Trees and leaves are changing their colors

Temples in Kyoto

I walked around several temples and shrines in Kyoto, after attending at my nephew’s wedding ceremony.

First, I started with Kiyomizu temple located in the east part of Kyoto. 

Unfortunately, Kiyomizu temple is refurbished now and the main venu is covered with construction sheets now. 

Then, I went down to Kodai temple, which is famous with the beautiful garden, via a tiny slope faced with traditional souvenir shops in the photo below.

This is a decoration by sands in Kodai temple.

I stopped by Yasaka shrine below to take a rest shortly and I got to know the next year would be a bad luck year for me in the sense that occult divination system based on Taoist theory of five elements; composed of woods, fire, sands, gold and water. 

I had a special treatment in the shrine for amulets, in particular, I took special Zenzai, meaning red beans soup with rice cakes. So I don’t have to worry about a bad luck in the next year anymore. 

I have just passed by Chion-inn temple, a very large temple.  

 I didn’t have much time to walk around there, then, I went ahead to Shoren- inn temple, famous temple with its garden as well. 

I saw more foreigners than Japanese people there. 

Finally, I went to a soba noodle shop, named Matsuba, serving a very delicious soba menu with salty-sweet dried herring, in Kyoto. 

My walking around Kyoto finished with this soba noodle but. I enjoyed a lot during my stay to see beautiful gardens isolated from the noisy outside world and made us concentrated on what I saw in front of me, the sounds of w-inds, rivers, swinging trees, and so forth. 

Boracay in Philippines

I visited Boracay island in the Philippines from 10th  to 13th August during my vacation period. I went there with my wife and we enjoyed a lot of filipino cousins, beautiful beaches and sunset. 

I was impressed that the Philippines has a lot of the potentials of tourism and  the tourism would be an opportunity to accumulate the  internal reserves in its own country if it establishes some sort of collective powers or driving forces to reconstruct the accessibility around the countries.
It is necessary to consider the urban design and to discuss among the federal government, the local governments, industries, academia and communities, then proceed the renovation projects; it will work.

Monet

I traveled to Giverny to visit Monet's hose.

He loved flowers and Japanese "UKIYOE".
The pond and the bridge he always drew in the pieces were there.
I took many pictures and show some of them below.

Here below, this is what Monet saw during painting.

Camera is not capable enough to capture how the genius observed and imagined.

He also drew the panoramic paints in l'Orangerie Musium in Paris.

There are two rooms that have four panoramic paints each, which means all walls are covered by Monet's paintings.  

You may feel how large they are, comparing to the size of people in the picture above.

The Golden Week Journy 2017

I am in France now, to see my son studying in Lyon, France.

From Japan to France, it was long flight for more than 12 hours and it hurts my lower back.

However, traveling around the world is always inspiring and refleshing me every time.

Staying at hotel near the Disney Land at Paris, I took the TGV down to Lyon.

Lyon used to be the center of Gallia in the ancient Roman Empire.

This picture shows the sceneries of Lyon across the river Rone.

The statues below is Luis the 14th. 

The Little Prince with Antoine de Saint‐Exup´ery (below).

This church is said the first church in France.

Our garden in this Spring

The flowers in our garden are blooming now.

The weeds infest on the ground as well.

Banksia roses are blooming in yellow and Rhododendrons are in red. 

The entrance is decorated by many flowers.
It shows that Spring has come, so that everything is going to be vivid.

Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo

Cherry Blossoms are blooming this weekend. 

Usually, it is the symbols of the entrance ceremony in schools, however, in this year, it is earlier than usual and it is the time for the graduation season.

Female students are wearing the combination of "Kimono" and "Hakama", which is never put on besides the graduation ceremony these days.  

"Shunbun no Hi"; the Spring Equinox, a National Holiday

Today is a national holiday, named "Shunbun no Hi", which means the spring equinox.

Today, it is very warm; around noon, its temperature is 17 degree celsius in my area, which means  warmer than usual, in comparison with the average highest temperature for 30 years is 13.3 degree celsius.

A cat is relaxed under the mild sunlights,
some flowers are already blooming,
and cherry blossoms are ready to sprout
through the warmer weather of this year.
Everything seems to enjoy the arrival of Spring.

Cherry blossom in Tokyo area is expected to bloom this weekend.
The right side of two pictures is Japanese quinces, and the left side is Ornamental kale.

Please take a look at my previous post about the Spring Equinox below:

http://ritztalk.blogspot.jp/2015/03/equinox.html

Comparative advantages & Absolute advantages

Someone gave me a famous saying by a novelist;

"There is nothing Noble in being better than others"

This sentence brings me controversial ideas such as the title of today's my blog.

Because this saying recommends to be competitive.

Comparative advantages and Absolute advantages are used in Economics when two countries are compared in the mutual trade relationship.

When a  country has a certain stronger domain among its industries, that domain is said that it has Comparative advantages.  

On the other hand, Absolute advantages mean that a country has stronger  industries than those of another country.

Economics tells us that if a country has the comparatively stronger industry, then that country has a chance to build a trade relationship between a large country even though it has absolute advantages.

Those propositions in Economics reminds me two things:

1. Every country has chances to make trade relationships between larger countries to increase domestic benefits;

2. Large countries have chances to expand their economical control into small countries.

10km-race in Yokohama

Yesterday, Feb. 19, I participated in 10km-race held by FM Yokohama, a radio station.

I finished in 54 minutes, 11km per hour.

Full Marathon is a future target and I need more practices to run by 13km per hour.

I got t-shirt there.

"Voluntainer "

I saw the poster saying a new word "Voluntainer". It sounds good to me in the combination of "volunteer" with "entertainer", just like "applepen" by Pico Taro.

However, I was just wondering if a hyphen is needed after "N".  Otherwise, it's going to be two words.

My father has gone to where my mother belongs

On Monday, January 23, my father passed away in his 89 years life.
We had a funeral ceremony in the Buddhist style at the same place as where my mother's ceremony was done.

See my mother's funeral in the URL below:
http://ritztalk.blogspot.jp/2015/08/a-funeral-in-japanese-style.html

Many people came and prayed for his peace in the wake and funeral. 

Since he lost his wife, my mother, in August 2015, I thought he seemed to loose his motivation to live longer afterwards.

He always said "the rest of my life is no longer".
He had been in hospital from February to July in 2016 and he was back to the first anniversary of my mother's death.

However, he had been alive for only 6 months.

After 49 days from his funeral, he will be in the my mother's place; physically, a urn containing his bones and ash will be aside of my mother's one in their grave, and spiritually, he will be with her in Heaven.