Categories
travel

I went to Basque. #2

My trip to Basque-#2   On Oct.19, I got up at 7:00a.m. Of course, it’s local time in Spain. We left the hotel at 9:00. Again, we had rain like Japanese rainy season. First, our tour bus stopped over Durango, Biscay. We did sightseeing in the old area of the city, we saw “Iglesia de Santa María de Uribarri”, “Kurutziaga Cross”, etc.

   We had lunch at a tiny good restaurant “Akebaso“. Two dogs were there, so cute.

   After lunch, we visited a cheese factory in Idiazábal. Others bought a lot of cheese and I also did a block of it. The cheese was very very tasty.

   The hotel of the day was in Pamplona. I was still tired when I checked into it. So I went to bed earlier than usual and slept all night.

   To be continued. (^_~)

Categories
travel

I went to Basque. #1

My trip to Basque-#1   At 4a.m. on Oct.17 JST, I got up. I left my house at 4:25a.m. and drove to Fukuoka Airport. I arrived at the parking lot around 5:40. About 70 minutes. It was very short time because it was early morning. I got a takeoff from the Narita at 12:15.

   When I arrived at my hotel in Bilbao, Spain, it was almost the end of the day. I faced the time difference, so it took about 26 hours since I had got up. This included about 6hours as connecting flights time. Very very tired.

   The next morning, I got up at 7:30 because of the tour schedule though I wanted to sleep more and more. My travel agency usually does not plan a hard schedule. But the schedule of the day was very hard for me. At that time, I regretted taking the tour a little bit.

   By the way, I made a slide show. Please take a look. It has no sound. And you can never find me on it. (^^;)

   The dinner of the day was so late and so heavy though it just stuck to schedule. I was really tired again.

   To be continued. (^_~)

Categories
private remark

Reading 雨月物語 aloud.

   Recently, I make an audio book for my private net radio station (It doesn’t exist anymore – 2016.Jun.1) which is my reading of “Ugetsu monogatari (雨月物語)”.

   There is a big difference between to read aloud and to read silently in Japanese. The difference between the two might exist in other languages. But a unique problem for us, we have the different readings of a word written by Chinese characters (漢字). When we, i.e. grown-up Japanese, read a sentence silently, we don’t mind if we don’t know its pronunciation of a word written by Chinese characters. Chinese character is an ideogram, each of them has meanings itself. Besides, a book for grown-ups has no Furigana (ふりがな). So, we can get what the writer say, but we cannot know how to pronounce of the writer calling to mind.

   “Ugetsu monogatari” is one of Ueda Akinari’s works. Ueda Akinari (上田秋成) was in 18th century. “Ugetsu monogatari” is, so to speak, a collection of Japanese ghost stories.It is not a simple horror book but a dreadful elegant one. If you were Japanese, you could enjoy not only its contents but its style. The original text has good rhythm. If a good reader did aloud, it would become a good audio book. And we have such CDs in Japan.

   Of cource, I’m NOT a good reader, so it is a reckless challenge. But I dare to do it. (++;)

Categories
Uncategorized

You can look inside!

Update information      Edit(2013.Jan.7)～～Edit4(2014.Mar.29)

   I added my new translation to the page “Kirin tidings“.

   By the way, you can look inside the books. Click the links below!! Unfortunately, all of them are in Japanese only. But you can see the covers of both the front and the back. Enjoy!!

  1. Demon’s Child(魔性の子)
  2. The Shadow of the Moon, The Sea of Shadow #1(月の影 影の海[上])
  3. The Shadow of the Moon, The Sea of Shadow #2(月の影 影の海[下])
  4. Sea of Wind, Shore of the Labyrinth(風の海 迷宮の岸)

Edit(2013.Jan.7):
   I’ve added new one.
　　　5.　Sea God in the East, Vast Sea in the West(東の海神 西の滄海)

Edit2(Apr.4):
   I’ve added new ones.
　　　6.　A Thousand Miles of Wind, The Sky at Dawn #1 (風の万里 黎明の空・上)
　　　7.　A Thousand Miles of Wind, The Sky at Dawn #2 (風の万里 黎明の空・下)

Edit3(Jul.2):
   I’ve added new one.
　　　8.　The Birds of Hisho (丕緒の鳥)

Edit4(2014.Mar.29):
   I’ve added new ones.
　　　9.　Tonan no Tsubasa (図南の翼)
　　　10.　Kasho’s Dream (華胥の幽夢)

Categories
everyday life

Adachigahara(安達原)

能と狂言の夕べ   On Sep. 28, I saw Noh(能) “Adachigahara(安達原)” at the Hall nearby. At the same time, they staged Kyōgen(狂言) “Bōshibari(棒縛り)”, and Noh “Futarishizuka(二人静)” as an opening act(舞囃子). In 舞囃子, actors have no mask and perform a main part of the Noh play.
   Three plays were performed in the order below.

  1. Futarishizuka(二人静)
  2. Bōshibari(棒縛り)
  3. Adachigahara(安達原)

   Though I often go and see Kyōgen, this is the first live Noh play I have ever seen. Noh is very closely related with Kyōgen and their history is similar in length. But nowadays, we have less chance of seeing Noh than seeing Kyōgen. This time, we had no famous actors in the performers, but they were good shows.

   By the way, actually I love Kyōgen than Kabuki. And, only “Bōshibari(棒縛り)” I can find on YouTube. Please click the link and enjoy it!!

Categories
everyday life

Tonight is “Otsukimi”, but, again……

台風17号   Today, it’s 15th of August by our old calendar(旧暦). It’s time for “Otsukimi(お月見)”. But, I cannot see the full moon from my house because of thick clouds.

   Japan has the typhoon season now. Actually, we still have the aftereffect of Tropical Storm Jelawat(台風17号) in Kyūshū area today. See the right image.

izayoi2012   “お月見” and “台風”, both of them are features of autumn in Japan. One is good, the other is bad. The night happens to coincide with a typhoon might be natural.

Edit(Oct.8):
   Look!! I saw a clear moon on Oct. 1st and took the picture. When we take a good hard look at the image, we can get the upper right-hand of the moon wanes a little. But, it’s O.K. because it’s beautiful. Don’t you think so? (^o^)

Categories
Uncategorized

A phpMyAdmin kit containing a backdoor??

   I added my new translation to the page “Kirin tidings“.

   By the way, have you read PMASA-2012-5, yet? They say that one server from the SourceForge.net mirror system, namely cdnetworks-kr-1, was distributing a phpMyAdmin kit containing a backdoor. They currently know only about phpMyAdmin-3.5.2.2-all-languages.zip being affected. If you use “phpMyAdmin”, please check its files out. If they include the file server_sync.php, you have a problem. See more information about it, here and here.

Categories
everyday life

Tenchi meisatsu(天地明察).

   On Sep. 19, I went and saw my doctor for my longstanding condition. Recently, I always do this every two month.

   A movie theater exists nearby the hospital and I sometimes see a movie at the same time. This time, I saw the Japanese new movie “Tenchi meisatsu(天地明察)” at the theater as I had wanted to see it because of being interested in its theme. Though I haven’t read the original novel, it is based on “Tenchi meisatsu(天地明察)” written by Ubukata Tō(冲方丁). [See the right image]

   This is the story of Shibukawa Harumi(渋川春海), in the movie one of his young names Yasui Santetsu(安井算哲) is used, though. Shibukawa Harumi(1639-1715) is an astronomer, a Go player, and so on. One of his great achievements is Jōkyōreki(貞享暦). This is the first calender which was made by Japanese themselves. Japanese had used calenders made by Chinese for hundreds years until then. Besides, even if in China they changed their calender, in Japan we did not accept their new calender, so the differences between reality and calender were getting bigger and bigger.

   In the time Shibukawa Harumi lived, Japan went into the stabilized period of Pax Tokugawa Shogunate. My guess, peace brought composure to people to think about such academic things. The movie has good mixture of fiction and non-fiction. In addition, astronomical tools restored by old literature information or the others are wonderful, for example a big Quadrant, etc. I would have wanted to know more about Hokkyoku Shucchi(北極出地).

   The movie is not a masterpiece but good one for me. Then I like it.

Categories
everyday life

Golf stroke counter.

   I added my new translation to the page “Kirin tidings“.

   By the way, I bought a golf stroke counter for my swimming. Why? I can’t remember how many meters I swim. I think it was O.K. about it when I was young. Sigh.

   So I need a counter or something. The counter I bought is very cheap. I was ready for that before having it, but the real one is beyond my expectation. I am very downcast. I live with it for my swimming though.

   It has simple mechanism. It has only button, no reset button, and no battery. I need to change its count manually. It’s not waterproof but it has no battery, so it’s O.K. even if it gets wet. This is the reason I chose it.

   The image looks too good than the real one.　(´ω｀)・・

Categories
everyday life

Kumagai Jin’ya(熊谷陣屋)

soleil1soleil2   Yesterday, I saw the play “Kumagai Jin’ya(熊谷陣屋)” at Kitakyūshū Soleil Hall. At the same time, they staged the Dance “Onna date(女伊達)”. I think this is first time for the hall having a kabuki play. I am not a kabuki crazy, but like to watch it. This program I have not seen before.

   When the show began, I confused this with “Terakoya(寺子屋)”. They have the same theme, I think. These stories I don’t like very much. I feel they are very tragic and cruel. The show was held as a weekday matinee performance, perhaps for that reason, the hall had plenty of room. The audience was a quarter of full house.

   The performance was acceptable for me. But the dance was not good. The main dancer, actually he is one of my favorite kabuki actors, danced without feeling. Was I the only person there who had such feeling? SIGH!!

Edit(Sep.28):
   I mistook Terakoya(寺子屋) for Kurumabiki(車引). Today, I’ve fixed it. Sorry!