Anna Matsushita

  During the state of emergency, I spent most of my days in front of Google map, checking the route of some of the countries in Europe. As someone working at travel sector, I needed to know tour itineraries by heart. It was a homework to remember some of the major cities to stay, eat and do sightseeing, hiking and trekking. However virtual experiences they were, it was worth doing because it makes you feel like traveling another countries. Every day, I spent few hours browsing through some of the sightseeing routes and hiking routes in Europe, in a hope to be ready to operate some tours scheduled in summer 2020. Apart from working on a computer, I went through my bookshelf and did some readings. I picked some of the books that I could give a good laugh, or books which were enthralling enough to forget the reality for a while Girl with pearl earring ​ Girl With a Pearl Earring (English Edition) www.amazon.co.jp 660 円 (2021年01月19日 15:40時点   詳しくはこちら) Amazon.co.jpで購入する Besides, I had a pil

  On 7th April 2020, a state of emergency was declared in Japan. Our company followed the request from the government to close the office for a month. At office, our colleagues and I said farewell to each other, promising to meet next month. We have never felt the words “Take care” meant something – some colleagues even laughed at the implication of the words too exaggerated. But we needed to take care of ourselves more than ever, to meet again in May. I made a mental to-do list while on furlough. A month at home was quite long. On top of some of the homework I was assigned from my supervisor, I decided to walk, bake, and read some books. For baking, I decided to borrow some ideas from the celebration of Easter. As anyone working in the travel industry, I was always conscious of holidays abroad – Shrove Tuesday, Easter, May Day, Bank holidays, the Ascension Day, Ramadan, Christmas, and many more. We needed to make sure that the tour schedules will fit in to avoid the closure of some of

  After spending a day at office doing nothing constructive but cancelling businesses, I was too exhausted. I treated myself a quick stop at a coffee shop. There, I saw on SNS with a strange figure of monster or mermaid-like creature. 『肥後国海中の怪(アマビエの図)』（京都大学附属図書館所蔵） Photograph courtesy of the Main Library, Kyoto University - Amabie The figure was called Amabie, which is believed to be a spirit or mermaid ( or maybe a merman ) , and said to have been discovered by local official in Kumamoto in Southern Japan about 150 years ago. According to Wikipedia,  legend has it as follows : According to legend, an amabie appeared in Higo Province (Kumamoto Prefecture), around the middle of the fourth month, in the year Kōka-3 (mid-May 1846) in the Edo period. A glowing object had been spotted in the sea, almost on a nightly basis. The town's official went to the coast to investigate and witnessed the amabie. According to the sketch made by this official, it had long hair, a mouth like bird'

  Saturday came, and I went for my usual walking around my neighbourhood. It was a fine day, with a plenty of sunshine. Flowers were blooming everywhere. There is a patch of land where pine trees are planted. It used to be a sweet potato field. Back in good old days, local kids could help the farmer harvest the sweet potatoes. Now it is like a mini forest, thick with large pine trees. Underneath the trees, I saw blue periwinkles were blooming, resembling a large green and blue carpet. Some of the plants were budding and blooming along streets. On the edge of some streets, mini poppies were blooming, popping out their heads through some cracks on asphalt. Some of our neighbours with green thumb did some brilliant jobs. At their front gardens, I saw little narcissus and snapdragons. These are indeed some of the flowers that tells the end of chilly season. The air was mild and warm, very comfortable for a long walk. By this time, I was getting used to our daily routine for COVID days : We

  One of the highlight of spring in Japan may be to see cherry trees in full blossom. Some may wonder why people make such fuss about. But you might get some idea if you had a chance to go through the chilly and cloudy days in winter and early spring here. Most of the cherry trees planted in urban areas in Japan are called Someiyoshino. The prime of its blossoms are quite short, about one week at the most. Once in their prime, the trees looks like hoisting a huge fluffy pale pink cloud. It is perhaps this short life-span of the blossoms which attract people’s attention. It is sometimes magnificent to see them under clear blue sky, probably because of the contrast of colours. Our office was located near a river in Tokyo called the Meguro river. The river is known for having rows of cherry trees on its banks. During springtime, the local community set up some lanterns underneath the cherry trees and light them up in the evening. The lanterns glow in soft pink, lighting up the blossom fro

  It was 29th March when I wake up in the morning and felt unusual chill in the air. When I went outside of my house, I discovered it was snowing. It was the first snow in the Southern Kanto area in Japan that year. We had no snow in the winter, and I was partly happy and partly sad to see the snow The Southern Kanto area is one of the warmest areas in Japan, especially the coastal area where I live. The weather is mild, and we rarely have snow in winter. I love seeing snow, as it is not a usual thing to see often in where I live. It is nice to see even some flurry in the morning or late in the evening. It is also nice to see the land covered white, making small white mounds everywhere. Apparently the kids in neighbourhood are excited as well, and it makes me smile to see little snowmen placed on the walls and gates of some houses. However, snow also means that our infrastructure is not up to the weather, and there is always traffic chaos. To begin with, people can’t walk properly on s

It was the end of March when I found a Youtube video showing how to make hand-made and washable face mask. It seemed easy to make, but unfortunately I was too clumsy and couldn’t make proper ones. Some became too big, some became too small. I never liked wearing facial masks. It is too stuffy and I can’t breathe properly. Here in Japan, it is not unusual to see many people wearing facial masks from around end of autumn to mid-spring. This is mainly due to the dry weather in winter, to keep the throat moist. Also, people try protect themselves contagious disease such as flu or common cold. Another reason is to protect from Cider Fever. There are millions of Cider trees planted across the country without much tending. So in spring, the Cider trees spout out pollens, which causes allergy and terrible sneezing. Also, fortunate thing is that Japan is not targeted by terrorist attack, so people can cover their faces. People in some countries feel uncomfortable seeing people covering their fa

  Corona virus has now spread to Europe and the Americas. Countries started to close down their borders. When I get to office in the morning, I checked the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and several online newspapers, in a hope to see if any of the countries relaxed their restrictions. In the afternoon, I checked another online news for the number of contracted cases in Japan, hoping there will be some decrease in the number. Those became my daily routine. The situation remained the same. Borders remained closed, the number of contracted cases kept increasing. Although we had not much to do at office but cancel businesses, it was stressful time and I needed something for distraction – something that I could laugh out loud. By the end of March, people started to use delivery for nonessential goods. It must have been one of the busiest time for online stores, as well as for many delivery companies. Some people started to post on twitter about funny and heart-warming stories o

  It was sometime at the end of December 2019 when we began to hear about a new type of flu in Wuhan in China, and the Japanese expats there have started to fled back to Japan.  Back then, not so many people around me seems to have cared too much, as Asia has seen flu pandemics in the past such as SARS and MARS. Both were controlled in the end, and we assumed it will be the same situation once again. Asian countries will control the virus, and everything will be fine in a few month or so. Some argued that Japan should be more prepared for the possible spread of pandemic, and we discussed a little on social media. But we could not make any constructive discussion at that stage, as we have almost no idea what this new virus was about. All we could do was to watch the progress reported in the media. But as the days gone by, we heard another case of pandemic – this time in a cruise ship which was just docked at the port of Yokohama, that some of the guests were contracted to Corona virus.