Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

Weakened Yen and Next Trip

　　I'll write about the recent weak yen today. When I visited Oahu last December, I felt overwhelmed with the prices of commodities coming from the weak yen and the inflation of the U.S.. I had to cut down the use of restaurants and cooked most meals with food that I got in a supermarket for locals.
　　The weak yen developed more intensely this spring. The exporting companies like carmakers sound like they made unprecedented profits, but travel persons like me have difficulties to plan overseas travels. The prices in Hawaii are unbelievably high now, and I have to bring some meals from Japan next time.
　　In the meantime, I have a plan to visit the U.K. in June. I'm going to stay in Bath and I'm thinking of visiting one of its constituent countries of Wales. I'm learning its culture and history now. I paid the flight fee by mileage. The mileage payment is free of influence from exchange instability. It's very helpful in this weak-yen trend.
　　Bath has the ruin of a Roman public bath. Its name, "Bath", might be derived from the ruin. My hometown has the oldest hot spa of Japan. It's written even in Japan's mythology. The travel from the oldest hot spa town of Japan to that of the U.K. would be fantastic.

(Vocabulary)
currency gain 為替差益
exchange 為替

Wine Tasting

　　The biannual event of wine tasting in my home was held on Apr. 12th after a while. Under the strict regulations of the pandemic, it wasn't able to be held regularly for a few years. In addition to the regular participants, three of my friends newly joined.
　　Wine is usually bottled tightly and it's difficult to taste a wine before buying it and you have to choose them from the shelves of liquor shops only by their labels. You sometimes fail to choose what you'd like to drink because their tastes are unknown before opening the bottles. This is the reason why I began to hold a wine tasting gathering in my home. I invite professionals from a wine importer of Osaka to know the background of each wine along with tasting of it.
　　The participants enjoyed tasting and choosing their kind of wine and ordered it from the company. The marketer brought 10 kinds of wine and in total we ordered four dozen bottles of wine. After the tasting, we had a merrymaking over several kinds of wine.
　　The following picture shows me organizing the bottles which were delivered at a later date.

(Vocabulary)
at a later date 後日