by the bay and by the lake

My husband and I like Kobe, and occasionally we stroll in the town and the sea side.












The 3,911m Akashi kaikyo(strait) bridge constructed 1988~1998



This time we took a short trip on a cruise ship to Akashi Strait, taking one hour and forty minutes.

Leaving the shore, the sea horizon appeared with gently curve, and I was dazzled by the twinkling sunlight on the almost flat sea.



 

 
Some old movies are showing on TV repeatedly, and sometimes I can notice about what I did not do when I saw them before.

When I saw 1960 film directed by René Clément"Plein Soleil"「太陽がいっぱい」 about one year ago, I was surprised the details contained in the scenes.

For example, when Tom could not put up with Phillip's consecutive insult and killed him on a ship, he ate heartily baguette bread just after his commitment of murder.
And just after Tom killed another man who had a suspicion of him, he digs into a large baked chicken(poulet rôti), as if his big appetite shows his strong libido.

In the final scene, a voice "Telefono"( telephone) is travelling far, conveying the remark of the police.
The word is a foreign language for Tom, and it might be heard by him as a voice from unknown world.
It was just after Tom began to have his confidence about his love for Marge who used to be a lover of Phillip, and murmured, " Plein soleil", looking up at the sky.

Theme Music by Nino Rota & Nini Rosso is here.


a training ship, kaiwo maru

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After one week later we visited Lake Biwa in Ohtu city in Shiga prefecture, taking one hour drive, with my dog, Daisy.

It was a little cloudy and was not bad to take a walk along the lake.



Ohtu city is twin town with Wurzburg.

Open tables are available for customers with dogs

in the restaurant that serves German cuisine.



Lake Biwa reminds me of a tanka poem by Yuko Kawano (河野　裕子１９４６～２０１０）.

たっぷりと真水を抱きてしづもれる昏き器を近江と言へり

It's Ōmi ( Shiga prefecture)

that embraces the fullness

of the still water,

 A somber vessel

or a body Yuko Kawano

Some tanka poet associated the word " Ōmi as a vessel" to a woman's body, and this interpretation became mainstream of the appreciation of this tanka poem.
Works always start to walk independently regardless of the intention of writers.

Yuko Kawano and her husband Kazuhiro Nagata(永田　和宏）started to preside over a tanka association, Tou(搭）that literally means Tower, which has produced excellent tanka poets one after another.

I'm not belong to the association, though I had some opportunities to listen to her discourse.

Just shortly after her taking operation for her cancer about ten years ago, she said "It's so far from the station that I hurried to come here a lot," waving a Japanese fan in her face in a manner of like a girl, at the beginning of her discourse.

In another occasion she spoke out after a panel discussion that it was so exciting that she had a comfortable tiredness, and she would like to have heard more opinions even though it would end up to be a dispute.

Her honest attitude and strait forward speaking were always impressionable.

Almost one year has passed since she passed away of a breast cancer recurrence.

鳥形凧風の動きに乗れるらし一点となりて高く動かず

the bird-shaped kite

seems the ride on the wind----

it becomes a dot

high in the sky,

ceasing to move Yuko Kawano (translated by Amelia Fielden)