Pronounciation and description

When we Japanese people pronounce Japanese words described in English alphabet, we just do it as it is described.
For example

OBI ( Kimono belt/s )
ODAIBA ( An area name in Tokyo )

How do you English speaking people pronounce above? :-) Actually the BI for OBI should be pronounced as in BI for BIG, not as in BI for BI-LINGUAL.
But in most cases, English speaking people pronounce that BI for OBI like BI for BI-LINGUAL, so there's always confusing with Japanese people especially if what they pronounce had other meanings. They never accept Japanese way of pronounciation for that OBI lol.....
And when Japanese people say OBI in their own way, English speaking people always write it down "OBE" :o This has been a big "why?" to me, but I noticed that BE is just like BI for BIG for English speaking people. They always pronounce BE as in BI for BIG e.g. "Would BE", "MayBE" etc.
When we say ODAIBA, English speaking people often write it down "ODIABA". I think because a lot often a consonant plus "i" sounds as if that consonant plus "ai". Like Giants, Bi-lingual, Simon, Like etc.

When we notice this tiny thing, we can pressume it easier what English speaing people would describe. But I am not sure when English people notice the correct way to pronounce Japanese words which Japanese people describe in English alphabet :p
Maybe it needs more time :-)

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Companion plants

Some plants could work for other plants to avoid harmful bugs. This marygold is a kind of companion plants for our cucumber. Marygold smells strong, it smells like a mosquito coil, but a lot stronger. It's getting the time to harvest cucumber, actually reliable because it's we who grow the cucumber but when it's harvesting time, usually we are to keep having them for a while which is a bit tough sometimes :(

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Summer greetings

Summer greetings from Hakuba.
It seems that it's been hot in big cities in Japan, I hear something like the max temperture in a day is 39C somewhere in Japan, sorry to hear that.
Like as usual I hope this cool picture helps them to feel cool.
Though it's very cold and snowy in winter in Hakuba, we spend easier time than in big cities in summer. Hope everyone could make it to spend some time here in summer.

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Blueberry 2008

We have some blueberry trees in a tiny field and grow them. The flowers are white, just look like what we call suzuran ( lily in the valley ?) flowers.



Blueberry fruits look like pomegranate fruit but a lot smaller. They look light green in this picture but actually dark blue.
I hear blueberries are good for your eyes but I think it's too late for my old far sighted eyes lol...

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Scenery from Kaufbeuren station.

When I traveled in souhern part of Germany called Schwaltzewalt, I was on local railways which needed me to change train some times. Not so many services available, perhaps once in 2-3 hours while express trains in major lines provided frequent services like once an hour. Needed to spend some hours at tha station but if there's this kind of beautiful scenery around, it never bored me.

Kaufbeuren is located on the way from Lindau to Augsburg.

View a bigger map
Here's a scenery from a train from Lindau to Kaufbeuren. The second picture is that.

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A ladybug with many stars

Found a ladybug walking around in our garden. It was enough big and outstanding for a couple of far sighted eyes of an old man :-) If the black marks on its back were 7, we call it "Nanahoshi tentou" because this "nana" means 7. But this one had a lot more. Wonder what's its name though.

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Mulberry jam

Picked some mulberries and made its jam. Mulberries are sweet but look like almost black rather than red. So if you don't brush your teeth after having some, your teeth look like almost black which is like Ohaguro that married women had in old Edo era here in Japan:-) Maybe good for women to avoid sukebe guys around lol....

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Airconditioned!

Finally all the guest rooms in our place got airconditioned. Hope everyone likes it.

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Passing through Kuwabara siding

A 383 series limited express train "Shinano" running downhill from Obasute and passing through Kuwabara siding. It's a siding with a double crossing point. When trains pass through it, they make a noisy sound which could be interesting to train fans!


A 115 series local train running uphill for Obasute

115 series train has a traditional face which began at 153 series. That face looks cozy to an old man like me.

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Playing with web map

When we try something new, we just had better try it before wondering this and that too much. See what infants do, they always try anything new with curious eyes. We can learn someething from them :-)

I just tried to customize a google map for our location.

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Hope this helps you to find us!

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Vertical motors transferered from Yamashina, Kyoto

One of regular poster in my Japanese blog "Yamashina no tecchan" sent me 10 vertical motors the other day. This type of motor was main one when I started collecting model trains 40 years ago. The gear system is called " inside gear" I guess because gears are all set inside the two wheels. I have never heard "outside gear" yet and I don't think they can set gears outside of the wheels lol....

But anyway, this motor is a bit bulk for HO scale train cars, so it occupies rooms in a train car or a locomotive. Nowadays people tend to enjoy putting interiors as well, so they prefer other system motors which are smaller and they can put them under the floor so that they can put interior in the car.

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Checking ED70

Been checking a model train locomotive ED70. When I do this, I make it into pieces to see what is wrong. Usually some dust are around gears because sometimes we need to put some oil there.
With my old eyes, it's a bit tough to keep doing this kind of things for long hours. Need to finish in an hour or two then keep trying next day or later...

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Inpatience after raindrops

Japanese sometimes talk about baby bamboos after raindrops because they grow very fast after raindrops. I have never heard of it if it's impatience but they seem to grow faster after raindrops than in fine dry days though they don't grow that fast while we give water when it's not rainy. This shows how nature works.
I made this pot full of vermilion flower since I would have liked to make a small vermilion spot in green.

Hanging baskets. A combination of vermilion, pink and white. Hanging baskets gets dry sooner than other pots which are for example unglazed pots. We need to manage water for them. From my experiences, as far as we put inpatience in the shade or half shade, we had better keep them a bit dry rather than moist. If it's moist, impatience tends to die.

A combination of vermilion, red and white. White makes its contrast very clear. But hum.... looks each and every pot grows as they like lol.... Maybe I had better cut them a bit sometimes to keep the looking better.


A combination of vermilion, red and pink. There used to be a kind of pink which was a bit dark and was in good combo with white. But I have never found that pink anywhere recently. Probably they don't grow that one any more.

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Fine day at Hakuba Goryu Alps daira

Went up to Hakuba Goryu Alps daira botanical garden to pick up weeds there. I prepared some towels to protect my neck from sunburns and a hat to do my head. Noticed that when we get older, we prepare something different for different purposes which we never needed when we were young lol......
Pay attention at the left side pole which is a bit vended. Some pulleys for chair lifts wire are hanged at the middle that may look a bit funny for skiers and snowboarders who visit ski resort in winter. They hang the pulleys lower in summer beause if they leave them at the top as well as in winter, passengers are to move very high in the air which might be a bit danger. This is why they hang them lower in summer if the lifts were in service. Only for this event, they need to get an authorization, Japan is full of authorizations here and there!
As we get 2 - 3 meters snowfall here in winter, they need to hang them upper in winter.

The altitude of Alps daira is around 1,500 meters. It was 20C today with cool and dry windblow which made us comfortable to do the work.

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