Strong coffee & flavored tea

Take a Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano, and rent a car to drive to Togakushi Shrine which is about 45 minutes by car from Nagano Station. If you want to drive from Tokyo, it takes about 2 to 3 hours additional.  It's not much distance if I use Shinkansen and Nagano is country so it would be easy drive, I thought, but I broke into into a cold sweat because there were many hairpin curves.   It was all right after all. I thought I should more drive often. There are so many nice places in the suburbs, and my driving skill never gets better if I don't use it. Well, it is all experience. Gate of Hou-Kou-Sha The entire mountain is filled with powerful energy. It is a place of mythology of opening the rock(Amano-Iwato-legend) in the ancient Japan. When Amaterasu, the sun goddess, hided in the rock cave upsetting with her brother Susanoo's bad behaviors, some gods and goddesses worked together to open the rock. Hou-Kou-Sha Togakushi, means 'hi...

I renewed passport. There are 5 or 10 years periods with Japanese passport. Red is 10 and blue is 5 years. The right one got 'Void' holes, it had worked for me since 2006. The left one is new passport, it will be traveling with me for another 10 years. Looking at those inbound and out bound stamps on the old passport, Somehow I feel secure with Japanese return stamps,  though I always think this is not where I should belong forever. Anyway, thank you for bringing me many places, and I hope I could visit to lots of beautiful places in next 10 years, too. Sakura View from my neighborhood

It is very chilly in Tokyo that we still need winter jackets though, the spring goddess has been arrived beautifully.  I would plant Mimosa if I have a garden 　 Lanterns are provided along the river to l ight up cherry blossoms at night Why wine bottles are so attrative?

The time required for someone,  to listen to Jazz, to appreciate paintings, and to write something not die without it but life will be no meaning without them. Time is getting shorter and shorter. Do you realize that? It's not because you are getting older, it is actually accelerated. There are more young looking person these days? I'd rather to say that they are younger than their ages. I'm kidding, but it might be true. What do you believe then? You can trust even a clock. (I don't trust TV or papers for 100%) Hear is a solution. Care for your body, clean up your space and clear your mind. Why? If you keep doing so, you will be able to distinguish between truth and false, necessary and unnecessary, correct and incorrect. Moomin cake Working on drawing a cafe more shaded A picture from Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exhibition

Story and pictures are wonderful.

Somehow it feels refreshing at the end of the year in Japan. Ever office, shop and people take a holiday and spend time with families. All houses are get ready to welcome a new year god to the houses by cleaning them up. And people buy groceries at the super markets like  hibernating throughout winter. I bought a lot of books on Kindle. They have gotten more collections these days than they used to be. I read Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens on Christmas, admired Fred that he is always cheerful and never been untruth to Scrooge. Tree lights at Roppongi BB-8 is our new hero I watched Star wars episode VII on the Christmas too.  Just baked cake in the oven  And baked tube cakes a few times.  A packages of rice cake stuffed with bean jam One thing good about getting age is to appreciate how beautiful nature of  a spirit of service is. Moreover we can turn inwards and examine ourselves.

Christmas is coming soon. It is as a closing day of the year. What you have been working, What you have been taking care the most, they would become materialized on the day. Mr. Fuji from Gotenba Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man (1962) Gold and silver Earings