happylife

An ugly object in the city

Japan is apparently in a depression notwithstanding famous economists or government say anything. There are three major businesses which are prospering in this season; pachinko the traditional Asian gamble game using small metal balls, loan shark and cell phone business. These three have a characteristic that acts badly on our daily life with their bad-designed advertisements including the loud signboards, illuminations and TV commercials. Bad thing is that when the economy goes down, companies in these businesses get relatively strong and their ugliness becomes more conspicuous. TV commercial seems to be occupied by them. Frequent TV watchers will be brain-washed by those terrible CFs and their sense of beauty must be collapsed. Someone may say that the cell phone companies are not so bad, but I think they are the worst in terms of the city view. This picture depicts an antenna tower of a cellphone company. Who thinks it's not ugly? It looks worse than a strange statue of a cult. I'm sorry the city views in Japan have been and are going to be worse and worse.

Kushiro Marsh

"What does Kushiro remind you?" Most typical answer to this question will be "fog" and "marsh." As I often mentioned in this blog, Kushiro is a wet and cool place and it has been so before the human age. Owing to this characteristic weather condition, the ancient bottom of the sea around Kushiro didn't fully parch and formed a vast, flat and wet land. This is the origin of Kushiro Marsh. I ride on a bicycle and go around the city almost every day and it's very pleasant because everywhere is flat. This is the picture of the steepest slope in Kushiro which doesn't seem steep to me because I know hundreds of steeper slopes in Tokyo. A postman's small motorcycle was just coming up the slope very easily.

To sketch

I'm not an artistic person. I have never drawn or painted since I graduated from high school. I know I can't draw well, but I also know that everything gets better by practicing. I started drawing a sketch a week ago and I have drawn one or two sketches every day on my iPhone using a nice software named "netsketch." As you might know, the iPhone has a small touch screen and we can control everything by touching the screen with our fingers. Netsketch is a drawing software specially designed for the iPhone. The canvas of this software can be unlimitedly zoomed in and out by pinching two fingers. If you drew a wrong line, you can undo it as many times as you like. Every line you draw is stored as a vector data, so it never gets shaggy when it is zoomed in. Thanks to these functions, drawing a sketch with this software is really enjoyable. As the name of this software describes, we can draw collaboratively by using multiple iPhones which are connected to a same network. I'm sorry I can't experience this collaboration because I have no friend around me who has the iPhone with Netsketch!

A cafe on a hill

When I was cycling around the city, I happened to find this castle-like building on a hill. It is a cafe run by one of the most famous confectioneries in Hokkaido. No one couldn't stop me walk in to the cafe as I am sweet addicted. I got happy as soon as I were there because the cafe was idealistic for me; a spacious floor with a spectacular lake view and I could even see a big flower bed under the window. Of course the menu items were delicious and reasonable priced. I enjoyed a bowl of shaved ice with boiled adzuki beans and match flavor. It was the most delicious shaved ice in my life because it was not actually "ice." In more accurate words, it was made from iced milk with sugar. The cafe is located at the end of my cycling course and it's about a 40 minute ride from my hotel. It's a good reward for me after a moderate exercise. How many times more am I visiting there?

A divided city

The central part of Kushiro City is divided by a train rail which runs east and west. This city must have grown around the train station, but now the age of trains have past and it has been replaced by cars. The rail even looks like an obstacle which divides the city into North and South. The way to cross the boarder is limitted; only three bridges and one tunnel as far as I know. If you have a car, it’s not a major problem, but for many pedestrians or cyclist like me, it’s a kind of hard work to go to the other side because we have to go up and down a steep steps like this picture. The center line you can see in this picture is prepared for cyclists so that they can carry and roll their bike beside them. However, it is so steep that I was scared when I used it for the first time. It ia really an obstacle and it makes this city more inconvenient. The best way will be burrying the rail under ground, but no one has such money in this city.

Fireworks in Kushiro

In spite of the rather inconvenient city life because of the less population in Kushiro, I love this city and I am thinking about staying here for more weeks. The cool weather is the biggest reason for that, but I have some other reasons. Fireworks is one of them. I'm always thinking that fireworks should be watched live. Any high-grade audio video set cannot reproduce real fireworks. Sure, fireworks shows are held here and there all around this country in this summer season, but the crowdedness at fireworks night is terrible especially in the dense area such as Tokyo, Osaka and so on. For example, Sumida River Fireworks with 20,000 shots is a mighty popular summer event, but it's very difficult to watch the fireworks avoiding the visitors' heads and buildings. On the other hand in Kushiro, it's almost a paradise for fireworks lovers. 8,000 shorts are less in size than Sumida River, but divide the number of shots by the number of people! I arrived at the view spot on the Kushiro River side 10 minutes before the start and I was totally able to enjoy the fireworks show for one and a half hours.

A minimum parade

Kushiro is still in the festival season. Last Sunday, when I was working in my hotel room I heard a festival music out of the window. I watched out and found this small parade carrying a portable shrine. It was the smallest parade I have once seen. The portable shrine is usually so heavy that at least twelve people are needed to carry it, however in this parade, there were only ten! They looked so tired that they soon took a rest. I have never seen such a scene that a parade is paused on the way! Only the festival music was on during their rest because it was not a live but a recorded one from a car speaker. I wonder if this parade can be held next year. The population problem is really serious here in Kushiro.

To occupy a huge gym

The other day I went to a gym which opened a few months ago near my hotel. As is advertised on posters here and there, it is the largest sport gym in the East Hokkaido; it has numerous machines including bikes, steppers and some unknown ones for muscle training. All of them are brand new. It was in a weekday afternoon when I visited there for the first time and there was only one preceding visitor who went out soon after my arrival. So, I occupied the huge three-floor gym by myself. It was a rich and pleasant feeling but I felt kind of loneliness in the same time. The feeling might have been close to Michael Jackson's. Anyway, after I did stretching, running, horse riding and muscle training for about two hours, I became absolutely fine. I recognized that daily exercise is really refreshing and important for happy life. As I can use the gym only for 300 yen including a rental uniform and a face towel, I'm thinking about visiting there every day.

A gallery in my pocket

I'm not an artistic man and my daily life is often far from beautiful. That's why I adore beautiful things almost unexpectedly. It was a few days ago when I found a software for the iPhone named "Art Envi." I purchased it without thinking seriously because it was 115 yen and I'm now thinking it was a really good shopping. The software has a very simple feature in which we can enjoy thousands of great art works with our iPhone. All we have to do is choose our favorite artist's name. That's all and a slide show begins automatically. As the art data is on the Internet server, the number of the available artworks is literally numerous. Sure I know that we can google and enjoy art works for free using our PC, but it's important that we can do it only with this tiny, pocketable device. As far as the 3G wave reaches or WiFi is in effect, I can enjoy the great works of Gogh, Picaso and Dali. Imagine that you can enjoy it with your favorite music whenever and wherever you are! I'm worrying someone blames of this software as a desecration of art because of its price.

A weird relationship between nations

August 6th is the day when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima for the first time in human history. However, most Japanese people are not even aware of this special day and few people claim or do anything on this day. I'm sorry but I am not the exception. The anniversary event held in Hiroshima seems to be a formality. Sure, insisting to blame for the old thing is not creative, but the bomb must not be such a small thing which can be forgotten only in 60 years. The United States should apologize us about the holocaust and we should do the same thing about the Pearl Harbor. I think it is a good idea that the U.S. President visit Hiroshima while Japanese Prime Minister visit the Pearl Harbor. If we harmed someone we naturally have to apologize. It is the basic rule for good friendship between people. As nations consist of such people, the same rule should stand right. The current relationship between the U.S. and Japan is sometimes called "alliance" which is very weird.