Autumn leaves in Fukuchiyama

The Fukuchi-yama（福智山） is the highest mountain in my area.　It is about 900 meters high. The top of the mountain has no obstruction for viewers, so people can enjoy panorama there. It is one of my favorite mountains.

Last Sunday, I climbed it with my several old friends. I have ever climbed the mountain several times in the past, however it was the first time for me in five years.

It was very fine and the autumn leaves looked very beautiful. We enjoyed a good day in autumn.

Fukuchiyama

AＥＲＡ's short message

"AERA"（アエラ） is a weekly magazine released by Asahi Shimbun(朝日新聞）. I am looking forward to seeing a short message in its advertisement on a newspaper each week because it let me chuckle every time. It contains a kind of "word play".

This time, I try to explain it. We often use only one Kanji character to express a country's name or itself. For example, "米（べい）" means the United States of America. "仏（ふつ）" means France. "露（ろ）"　means Russia and it also can be pronounced "つゆ". And "つゆ知らず in Japanese means that (a person has) "unconsciously" (done wrong or done something that he does not plan to do at first).

So, "日本の領土とは、露知らず？" has two means. The first is "it(or he) did something but it has been unconscious that it is Japanese territory". Another mean is "Russia has not known (or learned) that it is Japanese territory".

There has been a dispute on small islands near Hokkaido（北海道） between Japan and Russia. It is one of on-going issues that Japan has faced now. You can learn more about this problem here.

Cadence

Yesterday, I replaced a cyclocomputer on my bike. The new device can measure "cadence".

In Japan, "cadence "（ケイデンス） is a special term for people who like riding bike, but general people do not know the word. It means rpm of a pedal. It is generally said that a good cyclist keeps the cadence about 90. My old device could not measure cadence, so I replaced it.

From now, I can train myself checking cadence during my cycling.

Land slide

This picture shows one scene that I saw when I went to the foot of Mt. Fukuchi（福智山） by bike on Oct. 11. Probably, a land slide happened there and the slope is repaired by the concrete.

I thought how much money it cost and how many people's lives it can save. It looks a kind of "Koukyou-kouji"（公共工事）(in direct translation, public construction) that means the government build some constructions mainly to create jobs.

As you might know, Japanese land is occupied by large mountain area and we have a lot of rain. So, sometimes we see land slides（地すべり）.

"Home Bakery"

I don't know that the word "Home Bakery" is used in the United States .And also I don't know that this kind of product is common there. But, it has been generally used among Japanese, and I have used it for our breakfast every day since I bought it through Amazon several days ago.

To make a bread by using it, we use wheat flour(250g), sugar(large spoon 2),salt(small spoon 1).skim milk(large spoon 1), butter(10g) ,180ml water and dry yeast. Its total cost is about 120yen, I think.

We can buy a same amount of bread named "食パン"(sliced bread) at a lower price than 120yen at a supermarket. So, we can not save money with this convenient machine.

Cycle Tour Kitakyushu

I was planning to take part in a bike event named Cycle Tour Kitakyushu last Sunday. But, I gave up it because of heavy rain in morning even though I had already paid entry fee.

The rain continued until about 11AM. After it had stopped raining, I rode my bike for short trip in my neighborhood. When I saw several people who had taken part in that event on the road, I slightly regretted my earlier decision.

How to use Kindle

In this point, there have not been any Japanese books sold by Amazon for Kindle yet. So, we have to create Japanese texts that is available on Kindle. Now, I am developing several ways for it. I introduce two useful ways that cost no money.

The first way is by using the websites, Aozora-bunko（青空文庫） and Aozora-kindoru（青空キンドル）. At Aozora-bunko, you can get Japanese texts that is out of copyright with free. And you can convert a text into a PDF file that is written in vertical direction by using Aozora-kindle. I have downloaded some books into my Kindle. They includes Terada Torahiko's（寺田寅彦） essays and Kikuchi Kan's（菊池寛） novels.

The second is for my business. I often see some documents about my work. They includes laws and rules in particular fields. I can see these documents on my Kindle by sending text files or PDF files to my own kindle's e-mail address.

Kindle is a interesting device, but my hope is to be able to read newly published Japanese books by it.

"Karatsu"

Last Sunday, I visited "Karatsu"（唐津） with my family. The purpose of this trip is to spend relaxed time at a hotel. The city of "Karatsu" locates in the eastern end of Saga prefecture（佐賀県）. It took about 2hours by car to get to the hotel from my home. (But, we used several roads that require fees to reduce the driving time. If not, it would take more than three hours.)

After taking a bath, we had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.

The next day, Monday, we visited "Yobuko"（呼子） where is famous for its morning market. We bought several foods there and went back to "Karatsu-Jo"(castle)（唐津城）. For our lunch, we ate "Karatsu-burger"（唐津バーガー） in "Niji-no-Matsubara"（虹の松原） where is a man-made forest with a lot of traditional pine tree.

On our way to our home, we stopped at ”Canal City Hakata”（キャナルシティ博多） in the city of Fukuoka because our children wanted to buy some character goods at "Jump-shop" and "Pokemon-center".

I took several photos in this trip, but unfortunately, I could not take a photo on the second day because my camera's battery was out.

Kindle has come!

Recently, I have got the "amazon-kindle Wi-Fi" without considering about how to use it because its price looked very attractive to me.

I have learned how to use the device from several web-site about it after the oder. In my final thought, the kindle is a very good device for non-native English speaker to learn English because we can read many English texts written in English that are downloaded from web-sites by using the device and also it can read a text loudly aloud in English.

For a while, I will try to use it in several usages.

Bike touring

P8220084, originally uploaded by bikenglish.

Last Sunday, I took part in a bike touring that was formed from 9 members. Only one of them was my acquaintance in them. He had suggested me to take part in it and I decided to do it.

Usually, I ride my bike alone along coast line without up-down. So, this riding was very hard for me because it included many slopes in very hot weather. The distance was about 100Km. We started at 8AM and came back at 4PM.(Of course, it includes several rest.)

I managed to keep up with them at the end all time. But, this was good experience that tell me a joy of group riding. And "mini-puffet"（ミニパフェ） ,"Ringo-curry"（りんごカレー） that I ate at a farmer's restaurant were very delicious.