At Haruhi-en Tsuwano.

As is well known, July 7^th is the day for the Star Festival in Japan.

It is a cultural tradition in which if you write a wish on a strip of paper and tie it to a bamboo branch on the day, your wish will then come true. It derives from the legend of the Vega and Altair.

That day, some kids of the children’s center of our community came to see us with their supervisors and had a small Tanabata party together.

Their beautiful smiles radiated glow as if they cleared up rain clouds in the sky.

Dancing and singing, holding hands together♫

Decorated bamboo branches with wish papers and hand-made colorful ornaments for Tanabata!

May our wishes come true…☆ミ

It was so much a joyful time and everybody looked very happy.(^-^)/

We were grateful for their visit and joyful time together.

(Special thanks to our neighbors for the bamboo branch provided by them.)

At Haruhi-en Tsuwano.

There was a fitness promotion festival held by our community the other day and we took part in it as participants with our neighbors.

They provided various exercise programs for our enjoyment.

Everybody was enthusiastically doing activities together and the place was filled with joyful excitement.

We tried bilboquet.  Maybe, it is something that makes you nostalgic for those good old days.

Mrs. T was told tips on bilboquet by a local resident and then, she did it beautifully!

For lunch, we ate vegetable curry, which was cooked by members of local ladies group. It was full of vegetable and very delicious(^^)/

In the afternoon, we enjoyed playing ball throwing game. The staff workers accompanied our residents tried to throw as many balls as possible into a basket, and managed to put only one ball in the basket. But, the kids members in our team played it very well, so, our team won a game. Marvelous!

We are now looking forward to next year’s festival.

We are so blessed and grateful, always.
Thank you all.

At Haruhi-en Niho

We have an expert of making pickled Japanese plum here. She is Mrs. Y, a resident here.  The other day, we asked her to make pickled Japanese plum. Other residents helped her out with it. It takes a while for fresh plum to turn into pickles with some salt.

The next day, Mrs. Y checked on it. She looked into the container and said…,

Mrs. Y: It looks like it has not dehydrated enough. Maybe, we need to add some more salt.

Staff: How much salt are you going to put?

Mrs. Y: Actually, no idea!  We must find it out by making small adjustments. It is trial and error. Everything works that way, don’t you think so?

Staff: Maybe yes. (…well, she is an expert of making pickled Japanese plum, anyway.)