Cafe TORA

I went to Cafe TORA for the first time the other day.

Don't you think those dishes look strange?

I'm always thinking that food served in a restaurant must look beautiful and delicious.

The cooks seemed to have put everything, for example, boiled rice with SASAGE beans, a piece of salted cod roe pasted bread, various vegee, shrimps and so forth in a bowl without thinking how they look.

Buuuuut, the taste was superb.

A flavor of dried laver seaweed and a taste of mayonnaise went well with other foodstuffs.

Maybe, we'll return the Cafe again.

A Heavy Snowfall Blanketed Utsunomiya City

view from my home

 A heavy snowfall blanketed Utsunomiya city and its vicinity last weekend.

Remaining snow prevented me from weekday tennis practices.

Luckily, a sunny weekend came back today and yesterday.

I enjoyed jumping, running and hitting tennis balls today.

It refreshed me and gave energy to go to office tomorrow.

Rina Becomes 18 Years Old

Rina had her 18th birthday last week on January 8th.

We celebrated her birthday with her elder sister Emi, having a birthday cake bought by her grandma.

Rina is very busy for preparing her college entrance exams these days, but had a fun time for a little while.

Cafe 'A la Bonne Maman'

I went to a cafe 'A la Bonne Maman' in Kanuma city last Friday.

The cafe serves French cuisine and displays a collection of miscellaneous goods imported from France.

There were bookshelves having books for customers. I found several photo albums with pictures of the cafe owner traveling in France.

Since the atmosphere in the cafe was so similar to a cafe in France that we felt as if we were slipped into a city in that country.

We Wish You A Happy New Year.

Japanese Restaurant 'Rin Ei Mon'

My senior daughter Emi came back home from Tokyo a couple days ago to spend a turn of the year vacation of her college.
I think it's my second time to meet her this year.
Emi, my wife and I went to a Japanese restaurant called 'Rin Ei Mon' to have lunch yesterday.
We enjoyed nice meal and a lot of catching-up talks for an hour there.

Cafe yu-lan YUHORA

I went to a cafe called 'yu-lan YUHORA' to have lunch with my wife a couple weeks ago.

The owner of the cafe took care of orchids both inside the restaurant and also in a glass house next to the restaurant.

There were no other customers coming in while we were staying there.

The owner was very friendly, she talked about how her cafe had started several years before, about her daughter and, of course, about orchid.

She showed us the glass house after the lunch and gave us some vegetables as a present.

We enjoyed staying in the cafe with a quiet atmosphere over an hour.

Utsunomiya Central Park

I took a day off from office and went to Utsunomiya Central Park to see changing colors of early winter leaves the other day.

Maple trees were beautifully colored in the bright sunlight and a gentle breeze.

Hooray!

I won the B-class municipal tennis tournament yesterday. Wow!

The B-class tournament was open only for seniors and beginners. I fell on a category of seniors.

Thirty-six tennis players, including me, competed vigorously against the opponents on a sunny, but cold and windy winter day.

Every practice of last several months after I became a runner-up in the summer tournament has finally been rewarded.
Hooray!

I hold a certificate of the winner and a racket bag for the prize.

Guests from East Timor

East Timor is a country in Southeast Asia.
It became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002.

My wife works using her English skills, for instance as an interpreter, as a translator or sometimes as a tour guide for whom come from foreign countries.

Two weeks ago, she suffered from a terrible backache and was not able to walk for a whole four-days.

Unfortunately, she had an appointment of an interpreter for guests from East Timor visiting Utsunomiya at that time.

 It's impossible to rearrange their schedule nor find a substitute overnight.
Then what did we do? Can you guess?

Yes, I did in her place.
It's bad for me to give up tennis practices from Friday to Sunday, but it was a fun moment and a good experience.

Gingko Trees Cover Streets with Yellow Veils in Utsunomiya.

I went to Kiyohara Industrial Park to see gingko trees and fallen leaves yesterday.

The trees were very beautifully colored as I had expected.

I walked on the street for about half an hour but met nobody, to be precise, I didn't even met a single person, even on Saturday afternoon.

When I lived in Tokyo, in such a beautiful park, I must have had hard time to avoid hundreds of people to take lovely pictures.

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