Anna Matsushita

 One winter, my family and I embarked on a journey to the Canary Islands, situated off the coast of North Africa, to celebrate the year-end holidays. These islands, a bit farther south than the Mediterranean, are renowned for their numerous volcanoes. My destination was one of the islands in the archipelago, Lanzarote. It's a Spanish territory where the predominant language is, unsurprisingly, Spanish. Upon landing at the airport and traversing the island by bus, I beheld many curious sights. I noticed peculiar circular enclosures made of stone, with greenery growing in sunken centers. Our guide explained that these were vineyards. The island, formed from volcanic ash, experiences strong winds, making it challenging to cultivate taller crops. Thus, they construct enclosures with rocks to shield against the wind, creating depressions in the center where grapevines thrive. That day, our group of nearly thirty individuals was meticulously led around by our guide, showcasing variou

  The year 2020 ended with our usual winter cleaning. Yes, we somehow don’t do Spring cleaning. Every end of year, most of Japanese people do cleaning their houses, throw away rubbish, scrub floor and wipe windows, clear up refrigerator and put all the nice things for the New Year feast. The reason why people clean up their houses at the end of year is probably because of the weather, also probably because of an ancient custom. The weather in December is normally good, the air is quite dry. It is one of the best time to do all the washing and cleaning while the weather is good. It is easy to dust, scrub and wipe all the dirt which has been left untouched quite a while. In 2020, my father and I were in charge of wiping the windows – it was quite nice to see the clean windows shining under the sun, after wiping and scrubbing them with rag, sometimes with old newspapers soaked in water. The ancient custom side possibly relates to Shinto. This is how I learned during my childhood, so the d