Silver Week Holidays but I was lying down due to new flu

We have many national holidays in Japan.　The number of national holidays are fifteen and it is more than the US or Europe. I wonder why Japanese people have such many national holidays. Anyway, we have five consecutive holidays, called Silver Week Holiday, this week.

However, I and my family caught new flu, swine flu, last weekend and we were just lying down during the holidays.
I was completely cured, but I cannot go to my office tomorrow because of my company's rule that people who caught flu must stay away from the office for 7 days after infecting flu.
Therefore, I have nine consecutive holidays. Nevertheless, I am not so happy because I cannot go out.
I can read a lot of books during this week.

The change of Japanese government

We had the general election for the House of Representatives last Sunday.
As a result,　the administration of Japanese government has moved from the Liberal Democratic Party to the Democratic Party. Although I anticipated that the Democratic Party would win the election, I could not image such massive victory.
I hope that the Democratic Party would improve the current bad economic conditions and weak and out-of-date social systems of Japan.

Fireworks show in my town

We had a firework show in Futako-tamagawa which is my town. I went to the river side with my wife and kid and enjoyed it.
When I watch its firework, I feel the summer is ending.

Raw meat of chicken

As you know, Japanese likes to eat raw fish. Do you know that you can eat raw chicken in Japan? You can eat fresh meat of chicken, beef and even horse. I like to eat fresh chicken breast fillet with wasabi and soy-sauce. Its taste is weak because of low fat and you can eat like raw fish.

When you have a chance to come to Japan, please try to eat raw meat as well as raw fish.

Takoyaki

We ate TAKOYAKI at dinner. TAKO means octopus and YAKI means baked. It is very popular snack in Japan. Takoyaki is a dumpling with a diced octopus.
We generally eat takoyaki as a snack or a light meal, but people in Osaka eat takoyaki as an usual meal. I had felt it was strange to eat takoyaki at dinner, but now I became enjoy it. Beer is good for takoyaki!

Its recipe is simple, batter, dices octopus, pickled ginger, green onion and takoyaki sauce. However, it is a little difficult to make a ball first. To make takoyaki, we need a special pan for takoyaki. It is said that all families in Osaka have at least one takoyaki-pan. Because my wife originally came from Osaka, she brought a takoyaki-pan as one of her hope chests when we got married.

I think our home made takoyaki is much better than that was sold in the market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki

Solar eclipse

Although we expected to ovseve a partial eclipse of the sun in Tokyo today, we unfortunately could not see it due to bad weather. We can observe the next solar eclipse in 2035 in Japan. I have to wait so long.

Tokino-sumika

I had the three-day weekend because Monday is national holiday "Oceans Day" in Japan.

I stayed at Gotenba-Kogen Hotel with my wife and baby. That hotel is in "Tokino-sumika" which is leisure park located in Gotenba. It takes two or three hours to go there from Tokyo by car. There are shops, restaurants, hotels, hot springs and tennis court. We can also enjoy variety of local beer named "Gotenba beer".



At night, we enjoyed to walk the illuminated road. It was very beautiful! Please see the attached picture.

I would like to stay there again and drink beer more!