Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!!

The beaver at the Astor Place station

My favorite radio show, The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, featured "arts at NY MTA stations" yesterday. I emailed them that my favorite character is the beaver at the Astor Place Station. To my surprise, my mail was read by Brian and the guests explained the legend!! If you want to check out their audio archive, visit here!!

Christmas flower!

My music student brought this to me yesterday.
It's so beautiful that I want share it with you!

Happy Holidays!!

This is the lighting Christmas tree at Nakanoshima riverside park in Osaka.
Happy Holidays to you!!!

a cute kitty!

It was a great weekend!
On Saturday, we went to the nearby library and spent 2 hour there. I borrowed a book by a Japanese author who worked as a staff of 2000 Hillary Senate Election Campaign in NY. It's very helpful for me to read his perspective toward the US society. I've been enjoying reading it so far!

Today, we went to Takao's parents' house. They are cat-people like us! Their kitty is called "Sari-chan". She is soooooooo cute!

I'll show you her picture. Here she is!

it's today!

and.... it's today!
I got up at..... noon!! I know I slept too much but I just wanted to sleep as much as I want so I felt great when I wake up. one of my cats, Gara, was sleeping with me under my shoulder all the time and he warmed me up, thanks to him!

it was cold yesterday and it's cold today, too. I have an electric heater just beside me as I'm writing this.

i have no special plan for today so i'm going to read a book, "Flags of Our Fathers", which I bought last week.

i was blue yesterday, but thanks to God, i got an enjoyable e-mail from my NY friend. it made me smile! now i feel very well. i'm happy that i have wonderful friends around me.

blue day

I had a tough time with my mother today.
maybe she was happy and didn't notice that I was unhappy.

visited her house and talked with her for a while. it's always stressful by the way and I think it's a little bit unfortunate thing for me.

when leaving her house i speeded up and headed to a shrine. i thought the peaceful atmosphere might have healed me. and also i knew there is a memorial stone of my precious person. I went there and stood in front of the stone for a few minutes.

then i went to the station near where our English study group was going to be held. i entered a coffee shop and stayed there for an hour as i was reading some articles.

at 5 pm, i met my friend who saved me from the hell of depression. she listened to me earnestly, which helped me feel better. we ate udon for dinner and had a coffee time together.

then at 7 pm, the English learning group started. it ended at 9 pm. it was nice but something dark dominated in my mind as i think back myself now. it happens sometimes. yes.

after coming home, i tried to talk about my blue things about meeting with my mom in the afternoon to my husband, but i couldn't do it for the first hour.

ummm....it's so dark today!!!!!! I don't like it!


but, i want to keep my everyday's feeling here so i'm writing now.

at last i talked about it to my husband and he understood my mind most and i was relieved. i'm the happiest person in the world to have such a lovely husband who understand everything about me. yes, i'm happy. i should be. and i'll be.


tomorrow should be an another day! i think i'll be fine soon!

odd building!

odd building!
Originally uploaded by butako.

when i went to Kyoto yesterday, I found a very interesting building!!
Look at this!
I suppose it's an antique shop. It seemed to be closed at that time.
I want to go there again when it's open.

Christmas time is coming soon!

chrismasdecoration
Originally uploaded by butako.

Christmas is coming soon.
I don't have any special plan for it but I love the time because everything seems bright and everybody seems happy on Christmas time. But I know not everybody is happy right now. There are children who are hungry, who feel fear to be killed at war, or who are suffering from serious diseases. I hope such children can get most of God's love!!

beautiful leaves!

I went to Kyoto yesterday with my friend, Yokko.
We saw beautiful maple leaves. I will share them with you!

The first posting!

Hi I'm Naoko. I live in Japan. My family is my husband and lovely three cats.
I've been learning English for a few years and love communicating with people.
Love listening to the radio through the net. My favorite station is WNYC, in NYC, the US.
Love music, traveling, taking a walk in my neighborhood, playing with my cats.

I hope I can find new friends here!