That's an awesome animation!

The story is spectacle, thrilling, and exciting.

Very interesting and I am proud that Japan made such a great animation.

Today we held the local shrine festival that has 800years history.
Portable shrines are fell down from the mountain and brought to the shrine.
We visit the shrine at night and pray our health, happy, and wealth.

 The pet stuffs shopper IRISOHYAMA inc. released the ranking of cats' name in Japan of 2010.
 That was,
  No.1  Momo (it means a peach)
  No.2  Chibi (it means small, little, tiny)
  No.3  Kuro (it means black)
  No.4  Mie (maybe the voice of meow)
  No.5  Hana (it means a flower)
  No.6  Tora (it means a tiger)
  No.7  Nana (same as a girl's name of human)
  No.8  Sakura (it means cherry blossoms)
  No.9  Milk (it is milk)
  No.10 Lin (no means)

 The traditional cats' name are "Tama (it means a kind of a ball)", "Mike (it means carico)",
"Buchi (it means spots)"... I wonder how they name of their cats in other countries.

 

 What do you name her?

Last time I wrote that there is only one shrine that worships cats in Japan, but it was not true.
I read this news today, it says "The stones statues of Cat God were found in the northern part of Japan."
This is the photo on the news site.

A long time ago, silk raising industry was very popular in this area.
So people used to worship cats, because cats attack mice, which is the enemy of silkworm.
People made cat shaped stone statues and put them in the shrines or individuals' houses.

Silk raising industry used to develop here and there in Japan, so I think the similar statues could be found other areas.
Then, I searched "Cat God" by google and found there are many shrines and temples related to faith of "Cat God".

Then, I bought this book at Amazon, named "Pathway of Cat God".

We have many many Cat God all of Japan!

We have a custom to worship cats.
"MANEKINEKO", (happy cats or welcoming cats?) is representative one.
It is a ceramic ornament which shapes cat, that raises one hand to invite people, money and happy.

This is the MANEKINEKO I found at the porch of a Japanese sweets shop.

And these were at the porch of a Chineese noodle shop.

Today I read a news about the only shrine in Japan which enshrine Cat as God.
The shrine is at Tokushima prefecture and named "OMATSU DAIGONGEN", which derives from the story of "BAKENEKO" or a monster cat.
"OMATSU" was a name of woman whose husband was a village mayor.
He borrowed money from a marchant and died soon after payed back money.
But the marchant didn't recognize that he payed back, and OMATSU claimed to the Lord but he  didn't listen to her either, finally OMATSU was put to death.

After that, a monster cat appeared on the house of the marchant and the Lord, and many terrible things happened.So people built a shrine to appease the soul of OMATSU.

Now a lot of test-takers for entrance exam visit this shrine, because this God is supposed to back up to pass the exam.

The last news is about a cat of Jesus Christ
What do you think with this? ;-)

Now it's the New Year's Day.
We had a cold morning and a little snow.
Our cat, Tamasaburo was waiting in front of the stove for it would be fired, when I got up.
We took OZOUNI and OSECHI, the new year's dishes like every year, and go to Shrine to pray for health and peace in this year, too.

The last year, I was a little busier than usual with my volunteer work.
It was anyhow achieved what I declared to do last year, to promote TNR in our region and to cooperate the animal control center with improving local cat situations.
And, it's amazing for me, as a person who would be soon bored, could have continued to write this blog for a year.
I think it's owing to the Enter Card, because I wrote my blog if someone might read it.
My "New Year's resolution" is same as the last year, and I have to work much harder this year.
Anyway, I'm going to take a rest in the New Year Holidays, so that I would work with new energy again!

We have uncomfortable warm winter in the end of this year.
Of course it's easier for us to clean the house and prepare for the New Year Day when it is warm, but it is also very odd.
Today, we made "Mochi", maybe rice cake in English.
Mochi is necessary for the New Year Day, and we usually make it on 30th December.

First, we steam the particular rice for Mochi, then put it in the pounding machine.
And, we shape it like ball after pounded.

When my husband's parents were alive, we used to pound Mochi with a mortar and a pestle.
Now we use the particular machine instead of those equipments.
After making Mochi, I started to cook Osechi, the New Year dishes, it took half day to finish all.
I have not finished cleaning the house, but I got a little tired..!

Time passes very fast, even it seems to me years pass faster and faster recently.Maybe it's because I'm getting older.
It's been just one year since I started this blog.
I started my blog for my English study, but has my English improved more than before? I don't know...

Today, it was the last day of our job in this year.
We did a big cleaning of our office as every year.

And it was surprising but the social affair of our office treated us the gorgeous lunch!

This year, our job started with food poisoning and ended up with Infulenza.I was called on the 2nd of New Year Day, though it's our holiday, to investigate food poisoning incident.
I hope we would stay at home in the New Year Days without any emergency call!

It seems to be the Christmas Eve today.
"Seems to be" means that I don't celebrate this day, because I'm not a christian.
Here in Japan, most of people think Christmas is a festival or an event only for kids and young people, which doesn't have religious meanings at all.
In my family, I used to have decorated the Christmas tree and prepared presents, cakes, and special dinner for my daughters.
But now they have grown up and they aren't pleased such events so much, so I haven't prepared any Christmas stuffs for these years.
Adding that,my elder daughter got ful today unfortunately.
But anyway, there's no doubt that the Christmas is the special day, I wish peace, joy, and happiness may be with all of you!

It is the payday today, and it means today is the hamburger's day.
We bought the big hamburgers with coworkers and ate at the office.

Now I look back my everyday lunch.
I usually bring lunch box to my office, that I pack leftovers etc. into the box in the morning.It looks like almost same everyday...

Sometimes I buy lunch at the convenient store.
Curry and rice, pasta, riceball, ODEN, or so.

Some of my coworkers buy lunch box from the catering services.
I rarelly go out to eat at restaurants, mainly because to save money!

In Tokyo, I went to watch a movie after the meeting, which name was "Dog, Cat, and Human".
This movie shows the current situations about dogs and cats in Japan.

The movie starts from the scene that an old woman visited the director and asked him to film the movie about the situations around dogs and cats, animal control and animal welfare in Japan.
She had worked with rescue of stray and abandoned cats for more than 40 years, but she was old and she knew she wouldn't continue that work, so she decided to appeal people about poor dogs and cats here by making a movie.
Then, the director started the work, but he had not been interested in animals ever before and he didn't have any ideas about the problem of dogs and cats, so it took 4 years to research and make the film.

Though he knew the very sad and poor facts here and there, but he doesn't focus on the poor side, doesn't emphasize the terribly conditions, he only showed the facts in detached tone and he never said who or what was bad.
That's why I liked this movie.

I'm an official worker in charge of animal control in the municipal government.
So I know these situations the movie showed very well, and I know how hard it is to accept dogs and cats only to destroy them like some of the official workers in this movie do.

The reason why I started to help TNR is not only for cats, but also for my job.
I don't want to accept kittens next year, so I catch the cats and bring to the vet clinics 100km from my home almost every week (it's cheaper anyway).

A woman in the movie said in anger "why Japanese people throw away their dogs and cats in the mountains or river sides easily?", but it's because they know the animals will be destroyed when they were brought to the animal control offices, so people choose the chance in a million that they could survive instead of apparently death, though it's quite wrong ideas in fact.
They should know their acts are only to avoid their responsibility and to suffer abandoned animals longer until terrible death, without food, attacked by crows, or hit by car,etc.

I don't know what impressions people who watched this movie had, but if someone wanted to help abandoned cats or spay/neuter their cats after watching the movie, it's great!
Anyway, I believe the situations are getting better a little by little every year.

It has become quite convenient in this world.
10 years ago, I used to search the way to the meeting places with the time tables and route maps, and the Tokyo railway lines are too complicating for me, I used to have a hard time to find the best way to get where the meeting was to be held.
But now, I can find the best way and exact time to get everywhere with my cellular phone.
It shows me several rail ways in a blink and I only choose one of them depending on available time and money.
Today, the educational meeting for the food inspectors around the country is held in Tokyo, so a lot of officials working at the Public Health Centers and dealing with food hygine like me have gathered together.

Nearly 10 colleagues come together from my prefectures.
But this time, the 20th anniversary ceremony of Japanese emperor's coronation was also held, in addition, the USA president was to come, we saw many policemen stand here and there.

At night, we went to a Belgium restaurant with some of my coworkers, which is the kind of that we can never see in our prefecture.
The restaurant was very nice.

We didn't know much about Belgium, but we knew the representative Belgium disses were mussel, fried potato, and waffle.

And there were many kinds of beer, which was not strong and tasted fruity.
Dishes, beer, all delicious!

The number of flu patients are increasing rapidly.
We get a lot of notifications from schools and nursery homes that they decided to close some classes because of many absence with flu.
The children of my coworkers are also affecting.
My daughter also has got sick since yesterday.Though she is not so bad and I don't know if she got flu or not, but I let her absent from school because I heard many of her friends have got flu since last week.
Now I am wearing a mask when I'm at my office.
Our director told us to wear masks when family members were found to be affected with flu not to transmit to visitors.
I don't like to wear the mask.It mist over my glasses, and it makes me hard to breath.

My mother and I are learning the flower arrangement once a month.
We say "IKEBANA" in Japanese.The verb "Ikeru" means like "to give a life" or so, I think it seems to be a little different from the verb "to arrange".
I usually learn "OSHOUKA", which is the very basic way of arrangement.
Generally we use 2 or 3 kinds of flowers and arrange them in set order.
It looks like these.



It is said that each part of flowers represents the sky, the earth, and the human, but I don't know well.

But this time, I didn't learn the usual work but the free arrangement, lunch boxes.The teacher said that it was the autumn lunch.


My mother made a cute poodle by carnations.


Our teacher prepares very interesting works every time.
This is another student's arrangement.




Very beautiful and amazing!

Today we had the first anniversary after death of my husband's mother.
On Anniversary Day, we hold a Buddhism ceremony.
Relatives gathered and listened to the Buddhist sutra that the priest read.
Then, we had lunch dinner all together.

In our region, as is often seen in the country side, women don't sit and eat lunch in the guest room with men.
Only in case the women's husband couldn't attend the ceremony, they sit in the guest room as the representatives of their family.
The rest of women eat lunch in another room next to the kitchen, because women have to work for cooking or serving.

After lunch dinner, we read Buddhist sutra all together for the deceased.And we share all offerings the relatives brought to front of the Buddhist altar.

That's our Anniversary ceremony.We commemorate the deceased like this and hope her sprit would be peaceful in another world.