Traditional Japanese Houses at Hitachi Seaside Park

They kept old traditional Japanese houses neat and clean, and made them open for the park visitors.

The houses were surrounded by beautiful field mustard and astragalus flowers.

I do not know the name of a bamboo-made decoration of the last picture and also have no idea of the purpose.

Does anybody know it?

The object was hoisted on the top of a bamboo pole beside an old Japanese house at the park

I Walk about at Hitachi Seaside Park

The park is very huge. Nemophila is not the only plant there, but there are lots and lots of plants of which I have never heard the name.

I am sure that one day is not enough to look every nook and corner of the park.

I See My Friend Again For the First Time in 4 Years

I went to a Japanese noodle soup shop and a dumpling shop with my old friend the other day.

I enjoyed the reunion very much.

I worked with him  for several years at my company around 1998; he was a software engineer at that time.

He is living a quite adventurous life.
He got married in his young age, divorced after several years, changed occupations many times, once lived in the US, ran a company and bankrupted it within a few years, worked as an owner of three houses, met a fraud and was robbed of about half a million US dollars, married again at the age of 60 with a single mother with kids, now he is planing to work as a driver.

I Go to Hitachi Seaside Park

I went to Hitachi Seaside Park with my wife by car four days ago, 2 May.
It took us about two hours from home to the park.
It was a rather long drive though, well worth visiting.

Even top season of nemophila had been over, tens of hundreds of people were visiting and seemed to enjoy walking along hill trails surrounded by millions of light blue colored flowers.

I Go to Japanese Restaurant Gassan

I went to a Japanese restaurant called gassan with my wife the other day.

The restaurant is located on the top floor in Tobu department store in Utsunomiya city.

The restaurant is famous for its tofu cuisine.

We ordered yu-doufu or boiling tofu and yuba.

Yuba is also called tofu skin, a food product made from soybeans.
It is made, at first boiling soy milk, a skin forms on the liquid surface, then take the skin. That is the yuba.

The restaurant offered us perfect tofu dishes; you should not miss them when you are in Utsunomiya city.

I Go to Utsunomiya Museum of Art

Cherry blossoms have almost gone in Utsunomiya.
My wife and I went to a museum to see an exhibition of a Japanese painter.

The painter was not so famous that I forgot the name of him, haha.

We enjoyed seeing the paintings and walking about the park of the museum.

The picture below shows beautiful t falling cherry blossoms near a sculpture.

Sculpted by an Italian Artist, Sandro Chia

Emi Comes Back to Utsunomiya

My daughter Emi came back home for several weeks. She had ample time to take a rest and relax. That was good for her to recover from poor health conditions.

We went to hot spring, after that, had dinner one day.

We rarely have had enough time to talk about so much of things, such as work, life, future and these things before.

Kinu Green Park, shirasawa, narcissus flowers

Cherry Blossoms in Utsunomiya

Cherry blossoms were in full bloom last week in my town Utsunomiya.

I took those pictures near my office and tennis courts where I usually use.

The video was the scene from just my office site exit gate to tennis courts area.
I took the video while I was riding on a bike.

I Go to Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts

On a freezing cold day, my wife and I went to Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts. The museum had a beautiful outdoor exhibition area. Shinning water, sculptures, trees and their shadows went well with surrounding buildings.

I Go to Indian Restaurant 'Bombay Bistro'

One of my favorite foods is Indian one. There are many Indian restaurants in my home town though, the taste of food at 'Bombay Bistro' in Austin had to be listed on my top ten restaurant rankings.
Prawn curry seemed very spicy, but it was mildly flavored and delicious. Talking about rice, it is almost impossible to eat none-sticky long rice in Japan. I think that type of rice goes very well with Indian curry.

I Stay at Hyatt House in Austin

This is the room I stayed in Austin.
The room was spacious, clean and quiet, a bit old though.

It fitted well for relaxing and working with a PC.

Since it had a small kitchen with kitchen utensils, I cooked light meal, Japanese noodle soup, as for my late-evening snack.