Seattle Japanese Garden Gate House Ground Opening

I went with my friend to take video of her Koto performance for Gate House Ground Opening at Seattle Japanese Garden on May 4th. I posted 4YouTube Videos and 3 videos show complete Koto performance. Taiko performance was nice and posted two short ones combined.
My friend and Master Takamura made excellent Koto performances.

Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival

Cherry Blossom and Japanese Culture Festival was held last month. I went to take video of my friend's Koto performance on April 19th. I took video of Japanese traditional Dancing and music performance. A month later, I organized my video and I posted three YouTube Videos. I have more opportunities to listen Japanese traditional music now than when I lived in Japan.

Romantic places to go in Whidbey Island

I spent a romantic evening at Whidbey Island with my husband this weekend for my birthday. He took me for a drink to captain Whidbey Inn which is very old Bed and Breakfast Inn. A lady who manages the Inn and is a bartender greeted us and showed us inside the inn. Although the building is over 100 years old, it is kept nicely. It would be an interesting experience staying in this Inn and waking up in the morning.
The lady told us Inn’s restaurant will be open for a dinner soon and there is live-music on Sundays. We will come back the Inn to listen to my husband favorite Celtic music soon. After we had a glass of red wine and listen to the conversation of the bartender and a couple of our age who have lived in the area, we left the Inn.
My husband then took me to a French restaurant ‘Oysteratcher’ located in downtown Coupeville. Their website shows delicious food they serve. The restaurant was small enough that we could hear other customers’ discussing enthusiastically interesting topics. I was excited going a nice restaurant serves delicious food since I rarely go out to eat. I wrote my experience dining at Oystercather in Yelp.
If someone wants to visit Coupeville, Whidbey Island with a special person, these two places were good places to go in addition to other places in the area.

Happy New Year.

My husband and I went see New Years Eve fireworks at Space Needle.

Happy holidays from Snowy Seattle.

Unusual heavy snow in Seattle

Seattleites have experienced freezing snow days. Because it was very rare occasion, I took video and posted YouTube. The bridge shown on the video is Interstate 90.

Thanksgiving

My family and neighbor family across my house had Thanksgiving dinner together. I cooked some food and the neighbor cooked others. It’s nice to celebrate holidays with others.
I don’t think of any similar celebration in Japan. Japanese people view full moon in fall for moon festival. The moon is called harvest moon. People put Japanese pampas grass and rice cake offerings by the window. According to http://www.sci-museum.kita.osaka.jp/~kazu/index.phtml, this custom was originated from China and because it is the harvest season of taro-roots and people in China have taro for the moon festival day, the origin of the moon festival started in order to celebrate harvest of taro. Thanks are probably given the god of nature not to people.
It is nice to give thanks to others and share meals. I think people in America generally have a big heart and generous. Homeless or poor people can find some place to eat free. I read and hear stories that some restaurants offer Thanksgiving dinner to homeless people, and that volunteer collect free food for needy families. I have never heard homeless people in Japan can go some place to eat free.
We should always be thankful to food which we eat, people who grew, and to share meals with other people. But we don’t. Thanksgiving Day is the good occasion to remind me of this.