimes saw this liquor at a liquor store in Vancouver but I have never tasted it. Today I happened to read an article about ice wine which says that ice wine is a superior kind of wine which is tasty, rare, and precious. It is not iced wine but ice wine; it is made from frozen and fully ripe grapes. As the water in the grapes is mostly frozen, only a little juice can be gotten but it is condensed and tasty. The article also says that Canada is the most popular country of ice wine. I really regret not knowing this precious information. Of course I'm going to get a bottle of ice wine as soon as I go back to Vancouver next month.

Taking a bath

Because of the flu, I cannot take a bath for about one week. My most urgent desire now is just taking a bath. I really want to soak in a bath full of hot water and get relaxed. As I barely went out of my house these days, I have no dust or mud on my body, but I feel my body coated with sticky resin. It's far from pleasant. Furthermore, I'm applying an ointment named VapoRub. This medicine contains much grease and that makes my body more sticky. The flu itself is not bad except the sore throat, but this unpleasant stickiness of my body is unbearable.

Robert Capa

Robert Capa is one of the most popular camera mans in Japan. His exhibition is held in Tokyo now. It is named "Capa in color." It is said that his newly found color photographs are shown and some of them were taken in Japan more than fifty years ago. I'm very interested in them. I got a ticket for the exhibition and I was looking forward to seeing it. But now, I have a cold and I can't go out. Unfortunately the exhibition is closed tomorrow. I really hope I recover by tomorrow.