Our Greenery Day (4 May)

7 May 2008 | Text

Konosuyama, for the first time in a while

3 May 2008 | Text

Domestic ducks and wild ducks

28 April 2008 | Text

Getting back to the Horticultural Park

18 March 2008 | Text

It soon became March!

We were grateful to get tickets to the Mokujiki exhibition at the Fukuoka City Museum in Momochi, and we went to see it when we thought the timing might be good.
Actually, I am not particularly interested in Buddhist images, but I like to see tender looking figures, because I can feel I become tender, too.

1 March 2008 | Text

The winter flower garden

After paying our respects at Hakozaki Shrine, we went to the flower garden.
The main flowers were the winter paeonies, and we think it was the best season. In this season, when there are not many flowers around, the winter paeonies are covered by individual straw roofs: there are less of them compared to the spring paeonies, but they are gorgeous. (I guess they are very hard to raise!)

12 February 2008 | Text

The first anniversary of the city merger

Many cities, towns, and villages have merged over the past few years, including my home town. They had a one year anniversary ceremony and dedicated performances at the outdoor Nô stage near my parents’ house.
I’ve been familiar with this Nô stage since I was a child, and performances there are unusual, so we decided to go see them.

27 January 2008 | Text

About Kanna

When we went to Fukuoka City Zoo, which is near our house, we always visited a female hippopotamus named Kanna. She died on the morning of the 18th.
She was 45 years old, which is equivalent to about 80 to 90 human years old, so she probably died of old age.
Kanna was an impressive hippo, who gave birth to her son Kanta at the age of 38.
Now, Kanta lives in a zoo in China.
We feel sad to think that next time we will only see Taro (maybe 11 years old).

21 December 2007 | Text

Birthday…

3 December 2007 | Text

A good day for an outing

On Sunday, the 21st, I found it was a free admission day at Umi-no-nakamichi Seaside Park, so we decided to go.
We had a choice of bus + ship, bus + bus, and bus + JR train. Just in case, I found all the timetables.
At the time we left home, it was good to take bus + bus. However, the bus didn’t take the expressway! It was a regular local bus. (Oops. But we didn’t wait for the bus for an hour.) We reached the destination about two hours after we left home.

23 October 2007 | Text

It had been four years, but…

We were not sure if we could go, so I didn’t search enough for information ahead of time, which was a mistake. It’s the Hakata Tômyô Lantern Arts Festival, which is held every year in the Hakata area. (This year was the thirteenth.)
We enjoyed it in 2002 and 2003. It was a disaster because of a strong wind and rain in 2004. We couldn’t go there because of work in 2005. And I was in the hospital last year. And we finally could go again, but…

21 October 2007 | Text

We took the train

We rode the Nishitetsu Ômuta line for the first time in a while: out to Gojô, which is one stop before Dazaifu.
I wanted to see a lot of cosmos, so I searched for a good spot, and learned that at Kanzeonji temple there is a cosmos farm planted by local people. I heard the flowers were about 70% in bloom, so far there had been no rain, and there was no admission fee.

15 October 2007 | Text

This year’s ukon (a little late)

Last year, I wrote about the yellow-green cherry blossoms called ukon that are planted in the Fukuoka City Zoo parking area beside Minami Park, ten minutes away from our house on foot. The peak time had passed, so we sometimes tried to check it, because we didn’t want to miss them in full bloom this year.

13 April 2006 | Text

Our walking trip

Well, we walked a lot. Chris enjoyed it very much. It rained, which was a disappointment, but we could go to new places in not-hot and not-cold weather, so we thought it was a meaningful holiday. We’ve really become bad at being in a crowd these days. Anyway, how many kilometres did we walk?

22 March 2006 | Text

Our small lantern festival

The Hakata Lantern Arts Festival is an event we watch for every year. Sadly, last year it suffered because of typhoon wind and rain, so we were looking forward to going to this year’s eleventh anniversary festival; but we had to give it up because of our work schedule.

23 October 2005 | Text

Koma-inu

‘Koma-inu’ are stone guardian dogs placed at the entrance to a shrine. I’ve seen many koma-inu without any thought since I was a child, but now I notice they have much more variety and depth than I thought.

10 October 2005 | Text

The second Fukuhaku Tanabata Lantern Festival

August 8, Saturday, a lantern festival was held from Fukuoka City Hall to the Nakasu area. Last October’s Hakata Toumyo Lantern Arts Festival was supposed to be bigger, but it wasn’t a success because of a typhoon. We knew this August one would be a little smaller but we went earlier than usual. There had been strong rain in the afternoon so we hoped for no more rain in the night.

9 August 2005 | Text

Cherry flowers, and then…

My house is located relatively close to Minami Kôen (park) and Fukuoka City Zoo and Botanical Gardens. Around the view tower parking, several kinds of cherry trees are planted that bloom later than the someiyoshino. Going up the stairs to the parking lot, there are thickets of azaleas on both sides, but actually we’re aiming for a sakura near the parking entrance side.

20 April 2005 | Text

An event in Saga

On Friday, April 8th, 2005, I went to my parents’ house in Saga prefecture to help out. When I served a cup of tea to one of their guests, he asked me if I knew about the filming down there. As more guests arrived, I found out they were shooting the film version of Shimada Yôshichi ’s memoir Super Saga Granny.

11 April 2005 | Text