Japanese

August 9-14, 2000: Traveling alone
August 9: I visited my mother's home by alone for the first Bon festival of my father died in January. I took a Sonic train from Oita station. I found a long bench with a unique design of a sea eel.
	I changed train to Shinkansen from Kokura.
Hiroshima. Just the other day, on August 6, a Hiroshima A-bomb Ceremony was held here and I paid one minute's silent tribute to the victims by watching a TV live program. Today is Nagasaki Day.
	I left Oita at 9:15 a.m. and arrived at mother's home in Tatsuno at past 2 p.m. I sat on a chair my dead father loved to seat and relax on it. I talked much with my mother about the memory of my dead father. My mother lives alone here.
My younger brother arrived soon from Tokyo. August 10: I went out for a walk with my younger brother in the morning. There are many white flowers of water lily in the pond of Shuuen-Tei Tea room.
	We walked down from the hillside park to downtown Tatsuno. There are old soy sauce factories in the town.
We dropped in "Light-soy sauce Museum." Click the right picture to view the detail report.
	In the afternoon, my elder sister and her husband arrived from Kochi city by car with their dog Ann. In the evening, all of us went up to a people's hotel Akatonbosou and held a memorial service for the dead with taking Chinese dishes. We stayed there together.
august 12: We visited the grave in Hayashida town recently annexed to Himeji city. We cleaned up the grave.
The Bon memorial service was over. I joined my elder sister family and headed to Kochi City for the first time after a long time. We were packed in a Bon traffic jam and witnessed a multiple pileup in a tunnel. Our car drives smoothly on Seto Bridge.
	We dropped in Yoshima drive rest.
After a while we started again, we saw another accident on the opposite lane the highway. A crane stopped the flow of cars making heavy traffic congestion. We are lucky to have no trouble.
	We crossed the bridge and entered Shikoku Island. This is the branch to Muroto Point. We will head straight to Kochi. We got off the highway at Nangoku city one stop before Kochi city. A traffic sign says there are 19 tunnels up to here, including one 5,000-meter and two 3,000-meter long class tunnels.
August 13: I relaxed at my elder sister's house. My brother-in-law started Internet last year. We enjoyed a net meeting with a nephew in Tokyo through the video camera mounted on the computer. Another nephew who lives in Kochi recently built a new house of American-style. He has two lovely daughters.
	Here in Kochi, most rice paddies were already cropped or in full golden color. It is a sort of strange scene for me.
With a dog in my elder sisters house.
august 14: In the morning, I walked out to the nearby beach. Blue sea stretches as far as eye can reach.
	It is impressive to understand that the sea reaches as far as Australia we visited this April. It is natural that Ryouma Sakamoto, a hero in the last days of Edo era, dreamed a leap out to the world.
After a short stay in Kochi, I got on a train "Southern wind No.6" from Gomen station of Dosan Line to Okayama. My sister and her husband saw me off.
I drove down to Kochi through a highway, but go back by train without hurry. There was a miniature of a famous suspension bridge over Oboke-koboke valley.
	The train passed up along the deep valley. On the steep slope of the valley cling many small houses.
After Awa Ikeda station, the landscape suddenly opens to vast rice fields. Some are already harvested, some are not.
Soon, the train passes Seto Bridge's lower deck. From the noisy train I could look down the blue sea far under. It was strange to recall that I drove down to Kochi through the upper deck highway.
	I switched train at Okayama to Shinkansen and finally returned back to Oita. It took 6 hours and 40 minutes. I have had an impressive trip to my mother's home and Kochi.