スポーツ特集/Sports Special

日本来る前にカナダの好物ばかり食べすぎてきたので日本来てから少しいい物食べて、運動して、痩せようとしている。そんな楽しくないかも知れないけど最近やってるスポーツのビデオをアップしたのでここで紹介します。まずは甥っ子の新太君（７）と由紀の親と近くの公園で野球やった。
After gorging myself on my favourite Canadian foods before coming to Japan, I've had to start trying to lose some weight. I've been eating (a little bit) healthier and trying to get (a little) exercise. There's nothing too exciting to show, but I've uploaded some videos of me doing various healthy activities. First is playing baseball with my 7 year-old nephew Arata and Yuki's parents.

次、近所の人たちとテニスしている。由紀の家族は全員テニス得意だし、僕は参加者の中で完全に一番下手だったけど、ビデオを上手く編集したおかげで少し出来るように見える。
Next is me playing tennis with a group of local people that Yuki's parents often play with. Yuki's whole family plays tennis very well, and I was by far the worst player at the club. Thanks to video editing, however, I can appear to be somewhat competent.

最後に、由紀のお母さんをＷｉｉやってるビデオがあります。新太君がある日Ｗｉｉ持ってきて、皆楽しんでやったのでここに置いておいてくれた。本当のボウリングより楽しいので今でも皆で楽しんでＷｉｉボウリング大会やっている。
Finally, there's a short video of Yuki's mum playing bowling on Nintendo Wii. Arata brought his Wii over one day, and everyone loved it so much that he left it here for us to play with, since he only plays with his DS at home. Everyone agrees that it's much more fun than real bowling.
Paul

Foraging and Shrining 山菜と神社

Today I went with my parents-in-law and nephew, Arata, for a drive into the mountains to pick Taranome, the fruit from a plant with the English name of Aralia elata. The plant is a long, thin stalk covered in thorns, and the fruit is very popular amongst Japanese, so you have to have really good timing to get any, because they are all picked as soon as they are big enough to eat. We managed to find quite a few, though, as Yuki's parents come almost every year to pick them, and her dad is very eager to get them, and willing to climb through vines and pricklies that I'm sure many others would not be. You pull the top off, and it's very delicious as tempura, lightly breaded and fried then eaten with salt.
On the way home we stopped at a local Shinto shrine that has been designated as a national treasure, Nishinajinmeigu, that had some very large trees, some still standing, and others which had died but the trunks of which were still being preserved. I've put together some clips from the day, no editing this time, though, so bear with the shaky camera and heavy breathing into the mic!

Yuki's House

I recently visited Yuki's house in Japan for the first time. It is in the city of Azumino, in the prefecture of Nagano, which is about 300km northwest of Tokyo. Nagano is where the Winter Olympics were held in 1998, so it has quite a cool climate. I was there for 10 days, and it snowed on four or five days, although not quite at the volume that we've been getting in Toronto this year. Other parts of the prefecture located in the mountains get much more snow, and looking out from her house, there are snow-covered mountain ranges almost 360 degrees around her house. While Azumino has 100,000 people, and Matsumoto, the neighbouring city, has 200,000 people, Yuki's house is located away from the centre of either city, in a very peaceful location, with some farms and many houses in the area. Her house is very beautiful, I hope that you will be able to see that despite my shoddy camera work.
Paul