country living

Podcast: summer camp when I was a freshman

Hidemi WoodsLeave a comment
Episode from My School Days in Kyoto: A Japanese Girl Found Her Own Way  by Hidemi Woods 
 
Audiobook 1 : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Audiobook 2 : My Social Distancing and Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total. 
 
The high school I attended held a mandatory summer camp when I was a  freshman. The students chose activities such as swimming, hiking,  cycling and so on beforehand. To spend the time in the camp together, my  group of close friends at school decided to choose the same activities.  We considered carefully which ones were the easiest and mildest, and  chose archery and cycling. A couple of months later the cycling day in  the camp arrived. We set off on each rental bicycle. Right after that,  one of my friends, called Yone, fell. She quickly got back on her bike  and we started again. Immediately, she fell again. We stopped to wait  for her. She caught up with us by pushing her bike and said, ‘Sorry. Now  let’s go!” But the same thing was repeated for the third time, her  falling down, us waiting. We finally asked her what was going on and  heard her astonishing confession. She said, “I can’t ride a bike.” We  gaped. Being unable to ride a bike was nothing, but why did she choose  cycling among all activities then? And telling us now? We pressed her  for an explanation why she didn’t just say so when we decided on  cycling. She told us that she couldn’t because we were joyfully talking  about how easy cycling would be. In our group, she was the tenderest  one, but also a pushover. She always had no opinion of her own and  conformed to others. That was a given, but I never thought this much. We  were talking about pushing our bikes and going all the way on foot with  her when she said, “I’m ruining your plan for an easy activity. I can’t  make you walk all the way because of me. Please ride on. I think I can  manage along the way. I’m sorry. Sorry.” We mounted on the bike, not  pedaling but walking while Yone kept falling and saying sorry for a  million times. Her indecisive, weak-minded attitude has gradually gotten  on my nerves. A girl of other group whom I had barely talked before  pedaled back toward us. She had something to ask me. I answered and  chatted, and we hit it off instantly. When I realized, I pedaled with  her separating from my group. I stopped to wait at the foot of the  downward slope and heard a scream. It was Yone flying down the slope on  her bike and tumbling into a rice paddy.

Podcast: small rural town in Japan

Hidemi WoodsLeave a comment
Episode from Hidemi’s Rambling  by Hidemi Woods 
 
Audiobook 1 : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
 
Audiobook 2 : My Social Distancing and Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
 
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total. 
 
 
 
Let me report how a small rural town I live in has been lately. Since  there are many skiing slopes in the town, the forlorn main street has  ski lodges, B and Bs, souvenir shops and rental ski shops. Quite a few  had been out of business as the skiing boom was gone. One out of every  three shops is closed now along the street. The other day I found that  my favorite shop there hung a sign saying ‘For Rent’. The shop was my  dream shop that carried imported foods and goods from U.S. Imported  merchandise is usually costly, but that shop sold selected Costco-brand  foods at almost the same prices at Costco or sometimes lower prices.  Considering the membership fee at Costco, they cost less here. The stamp  card of the shop was also magical. They gave the customers stamps  according to the sum of purchase and the accumulated stamps were  exchanged for the merchandise. Those stamps were ridiculously easy to be  collected and I couldn’t count how many bottles of salsa I got for  free. In addition, the shop often held a prize drawing event. The  drawing always came out with a prize and I got numerous freebies such as  pouches and stuffed animals. I had never left the shop without  something free in my bag. It was almost charity for me and I felt the  more I shopped, the more the shop was in the red. That maybe proved  true. The shop has been closed for good and sadly my strange rule that  my favorite place is almost certainly to be out of business worked again  just as I had been afraid of. The number of children in the town has  decreased and several schools were merged into one. That one school is  also small and the local bus started to be partly operated as a school  bus. Noisy kids rush in the bus in the afternoon and I can’t use it any  more. My favorite modern restaurant in town has had more and more closed  days. Now it closes on three days of weekdays and opens only for three  hours each on the remaining two weekdays. One of the B and Bs on the  main street newly got out of business and came into the market. The  price was unbelievably low. Even so, nobody bought it and the price got  even lower. It’s less than a tenth of a typical house price for three  times the space of a typical house. It was cheap enough for me to think  of running a B and B myself.

My new Kindle has been published! ‘Diary of The Snowy Country in Japan: Started a new life at the town of mountains / Hidemi Woods

Hidemi WoodsLeave a comment
Diary of The Snowy Country in Japan: Started a new life at the town of mountains / Hidemi Woods

When I woke up in the morning, it had stopped snowing for the first time in several days and it was a clear day with the blue sky. I decided to go to a city a little far from the town.
But it had started snowing heavily again by the time I left. I scurried to the station in the snow and heard the delay of the train announced there. That meant I would miss my connection of the train to the city. Because only a few trains run in this line, having another connection is hard. I gave up going there and had lunch at a local restaurant.
This town is situated in the mountains and the weather is treacherous with sudden changes. Once it snows, the train easily delays or stops, which makes it so difficult to plan ahead for going out, as the weather forecast almost always fails and I don’t have a car. Besides, we’ve had fewer fine days and more snowy days lately.
My apartment has been closed in snow gradually, becoming more and more like the hotel in ‘The Shining’. Am I going to go mad and begin beating my partner with a keyboard of my computer? Or, is it going to be my partner who pounces on me by raising a remote control over his head? I hope we go through the winter and have the spring thaw peacefully…