Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

Peanuts

　　My office is located in a small fishery-farming town. Most of the patients who consult me are engaged in these primary industries. Some of them bring a gift to me, expressing their thanks. Their gift is various vegetables or seafood like sweet potatoes, cucumbers, oranges, fishes, and so on. A patient gave me peanuts which will be shown below. She raised and roasted them. They were warm when I received them. As you see them, they look not so good, but the taste was great.
　　While I'm on the subject of peanuts which a patient gave me today, I recalled my childhood. My maternal late grandmother often roasted peanuts which she cultivated herself for her grandchildren. It's the story of about a half century ago. The smile of my grandmother came to my mind with the lingering rustic taste of peanuts.

Osaka Marathon

　　I started jogging after seeing cheerful runners passing over the finish line at the Ehime Marathon in 2013. I usually jogged for a short distance when I started, but I made the distance longer and I joined the Ehime Marathon the next year. As for the result, I had to stop at the time control point of 40.5km. I learnt the technical word of DNF at that time. I wasn't able to finish my first full marathon, but I still kept my wish to finish it. I joined my fourth marathon, the Osaka Marathon, on Oct. 25th.
　　I had a slight convulsion in my left leg at 24km and did a stretch. I took some anti-convulsion medicine at 25km. After taking in salt at 25.2km which I was given from people along the street, the symptom decreased. However, I felt a foretaste of convulsion when I increased my pace, and I ran at the slowest pace that I could successfully finish the race. My record was 6 hours 50 minutes in gross. It took about 40 minutes to pass the start line after the gun.

(Auf Deutsch)
　　Als ich beobachtet habe, wie Teilnehmer am Ehime Marathon das Ziel erreichten, habe ich mich zur Teilname am nächsten Ehime Marathon entschlossen. Ich habe mit kurzem Jogging angefangen, und habe die Strecke, die ich auf einmal laufen konnte, verlängert. Nach einem Jahr habe ich am Ehime Marathon teilgenommen.
　　Das Ergebnis war, daß ich am Zeitkontrollepunkt von 40,5km wegen Zeitüberschreitung gestoppt wurde. Der offizielle Rekord war 5 Stunden 45 Minuten für 40km. Der Rest des Weges war nur noch 2km! Ich konnte nicht den Marathon zum Ende laufen.
　　Ich wollte den Marathon unbedingt erfolgreich beenden und habe seitdem geübt. Am 25. 10. habe ich am vierten Marathon, Osaka Marathon, teilgenommen.
　　Bei der 24-km-Marke habe ich im linken Bein einen Krampf bekommen und Stretching gemacht. Bei der 25-km-Marke habe ich chinesische Medizin eingenommen. Von den Zuschauern an der Straße habe ich an der 25,2-km-Marke Salz bekommen und dieses Salz hat mir den Krampf gemildert.
　　Wenn ich die Geschwindigkeit gesteigert hätte, hat der Krampf vielleicht wieder zu passieren gedroht. Also, mit einer Geschwindigkeit von 10 Minuten pro Kilometer, die langsamste Geschwindigkeit um die volle Strecke laufen zu können, konnte ich das Ziel in 6 Stunden 50 Minuten erreichen.

　２０１３年の愛媛マラソンでゴールする人たちを見て、翌年の愛媛マラソンに参加しようと決心しました。短いジョギングからスタートして、走る距離を伸ばしていき、１年後に愛媛マラソンに挑戦。結果、４０．５ｋｍの関門で時間切れでストップ。公式記録は４０ｋｍで５時間４５分。マラソンのフィニッシュはかなわなかったけれど、完走したいと思い、それ以後も練習を続け、１０月２５日に４回目のマラソンを走りました。大阪マラソンです。
　２４ｋｍ地点で左足にけいれんがあり、ストレッチをして、２５ｋｍでは薬を服用。そして２５．２ｋｍで沿道の人から塩をもらい、症状は軽快。スピードを上げると再びけいれんが起こりそうだったのでゴールできるぎりぎりのゆっくりとしたスピードで走り、なんとか６時間５０分で完走しました。

Expensive Eggplants

　　I wrote about my first-ever cultivation before here(link). I was told that the egg plants were easy to raise, but it was not so easy. I bought a bug killer for plants and fertilizer. I think I made an effort to cultivate, but the shape of the harvest was fairly different from ones sold on the shelves of vegetable shops. I'll show you it below. I'll try some cultivation next season again. The cork in the middle of the picture is for the estimation of the size. The price of two egg plants is about 15 US$ (for a bug killer and fertilizer). Incredible!

Winter Is Coming

　　The winter rolled around in a relatively warm region of Nagahama in which my workplace is located. A unique natural phenomenon sometimes takes place in the early and cold morning under a clear sky in the town. I got up early and I climbed up the hill behind my office today to take a movie of this phenomenon. I'll upload it below and you can see it! You can see the cloud or fog bank flowing from the mountainous region to the sea. It's like a river of fog.
　　When this phenomenon appears, it suggests the winter is just around the corner. Days with strong cold winds increase and  infections will break out. It leads to a sudden rush of my business.

(Vocabulary)
bank: a large mass of clouds, mist etc:
a fog bank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCJBUXNXmqM&feature=youtu.be 

Relay Marathon

　　I joined the Ojoka relay marathon. It became popular and now might be called a seasonal event of my hometown. Facing the rapid increase of applicants, the organizer decided to hold the event for two days. The first day was for groups of friends and the second was for workplace teams. My team was made up from members of the Matsuyama Chuo Lions Club and their friends. We were assigned to the first day. In the relay marathon several runners ran a circuit of 1.5km in turn with a sash in which an IC tip was sewn for recording the time and the lap numbers. I'm carrying it in the following picture. It was a good exercise and the get-together at night was a lot of fun.

(Vocabulary)
sash たすき
hand one's sash to the next runner  次の走者にたすきを渡す.

Shinto Festival

　　In this entry I'll write about the autumnal festival of Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan. Shinto is popularly taken as one of the religions, but it has no founder and no scripture. I've no idea whether it should be categorized into religion.
　　Anyway, to know what the festival is like, you have to realize the "mikoshi" in the first place, which is translated into mikoshi portable shrine and is the focal point of the festival. The deity of the shrine is believed to enter the mikoshi portable shrine, which the local people carry from place to place around the neighborhood.
　　People take the mikoshi portable shrine, which is kept in every neighborhood at normal times, to their local shrine very early in the morning and it is brought out from the main shrine building and paraded through the streets. It takes short stops at every corner of the neighborhood and celebrates newly built homes or newborn babies. The deities accept peoples' desires at the same time.
　　In ancient times, the Ten-noh and aristocrats in Kyoto would ride in palanquins called "koshi". For the palanquins used to carry the deities, mi, the Japanese word for "god", was added, making the word mikoshi. Gradually, this practice of carrying the deities around local neighborhoods spread throughout the country.
　　Because deities are usually shut away deep inside shrines, annual mikoshi parades like this are a rare chance for the local people to get close to them. Transferring the deities into mikoshi and parading them around the streets... This is the way Japanese people deepen the connection with their local deities.
　　At last, one more thing I have to append; I deeply understood that my body was not built for carrying mikoshi. My whole body is smarting now.

(Vocabulary)
indigenous〈人・慣習・文化などが〉（土地）固有の, 土着の
scripture [C,U] (特定宗教の) 経典, 聖典