Gift

Right now, I'm listening to classical music writing this. I felt like listening to it.

This made me feel that way.

"蜜蜂と遠雷 （Mitsubachi To Enrai）." It's a novel by a Japanese novelist Riku Onda, or 恩田陸 in kanji characters. 蜜蜂 is a honey bee , and 遠雷 means distant thunder . I'm afraid the novel hasn't been translated into English, but I think it will be, and I hope so.

Well, I finished reading the book this morining. I was reading at a cafe ... strictly speaking, at a mister donut shop. I ordered cafe au lait and got refills twice or three times, actually. You know what? I missed my stop this morning because I was reading while I was on a train too, haha.

To tell the truth, I've always wanted to read this novel. Well, my hon loves this. I'm happy that I also thought this one is great like he did. And I felt "this one is something special for me. I was meant to read."

In return, I recommended "のだめカンタービレ" to him. I hope he'll like it, haha. "のだめカンタービレ," or "Nodame Cantabile" in English, is a Japanese manga and it's also about classical music. It's a comedy manga, too, but has serious scenes sometimes. I started to read "Nodame Cantabile" when I was a university student. Though I was not a student of a college of music, it taught me what practicing and performing classical music are like. The manga became popular in Japan many years ago and it inspired people to listen to classical music, like I'm listening inspired by "蜜蜂と遠雷." Unlike the novel, the manga seems to have been translated into English.

I'm sure both authors must have gathered materials many times and for years and learned a lot on topics they want to or need to handle in works. They even get some expert knowledge, I think. Frankly speaking, I like reading especially these kinds of works. Mmm, it's hard to explain ... How should I put it in English? For me, Hiro Arikawa's novels are like that, and Keigo Higashino's and Jun Ikeido's are sometimes so. They get much information or interview lots of people or many times. When he or she writes a novel, they get rid of most information and shorten sentences for some reason, say, this isn't necessary for readers or a story. I feel it and enjoy rich and substantial information though not all information they got is converted into words or sentences in a story or a novel.  Also, I can acquire new knowledge and it's really fun. Some think they are just wasting their time because authors spend many hours or years collecting materials, but these people even come to know new things or new worlds without realizing through a novel like this. I love this kind of novel..

On the other hand, Haruki Murakami's novels are not like this, I think. I read before that he jogs a lot every day so that he can keep on writing novels ... so he can continue his career as a novelist. I think he uses mainly his imagination or experiences when he writes novels and don't collect information that much. Many of his novels mention music, and admirers of the author and readers try to listen to the songs and the pieces that appeared in the novels, but his novels are not what I usually like, actually.

Still, I like several of his novels because I think some are inspired by what the author learned and realized while he interviewed lots of people for nonfiction works, not novels. In fact, his two non-fiction books helped me wake up and smell the coffee. I mean, I realized I should think on my own and that had to cut my tie with spiritual people and to get out of the spiritual world. I sometimes say to myself, "If I had not read those books, I would have ruined my whole life," and the mere thought of it makes me shudder. It's not too much to say that his books helped my life. These two non-fiction books are "Underground" and "Underground 2." This doesn't mean I belonged to that calt group. I've never belong to any religion and I won't. Anyway, that's why I like Hiroki Murakami even though I sometimes don't like his novels.

"蜜蜂と遠雷" by Riku Onda was published in September last year. I saw books piled up at a lot of book stores, but I didn't feel like reading it then though I decided to read before this year ends.

Riku Onda, 恩田陸, is a famous novelist in Japan. "蜜蜂と遠雷" won two famous awards in Japan, the Naoki Prize and the Japan Booksellers' Award. It's said she is the first person that won both at one time. She won contradictory prizes or awards at first glance, but now I understand why because I've read it.

It writes about an international piano competition, but it's not only about pianists, music or geniuses. I think it's about life and truths. It's about ordinary people as well. It's beyond words, and it's also difficult for me to make myself understood in English. Anyway, I thought I'd read that book thanks to my someone special.

I'm listening to these. They've been with me for many many years, but I didn't play these classical CDs in my life. Instead, I often listened to bond's and sweetbox's albums as I wrote in "Classified." To tell you the truth, I learned piano when I was a little, but I was not good at, haha.

Unfortunately, my classical albums might not have pieces I want to listen to, but I find "蜜蜂と遠雷"has its CDs, which include pieces that characters in the novel performed. It seems there are two albums released by different music companies. One is from NAXOS JAPAN, and their album consists of 2 Discs and includes 19 pieces from the novel. The other one is from Sony Music. Theirs has 8 Discs and offer 51 pieces, which means they cover all of the pieces the 4 main characters played. I'll get Sony's because I'd like to listen to all, but I want NAXOS's one too because only that ver. seems to have an essay by Riku Onda. I think I'll get both if possible.

And I did get Sony's "蜜蜂と遠雷" album today. Now I'm listening to these. They are great.

Their discs are so colorful. You know what? Light green's discs include pieces what they call "Honey Bee Prince" played. "Honey Bee Prince" is a nickname or something and his name is 風間塵 (Jin Kazama). Purple's ones have pieces of 高島明石（Akashi Takashima). Pink's include 栄伝亜夜 （Aya Eiden）'s performances while sky blue's have pieces マサル・C・レヴィ・アナトール (Masaru・C・Levi・Anatole) performed. These 4 people are main characters of the novel "蜜蜂と遠雷."

Well, I bought this album at Tower Records in Shibuya. I was very surprised to find Tower Records sells everything. One of the staff members told me that 3 albums of Ruku Onda's "蜜蜂と遠雷" have been released so far, and that the latest one was by Universal Music in October this year. I wondered which I should buy first, but I got Sony's. The cover looked cooler though three albums use the same art of the front cover of the novel. I think I was right. It's a little expensive compared with the other two versions, but it's worth getting. It has all the pieces anyway. On top of that, I find this album includes a newly written novel by Riku Onda. I've just read it. It seems that NOXOS's has an essay while Sony's and Universal Music's have each newly essay. Next year, I'll get the other two, too.

I hope my honey will love the album too. We listen to this together someday. Well, my hon's favorite color is green  while I like purple the best , and the album has both colors, you know. It's nice. I'm really happy with the album.

 Guess what? Tower Records Shibuya's classical music floor has a section of "蜜蜂と遠雷" displaying its albums that I've mentioned and related classical CDs and so on, though there isn't her novel itself. And I found her signature and a message to Tower Records, its staff members, listeners and her fans, I guess. She says; "タワーレコード様　本も読んで下さい！ 恩田陸", and it means "Dear Tower Records. Please read the novel as well." I asked another staff member if it's okay to take pictures of the section and her signature too, and it was okay. On the other hand, it was not allowed to upload these photos on the internet, so I won't add these to this blog post. I'll show my darling the photos sometime.

By the way ... today, I mean on December 30, I joined Hidehiro Mitani's gathering. I sometimes call him Mitanin. Mitani-san is like a brother to me. I respect him. I didn't tell him I'd add a photo of us to my English blog, and I hope he doesn't mind. Heeeeey, my hon, are you reading? Mitani-san is doing well.

As I mentioned in "After The Rain Comes The Rainbow"and in "Something Great", both my sweetheart and I have known Mitani-san. I'm so glad my love and Mitani-san made up at last. Well, many people don't know what it exactly means, but never mind, haha. It's a looong story.

After that, I came by Tully's Coffee in a building next to Meguro station.

I had their seasonal "American Waffle Plate Matcha Strawberry Milk." It's a Japanese-style American waffle, haha, but it's beautiful, isn't it? I like Tully's waffles better than Tully's pancakes.

Tully's Coffee offers pastas too. I haven't tried their "Beef & Mushroom Ragu Sauce Spaghetti yet, but I want to. I should have had it to go, I think. Well, Japanese people often use "take out (verb)" or "takeout (noun)" in katakana characters when we have something "to go" in American English or we "take away" in British English. I sometimes hear "takeout" and "take out" are Japanglish while some people say they make sense.

I stopped by Tully's Coffee Omotesando Hills lccation too, and I found ragu sauce pastas sold out there. Actually, I dropped by there to get picture books to my sis's twins as お年玉, Otoshidama, but the location doesn't have picture books. Tully's Coffee in Japan has been offering their own picture books as I wrote in "20th Anniversary", but not all locations have picture books.

I myself have "氷の島とねこ（Koori No Shima To Neko）" and "神様のないた日 (Kamisama No Naita Hi)"; the former is "An Island of Ice & A Cat" and the latter is "The Day the God cried" in English. They are really good. A cat like my cat appears in each illustrated book.

Well, I wanna give those two or "ペンギンさんのまくら （Pengin-san No Makura）", "Penguin's Pillow" in English, to my sister's twins. I'll check the other locations of Tully's Coffee next year and get them for the twins though they cannot be Otoshidama anymore. My sis won't come see me on New Year's Day after all, so I don't have to worry. Oh, have you ever heard of Otoshidama? In Japan, adults give children and relatives money on New Year's Day (お正月, Osyogatsu) or during the first three days of the New Year (三が日, Sanganichi). My sister's children are my nieces, you know, but they are very small. So I think they'll like picture books. My sis herself got lots of illustrated books for them, but they don't have Tully's ones.

These are illustrated books she collected for her children. I took these photos last year, and she seems to have added more this year, such as のんたん, or Nontan, which has been a famous series for many years in Japan. I haven't seen my nieces lately, though. Oh, that picture book ... a cat named Kuro appears with hot cakes. What a nice combination. You know, I have a cat named Kuro, and my cat and the cat in the picture book are exactly alike. Oh, kuro means black in English. I wanna get that picture book someday. The title is "きょうのおやつは (Kyo No Oyatsu Wa)", or "Today's Snack", "Today's Nosh" or something in English.

By the way, the store manager of Tully's Omotesando Hills location said "まくらのまーくん (Makura No Maa-kun)", whose story was written by a Japanese comedian, Jaru Jaru, is a popular illustrated book among people. She also told me judges didn't notice he wrote it and that the work won the grand prize in the 14th Tully's Picture Book Award. I'm not interested in so-called owarai, or comedy, and comedians either, while I like comedy mangas, novels, movies or something like that, including "Nodame Cantabile" I mentioned earlier. I personally like "ぺんぎんさんのまくら" if I choose my favorite one between three works that won prizes in the 14th Picture Book Award, but I'm glad more people became interested in Tully's Picture Book Award thanks to that. Tully's Picture Book Award started while my honey was still the president of Tully's Coffee. I hope it'll last even after we die.

.

This reminds me that Tully's Coffee opened a new location in Osaka this month, which collaborates with Yoshimoto Kogyo, a company famous for their popular comedians. I saw my mother watching the NHK drama about the founder of Yoshimoto Kogyo, and I found my favorite actor Kyoka Suzuki plays an important role. So I'm glad they've been working together.

I got "Hills limited Red Ornament Relief Mug" instead of picture books, though I bought it for myself.

 Red is not my favorite color, actually, but it's a location-limited item, so I got it. Its white version was an seasonal item available at all the locations of Tully's Coffee in Japan, as I mentioned in this. I wonder some location has this green ver. as a limited item.

I wanna mention 2018 Happy Bag of Tully's Coffee and 2018 Lucky Bag of Eggs 'n Things, too.

These tumblers are for the new year. Tully's Coffee released them this week and they are available at many Tully's Coffee shops in Japan. They are not Happy Bag's items. "Happy Bag" is a lucky bag of Tully's Coffee as I mentioned before.

2018 is the year of the dog according Chinese zodiac. That's why the tumblers have dog patterns. Both are so cute, aren't they? I'm so sad there are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac without the year of the cat. When we write a dog in a kanji character, we write 犬 (Inu), but in this case, I mean when we talk about the year of dog, we use 戌 (Inu) instead.  

Every year, Tully's Coffee offers 3 kinds of  "Happy Bag": ￥3,000 bag, ￥5,000 bag, and ￥10,000 bag. And 3,000 yen bag has 2 colors. 5,000 bag has 1 color, but its bag is bigger than 3000 yen's. 10,000 yen's is not like theirs. It's a big paper bag.

Some locations of Tully's Coffee don't sell Happy Bag in the first place, but many of the locations start to sell Happy Bag after the new year begins while some locations start to sell before the year ends. Say, Tully's Coffee Akasaka Garden City. The location is in the office building in Akasaka, and it doesn't open on weekends and new years holidays. The location's last business day of the year was Dec. 28 this year, and it started 2018 Happy Bag on Dec. 26. Like this, locations which close during the new year's holiday season usually start Happy Bag at the end of the year. On the other hand, locations opening during the new year season sell after the new year begins because they open on January 1, the first day of the year.   

Just in case, there is a quantity limit for 2018 Happy Bag; limit 5 lucky bags per 1 person.The black one at the left end is the ￥5,000's bag, while smaller yellow and navy ones are ￥3,000's. If you have 2 colors of the￥3,000 bag, it will be 6,000 yen in total because each costs 3,000 yen, you know what I mean. Of cause you can get two bags in the same color unless you buy 5 lucky bags. The red large paper bag in the right photo is ￥10,000's.

Well, as you can see, I've already bought 4 lucky bags at Tully's Akasaka Garden City location this week, and I'll show you what they offer for 2018. I got 2017 Happy Bag there last year, too, and I got three lucky bags then. I didn't get 1 of 2 colors of ￥3,000 bag, and later I thought I should have bought it, so this year I got all the kinds and colors.

First of all, ￥3,000 Happy Bag; Mustard Yellow and Navy.

Both colors include the same items.￥3000 Bag has 2 Happy Bag Limited Coffee Beans, 5 Drink Tickets, 1 Can of Candy (made from House Blend), and 1 Zodiac Mini Teddy.

And, this is important. There are 3 sorts of 2018's zodiac mini teddy. Since it's the year of the dog, there are three dog teddies. Though each 3000 yen bag includes 1 zodiac mini teddy, we can't know which will be in yours till we get a bag and open this green one with a word"WONDERFUL YEAR!". In Japan, people think a dog barks "わんわん", or "Won Won" in English, so "WONDERFUL YEAR!" is a play on words.

I got these two dogs. The other zodiac mini teddy that I don't have seems to be 柴犬, or Shiba-Inu. I want that dog, too, but even if I buy another ￥3000 Happy Bag, I'm not sure I can get what I want, so I won't. It's a mystery bag after all, haha.

Next, ￥5,000 Happy Bag; Black.

5,000 yen bag includes 3 Happy Bag Limited Coffee Beans, 8 Drink Tickets, 1 Fabric Notebook, and 1 Mug.

This one is very cool.

Fabric Notebook has 2 patterns, Check and Stripe. Mine is check pattern as you can see. This item is too cool to use. I like blue, but I like green too. It seems the stripe fabric notebook is green one. I think it's cute. I actually want Tully's Coffee to put these 2 fabric notebooks into 10,000 bag, haha.

Finally, ￥10,000 Happy Bag; Red Peper Bag.

10,000 yen bag has 6 Happy Limited Coffee Beans, 20 Drink Tickets, 1 Sunflower and Lychee Honey, 1 Bearful Matryoshka.

With this Happy Bag, we can enjoy all kinds of the 2018 Happy Bag Limited Coffee Beans. I still wonder why Tully's Coffee decided to put matryoshka to 10,000 yen Happy Bag, haha, but when I opened this matryoshka for the first time, I burst into laughter. I can't get angry, haha.

Each back is printed with its name or theme. But ... what should I do with matryoshka? LOL.

 Also, Eggs 'n Things in Japan offers 2018 Lucky Bag. I'll write about this some other time because 1 blog post has a character limit. Business days and hours of 19 locations of Eggs 'n Things are different during the New Year's holiday season, so please check it out. It's from Eggs' official website.

To be honest, I'm considering starting a brand new Japanese blog. I don't think some people checking my blog read and understand English. They see photos, I guess. I don't want to shut them out.

Also, there are some other reasons. At first, I thought it would be a Japanese blog not only for Japanese people but also for those who are learning Japanese, but, on second thoughts, I realized grammatically correct sentenses don't always touch people's hearts, like technically good music isn't always moving. You know what I mean. So, I think I should write in my own way even if my sentences are sometimes too difficult to understand. Don't worry about it. I'd say even some Japanese people and people fluent in Japanese don't understand what I mean in Japanese.

After all, I was born in Japan, and Japanese is my mother tongue, you know. And I think my calling is to change Japan. I'm serious. So, I think a Japanese blog would help me to achieve it somehow. I also hope my words could help some people.

Actually, I had another Japanese blog and updated it long before I started this English blog, and I still leave it. I thought I'd never write a blog post in Japanese. Though I feel like writing Japanese blog posts again, I don't want to update that old blog again. I wanted to help people like the old me when I started the old blog ... people who are absorbed in spiritual stuff and ruin their lives. I'll never make the same mistakes again. I told them to think for themselves in the old blog. In this English blog post, "Heaven knows," I wrote about why I hate so-called spiritual people, so please check it out if you wonder why. In the end, I came to think that they should help themselves.

I reached the next stage of my life and I have to move on. That's one of the reasons why I wanna start a brand new blog in Japanese. And, to be honest, the novel I mentioned earlier in this blog post made me decide to write Japanese sentences again. It's a gift. I appreciate it. Like that, maybe my brand new blog would be a gift to some people.  

Still, I don't have enough time to update two blogs. Let's say I start a new Japanese blog and update it in addition to this English blog. Well, I'll update that Japanese blog if I feel like it, while I update this English blog at least once a week. It's really fun and challenging to write English sentences regularly, so I keep on doing. Also, I really enjoy reading English news. Especially thanks to the Japan Times and the Japan News. You both have improved my English skills.

And to my hon. Thanks for everything. Wherever you are, I'm always thinking of you.

Well, for those who read my blog sometimes. Thank you for checking my blog. If I really start a brand new Japanese blog, I'll tell you here in my English blog.

Have a wonderful year.