Anna Matsushita

 It has been nearly a year and half when most of the countries in the world has closed their borders from travelers from abroad. After vaccine was rolled out in some of the countries, the borders are beginning to open up gradually. One of my former colleague travelled from Germany to Czech for his summer holiday. Depending on where you live, looks like travel for non-essential, non-urgent purpose is re-starting. I thought it was a good prospect. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan, there are 37 countries which accept COVID-19 vaccine certificate issued in Japan (as of 27th September, 2021). Which means, I believe, Japanese nationals can travel, possibly for urgent and essential purpose. On the opposite direction, Japan is not allowing inbound visitors for leisure purpose as of September 2021. Self-isolation period is getting shorter for people coming back to Japan, but apparently it is too early to welcome visitors from abroad, especially considering the surge

 On 10 September, the Japanese government decided to extend the state of emergency in 19 local authorities until 30September, 2021. At that time, the number of newly Covid contracted patients in Japan was around 9,000 per day. The number was still high enough to keep the restriction. 2 weeks have passed since then, and the number of COVID positive patient is now decreased to 2143 nationwide. The number of newly contracted patients in Tokyo and Osaka is still needs to be watched, but it is gradually but surely decreasing. Apart from working from home, washing hands, wearing facemask, limit the number of people when eating out and vaccine – what did we do to decrease the newly contracted patients? I went out today to bigger city in Kanagawa with my friend, and the station was packed with people. It looked just like any other weekend before corona. Only the thing that we noticed was that a department store s restricting the number of people coming in – the floor was already full

Since I left a travel company last year, a call centre in Tokyo gave me an opportunity to work. However, jobs at call centre did not agree with me. I discussed with my manager, and we both agreed that I should go and look for another opportunity. I left there in mid August. I started my 2 nd job hunt from July 2021. This time, job market was picking up its pace compared to last year. There were more openings, and more choices.   I also looked for temporary jobs in a hope that there might be a chance to get full-time contract. I heard from several people that when an astronaut came back to work, he sent out 1000 resumes to company for his next job. They all said that I should follow his example. Since July, I sent out about 60 resumes in three month. This is not a considerable amount compared to what I intended. I used several job agencies, and applied from their websites. This time, I had few chances to speak with agents online. Once they know that I was actively looking for a

 “Wold you go and buy some milk “? My mother stormed into my room while I was having an online job interview. The day before the interview, I informed my parents about my schedule, and asked them to be quiet from 13:00 on. Apparently, my mother needed fight an urge to interfere. She said she knew I will be having something from 13:00. By the clock struck 13:00, she could not help but walking up to my door and say something – and she did. It was an embarrassing experience, but it continued. My friends, who are expert on working from home, suggested to put a notice on my door while I am busy. I told my parents that I will put a notice on my door when I am having an online interview. However, my mother said she can’t be sure if she can keep quiet. “More I am told not to do, I get temptation to break the rule”. What a childish opinion. Later I learned that there is psychological theory called “ Psychological Reactance ”, the tendency for people to react negatively when they feel

Today is the moon festival in Japan. Apparently many people were looking forward to this annual event more than usual, possibly to be festive more than usual and enjoy the day thoroughly. Lots of text have been exchanged to talk about today’s weather forecast. Apparently it will be cloudy today, so the visibility of the moon may not be good. Some of my friend went out to see the moon last night, held a little party at home. Some of them cooked sweet dumpling with their kids, which looked fun. The reason why dumplings are chosen for the sweets of the day is simple : Dumplings look like full moon ! At home, my family was festive more than usual. We did went out last night to see the bright moon. My parent went out today, and bought some sweets which may be too much for the three of us.  They said some of the stores were offering Silver grass, a typical decoration of this day. Sadly the silver grasses at the stores were too mature, flowers were all open and fluffy seeds were almost

 Recently, the third week of September is becoming to known as “Silver week” in Japan. The reason is that there are two national holidays in the third week.  In Japan, a week with consecutive holidays in May is known as “Golden week”.  So the long national holiday week in autumn became known as Silver week, as an opposite to the Spring holiday season. 22 nd or 23 rd September is Autumnal Equinox. Yes, just as Vernal Equinox day, the length of day and night are equal. If we look from astronomical point of view, it is just another day. In Japan, Autumnal Equinox is known as Ohigan, when many people visit family grave and pay tribute to the loved ones. There are various articles on Ohigan on the internet, so I will refrain from further explanation. Around Ohigan season, you might see flower called Red Spider Lilly, known as Higan bana (literary means "flower on he other side of river leading to Buddhist heaven) in many areas of the country. It is bright red flower, looks a li

 I have been through personal IT literacy revolution within these couple of years. The company I worked 2 years ago was a small company without much information technology. Everything was done in paperwork. Attendance record was kept on paper, and I needed my boss’s signature. I started to work at another company in 2019, and briefly in 2021. The experience between these two years were revolutionary. For the first time in my life, I used online attendance record. Some of the meetings were done by Zoom, which I have also never heard of before. The company still needed to use lot of paper, but it was beginning to be replaced by mobile application. Conversation between branch offices abroad was done on online chat. Phones were replaced by internet phone.   Meeting was announced not by e-mail but by the Outlook invitation. During unemployment, I experienced interviews by Zoom and Teams, as the companies can't let candidate visit their offices. HR were also working from home so

Covid-19 vaccine rollout began sometimes in February 2021. In March, local authorities started to take appointments from elderly over 60 years old. Around May, appointments became available for middle ages (40 – 59 years old). There were varied opinions towards vaccine. Some simply took it. Some denied it, refusing that it didn’t’ go through sufficient clinical trials. When I had my first jab in summer 2021, the doctor said that this vaccination project is the biggest human experiment that world has ever seen.     Around May or June, just before vaccine became available for those between 20 – 39 years old, some media started to report that some younger generation were not positive taking the jabs. According the interviews by media, some younger people expressed their worries about rumour on SNS, the possible damages to their health. Some even mentioned about possible sterilization.  Parents with young children had worries, too – some of my friends were debating if it is right d

Mid-Autumn Festival– or, rather know as Otsukimi (Moon viewing) -   is on its way in Japan once again this year on 21 st September, 2021. The full moon on 15th August in Chinese calendar is called “Chu-shu no Meigetsu” (中秋の名月：Beautiful moon in mid-autumn). As Chinese calendar is lunar calendar, it is a movable feast. The full moon appears sometime between mid -September to mid-October. Ideally, families enjoy full moon with a sweets and dumpling while admiring the full moon. At home, this year's sweets are like these. The custom of moon viewing in Japan goes back about 1000 years ago. Nobles in court or palaces in Kyoto started to admire the full moon, holding party to sing old Chinese poems, play music and drink fine wine. Such a festivity appears in some of the literatures like “The Tale of Genji” by Lady Murasaki. Genji holds a feast at Katsura Villa in Kyoto along with his friends, playing musing and enjoy wine under the moonlight. ( more on this from Katsura Imperial Vi

  As summer progress, the number of COVID-19 patients started to rise once again at alarming pace. I had a discussion with my friend about the possibility of lockdown in Tokyo. I have suggested positive opinion for the implementation of lockdown. As long as people are commuting across the local authorities and make contact with each other, the number of COVID positive case will keep increasing. My friend said it is a rubbish. She was firmly against the implementation of lockdown. According to her opinion, households with lower income will definitely be affected if lockdown was imposed. Some of the local authorities are too slow to support lower income families. They will deliver food supply to those families in need, only after 1 week from the implementation of lockdown. “What will happen to those families? They can’t go out, they can’t buy food online, and they have to wait for a week for their food! Are you telling them to starve to death? “ I had no idea about such a burea

 Long time ago, my mother took me to meet one of my distant relative – my grandmother’s aunt – at a hotel in Tokyo. I vaguely remember that she was a charming lady, very warm and kind. My mother chatted away with her, and when we leave her hotel room, she gave me a little brown coin – very small one which I have never seen before. My great-aunt was affectionately known as “Aunty in Hawaii”. She and her family immigrated to America few years after the World War II. My mother, who was born on the year of the end of the War, remembers when the great-aunt’s family left Japan from a port by a vessel. My mother remembers her cousins threw some paper tapes to them, bidding farewell.   I heard from my grandparents that the USA offered immigration program to Japanese people, especially those people who lived in war-devastated areas such as Okinawa, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Okayama prefectures. Many people participated the program and sought their future in the States. My great-aunt’s fami

 My maternal grandmother was from Hiroshima prefecture, Japan. Most of her family lived in Horshima, but I have not heard much about them until I was 17 years old. This is some of the family history I heard, when I visited my grandparents back in 1989. My grandmother’s father was working at the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall – better known as “Atomic Bomb Dome”.   As the name of the building describes, the hall exhibited many industrial products in Hiroshima – I heard that the dome had a beautiful spiral staircase leading up to upstairs. My great-grandfather’s office was in the building. My great-grandfather was known affectionately by the family as “the man who forgets”. He always forget something. It caused many mayhems, but everybody knew his personality. So on 6 th August 1945, when Enola Gay was heading to Hiroshima carrying the little boy, my grandfather arrived at his office. As usual, he noticed he forgot something at home. He jumped back on a tram and h

 Convenience stores in Japan are always ready to put seasonal food and sweets on their shelves. Also, they are quick to pick up the products which are in a boom. 7-eleven store nearby my house offered some niceties during this summer. One was ice cream, or gelato by Häagen-Dazs. It was a mixture of passion fruit sorbet and mango gelato (including diced mango). Its smooth gelato and aromatic sorbet was surprisingly well-combination. With summer being scorching, it was delightfully refreshing dessert to enjoy in the afternoon.   Alas, this gelato and sorbet was a seasonal product, probably sold in August only. I already miss it very much. Another one was soda-pop and lemon fruit jerry. It was little sweet, and as you eat on, there were chunky cut-fruits such as pineapples at the bottom. The colour of jerry is light blue, adding the freshness to this little dessert. This one is also fading from the store's shelves now. Possibly on the shelves selling custard puddings, you might

 Tokyo Olympic games were held between 23 rd July to 08 th August 2021, and  Paralympic games were held between 24th August to 5 th September. As already reported in many medias, there were debates whether it should be held while Tokyo was under the State of Emergency. Every day medias were reporting about the debates on both pros and cons. In the end, the both game kicked off as scheduled. My local area, which is outside of Tokyo, was designated for the site for sailing games. There was a pictogram printed on the staircase of train station. The sailing game took place on the beach, on the left-hand side near an off-shore island.  I went to the beach few days before the game. To be honest, it seemed unrealistic that the game would be held there, as it was very quiet, no atmosphere of welcoming the teams from across the world. One of my old customer participated the Olympics as a volunteer. He used to work at a travel company, attending tours as tour leader. He is well travel

 The summer 2021 in Kanto area in Japan was, as always, very hot and muggy.  Refreshment in the evening was something to look forward to. Especially during COVID, choosing drinks became more fun compared to pre-COVID19 days. One of the popular cocktail in Japan is Lemon Sour (Lemon Spirit Fizz). It is normally made of lemon juice, vodka or Shochu ( one of Japanese spirit) and fizzy water. With plenty of ice cube, the fizzy drink is tremendously refreshing. It is one of the favoured drink at Izakaya (Japanese pub). There are variation using different fruits, such as grape fruits, grape, umeshu(Japanese apricot liquor) etc. As with most of people around the world during COVID days, I had my drinks at home. Going to a supermarket to choose canned sours became favourite routine. Rows of supermarket shelves were filled with various sours. Last year, many beverage companies somehow sold variety of sours, mainly lemon sours. The competition continued on this year as well.   I picked few

 “We are closed again due to the State of Emergency” Says the notice at my ex-colleague’s restaurant. One of my old colleague from the travel company is a manager of a delightful Yakitori (Skewered grilled chicken) restaurant in Sangen-Jaya, Tokyo. He went to Australia after working at a travel company, and he has acquired a taste for wine there. Later on, he started to work at a Yakitori restaurant chain, and was promoted to a manager. He started to collaborate with wineries in Japan, in order to seek for mariage of roast chicken and wine. His restaurant always serve welcome beer with little decoration, and the choice of fine Japanese wines is vast. I used to work at an office near his restaurant. After work, me and my colleagues sometimes went there, and enjoyed scrumptious grilled chickens with glasses of beer and wine. Like many of food service industries across the world, his restaurant had to go through hardship. Every time the state of emergency was declared in Tokyo, he h

 Yet another State of Emergency was declared in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo, on 22 April, 2021. There was the fourth wave of Corona virus from April until June. This time Osaka and surrounding area were badly hit. The reason was not clear. It was possibly due to May holiday season. This year we had three consecutive national holiday after the first weekend of May. So we had a 5 consecutive holiday from 1 st to 5 th of May. People might have travelled far compared to last year’s May holiday period.   The tourism industry had a glimmer of hope, because some of the local authorities resumed their own travel campaigns. This campaign is known as GoTo Travel campaign , which subsidize about the half of the cost for accommodation. Each local authorities gave unique names to their own campaigns, such as "Himitsu no Tabi (non-crowded trip) by Fukuoka prefecture, or "Gokan ni Gochisou" (Feast to the five senses ) by Ishikawa Prefecture. Some of them even offered discount

  Our neighbour’s cat came to our garden for an afternoon nap. He has his favourite spot underneath the cherry tomato cage. The roses were in bloom and lavenders were budding. It was fine day, the weather was warm and dry, and everything seemed peaceful. I reflected the past 6 months. Since September 2020, I have been unemployed. The company I worked for needed to lay off 70% of workforce due to COVID19. Somehow, I managed to stay positive while unemployment, with occasional ups and downs. The main reason, I recall, was that I was with my family, also I was in touch with my friends and job advisors through SNS and e-mails. One of the person who supported me was a job counselor. I met my job counselor at his office in Yokohama. He was gentle and always helpful, suggested many job vacancies at stable businesses. My career at travel companies were not in the mainstream of their business. I was working on specialist’s visit abroad. The field of client’s fields were vast, from local or nati

  One of the things which many of us missed during the COVID restriction might be a chance to go out and see arts and entertainments. I had a chance to go to Roppongi in Tokyo during the spring of 2021. Before going there, I vaguely heard about the name of an artist called Murakami Takashi. He is a Japanese contemporary artist, and his unique drawings were said to be quite renown among younger generation across the world. The characters he creates are painted in bright colours, very pop and catchy. At Roppongi, Mr. Murakami was organizing an art project called “ Ropongi Hills Takashi Murakami Project ”. Apparently his gigantic installation of humanoid flowers were among one of them. I saw the installation on some of SNS, thinking it must be impressive. Having actually faced with it, it indeed was an impressively large statue. I needed to look from a distance to see the entire structure. Many young people were taking photographs, and I sneaked in. I love this kind of project, which the

  The third COVID state of emergency was lifted in the Kanto region of Japan at the end of March 2021. People gradually started to go out more often. On the surface level the life seemed to be returning to normal – except that people were wearing face masks even those without cedar pollen fever – allergy similar to hay fever. On a weekend, I visited Yokohama. Yokohama is located about 30 minutes from Tokyo by train. It is known as one of the oldest port towns which started trade with western countries, such as France, Britain and America about 200 years ago. It is pretty big city with many areas to visit, such as the three towers of King, Queen and Jack, Hikawa-Maru ocean liner, Minato-mirai area, China town, Yokohama English Rose garden and many more. The Yokohama station is one of the spots where you can see some iconic figures which represent Yokohama’s history. Once you are out of central ticket gates of JR or other private railways, you might notice very small trails of the histor