ChanomiTalk

　日本には、好きな町が三つあります。京都と東京と広島です。 京都が好きな理由は、京都には、お寺や神社が沢山あるからです。 そこには、厳粛な空気が漂っています。お寺や神社の中に、 一歩、足を踏み入れると、自然と気持ちが引き締まり、心地よい緊張感が湧いてきます。 私は、清水寺に行った時のことを思い出します。 その荘厳な佇まいに深い感銘を受けました。 それ以来、私は、仏教に強い関心を持つようになりました。

I am back learning here at NACOS after being away for almost two years. I am happy to be back here and start learning Japanese. I like the teaching technique at NACOS and excited to learn more. I’ve been busy with work, so I could not continue taking lessons before but I am determined to stay with NACOS for a very long time.

For the past week or so, it has been snowing pretty regularly here in Chicago. Although the snow is beautiful, the one headache is driving in the snow. Usually they keep the roads pretty clear but if you have to leave in the morning before the snow trucks can clear the roads, it gets a little tricky. I’ve learned so far that the best strategy is just to drive slow. I don’t have a huge four-wheel drive pickup truck to charge through the snow so I stick to taking my time. Although it takes longer, it’s worked so far and I’m feeling safe with it.

I was driving this weekend to the grocery store and decided to take the back road through some small neighborhoods. As I was driving, I came upon a road and it was something like out of a movie. It was a perfect scene of a snow covered houses and the feeling of serenity. I was so surprised and impressed that I had to take a picture.

So I guess the bottom line is that everything has it’s pro’s and con’s and snow is no different. I wonder how long the snow will last? More to come…

On Oahu, located on the windward side called Kaneohe, the mountain range has formed some majestically high cliffs. Always caressed with passing clouds, a place called Stairway to Heaven can be vaguely seen above Haiku valley. Leading our expedition of 8 , we were lucky to have one experienced hiker among the rest of us novice hikers. Even back in the 70’s, it was difficult to get permission to hike there, since it was on Forrest Reserve land and the Coast Guard Omega Antenna Station. Periodically they would host an open house.

Our guide suggested that we bring lots of water, lite lunch snack with candy bars, gloves padded to protect hands from getting blisters, a wind breaker jacket in case it rained, and comfortable rubber padded shoes (no leather slippery soles), sunglasses to protect eyes, camera for panoramic view, sunscreen, all this but keeping your pack light. Nothing to be carried by hand, since both hands were needed to be free for this hike, and definitely no handbags or wallets, just an ID.

It was best to start as soon as they opened cause it took approximately 3 hours up the mountain and an hour down, running and sliding with hands on the bars. Including, four catch your breath breaks used for scenery appreciation which were amazing at that elevation. The air gets thinner as you go up so it makes breathing difficult. Before we started, there was a waiver to be signed,saying that the place was not responsible for any accidents or deaths, which was a good way to discourage any amateurs from trying this hike.

The first part of the hike (30-40min) was normal till we hit the first ledge and rest stop. From there we saw a ladder, like those on children’s play gyms, except it went straight up the side of the mountain for seven feet then a ledge footing to rest then more ladders. Now we knew why we had to have gloves and hands free!

By the second rest stop, just a third of the way up, one girl in our group decided she could not go any further so she said she’d wait there till we came down. We didn’t want risk her to going back down by herself, without someone helping her. It was pretty much a buddy buddy system with the person in front helping the person below when they needed help. We let several groups go ahead of us since they were faster and in better shape than we were, despite the fact that we were only in our 20’s-30’s.

It took 2 hours to almost reach the top of the ridge. The higher we went the harder it was to breath, the slower we moved. But we noticed some military men in groups of 2 literally running past us. It seemed like they were on a race or daily exercise and ran non-stop as if to break some record to get up there and down, they were having so much fun laughing and talking, while we were huffing and puffing, struggling just to get up there. Once on top, it’s about 40 mins of winding walkways with single guard rails on both sides which we clung to for dare life, to reach the end. Makes you feel much safer than Koko Crater Rim hike, where the rim is about 6 inches wide and crumbly like gravel, with so many small loose rocks that you have to crawl on all 4’s to cross the dangerous narrow areas and no guard rails. Koko Crater Rim Hike was considered for Intermediate Hikers, but to me it seemed like it was for the advanced, too scary.

Now for the fun part, going down! It was more fun and much easier and faster. Just hanging on to the rails with 2 hands and sliding down each 7 ft. ladder at a time with both feet on the outside of the rails.

By the time we hit bottom, my hands were blistered even though I had gloves (not the right kind for bars), my arms were aching from using it to pull myself up each bar, (should’ve practiced pull ups and chin ups), and my legs felt, okay just a little weak, but not falling off like my arms. Once we hit level ground we began laughing and partially jumping for joy that we had finished this feat. That was great! But let’s not do it again for a while. The blisters, aches and pains took a while to go away.

Today the place is closed to the public, ever since vandals in the night tore off several segmented ladders and threw them down into the non accessible terrain. The cost was too much to replace them and there was no need to, for repairs and checks could now be done by helicopter. Back then technicians had to climb up there. Recently groups of people tried to get funding to fix and reopen the place,but failed. So until then, the “Stairway to Heaven” is lost to memories……..for now!

引越しに向けて、パソコンのインターネットを解約しました。
引越しさきである実家はインターネットをひいていないので、先週、iPadminiを購入しました。
でも在庫切れなので商品が届くまで待っています。
現在美智子さんとのSkypeレッスンは、iPhoneで行っています。
iPhoneでも十分音はきれいです。それに、美智子さんが語尾のt,dなどの音が言えてたり言えてなかったりするのがよくわかると言ってくれます。
日本のとある携帯会社では、iPhoneとiPadminiを一緒に使うと割引が適応されるキャンペーンが行われています。
わたしもそれに乗っかったのです。
日本には携帯会社が4社ほどあり、競ってサービスやキャンペーンを行っています。
テレビのCMもとても凝っています。
何年か前に、アメリカの女優、キャメロン・ディアスが出演したCMが話題となり、それからどんどん売り上げが伸びた会社もあります。
会社が競争すると値段が安くなるので、消費者としてはありがたいです。