Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

Senile Dementia?

　　Today, a nearly 90 year-old patient visited my opd a week earlier than I expected. He has long been seeing me regularly, but he didn't have an appointment today. However, he asked me to give him injections of the analgesics consisting of hyaluronic acid into his bilateral knee joints.
　　According to his words, he, along with his wife, had been invited to a memorial ceremony held by the U.S. Navy, casually dropping the name of the Commander of the Navy and they had to visit Tokyo this weekend. He wanted the injection for prevention of pain from his knee joints for fear of the long walking.
　　He lives deep in the forest and is a mere common farmer. I didn't believe his story, but I wanted to joke with him saying "Is your destination really Tokyo? Isn't it Yokosuka?" He replied, "Yes, How do you know that?" I just knew that the naval base is located in Yokosuka City and had no idea about the memorial ceremony." However, I started to think that his story might be true.
　　You always have to keep away prejudices, I deeply realized. He was one of the rescuers of the U.S. aircraft accident that had occurred near here in 1952 and also one of the founders of the monument to fourteen U.S. soldiers who had passed away at that time. This year is the 60th anniversary. Sorry for the kidding, old man! You are right!

http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2009/04/short-touring.html

(Vocabulary)
joke with sb ＜人＞をからかう
drop  [他]〈言葉・名前など〉をふと口にする, 漏らす
She casually dropped his name into the conversation. 彼女は会話の中で彼の名前をふと漏らした．
casually  何げなしに

Eging

　　You might think the topic "Eging" would be a typing error of "Aging", but this word is correct and even Japanese! I'll try to explain the origin or how it was made. You would be amazed at the extreme flexibility of Japanese. "Eging" can be disassembled into three parts; "e", "gi" and "ing". "E" means the bait and "gi" means wood. Then what do you think is "egi"? As you can guess, "egi" means wooden bait, i.e. lures for fishing. The English suffix "ing" implying actual action was added to a Japanese word "egi" and consequently "eging" was produced as the word describing fishing with wooden lures. It's very funny but really functional. The Japanese language is provided with phonograms called "katakana", which are used to express the sound of foreign words. "Eging" is the romanized spelling of the original expression by "katakana". "Eging" has become popular in recent years. This fishing technique is used for squid fishing.
　　Some enthusiasts always carry a rod and other tackle for "eging" in their vehicles and often try fishing wherever they suspect the habitation of squids. They don't need raw bait and so the tackle doesn't emit bad smells in the car. One of the participants was an enthusiast and tried fishing from the coast in front of the eating house where we took a rest. AND, he caught one as shown in the picture.

(Vocabulary)
phonograms  表音文字
romanized spelling  ローマ字つづり
suffix  接尾辞
tackle [U] 道具, 用具, (特に) 釣り道具
habitation [U] 居住; [C] 住居, 居住地
unfit for human habitation 人間の居住にふさわしくない

Mizugaura

　　I was invited to join the long ride event held by Jousei Driving School. I had the designated day off and I replied yes, promptly. The destination was Mizugaura, which is well-known by its distinctive landscape. This is the link to images of Mizugaura and I hope you'll realize the diligence of common Japanese people. As you know, Japan is a small country and land suitable for cultivation is really limited. People had to utilize even such places as you see in the picture as potato fields. Before cars and conveyers, farmers had to carry night soil for plant food up the hill on a pole. It must have been unbelievably tough work. I drew the outward route on the Google Map and the southern end of the red line on the map was the destination, Mizugaura. I'll show a picture of a squid in the next entry, which was caught here.
　　Two shops of KAWASAKI and BMW, both of which are famous motorcycle manufacturers joined the event with several items as gifts for us. The picture shows the gifts which they gave me. The weather was fine and the wind was really comfortable, though it was late autumn.
　　An instructor told me his next plan and invited me to join it. It was a two-days' ride in May and you subscribers will also see the beautiful pictures of the Sea of Japan in this blog. Expect them!

Route Map

(Vocabulary)
human excrement / human waste  し尿
night soil 人糞（human excrement）の婉曲表現
yoke（人が荷物を運ぶための）てんびん棒
carry ~ on a pole ～をてんびん棒でかつぐ

Cycling and Taiwan

　　One of my friends proposed a wonderful plan for people who went skiing together in Whistler last March to get together and enjoy cycling along the Shimanami cycling path connecting Shikoku and Honshu, the smallest and biggest islands of the four main islands of Japan. It was great and the day of action was set for Nov. 3rd.
　　We rented our bikes at the Shikoku side of the path. I have my own bike, but I rented one. When one of us got exhausted, we could return the bikes at the nearest rental point and get back by bus or something. That's why we utilized the rental system of the bikes.
　　This cycling path is well known for the beautiful scenery of the Seto Inland Sea. The first picture shows a poster of the path put up on the wall of a rest house. Did you notice that it's written in Taiwan style Chinese? I recalled that Taiwan was the home of Giant Manufacturing. I suppose that cycling would be popular in Taiwan too.
　　I searched for famous places for cycling sites in Taiwan and found RiYueTan (日月潭), which has a circular path around the lake. It looked really nice and I became eager to visit there.
　　Another picture is of an outdoor tea ceremony which was held in the grounds of Kosanji Temple on the way. It was an accidental invitation and I got nervous, but enjoyed it.

(Vocabulary from comments)
put sth forward ＜提案・論拠など＞を提出する, 述べる, ＜計画・意見など＞を提案する, ＜学説など＞を提唱する=propose
The committee is meeting to discuss suggestions put forward by members. 委員が提出した提案を話し合うために委員会が開かれている．