Anna Matsushita

  During COVID-19 restriction, I did another project: writing essays on drinks in mainly in Europe, Japan and Caucasus.   As a one engaged in travel industry, I wrote many writings for my job to introduce European drinks, including wines, beers, whiskeys and liqueurs.   The work involves many research on internet as well as trying the drink myself. I felt it important to experience the drink itself, as I was introducing the drinks to potential Japanese travellers abroad – I did not want to sound fake.   This time, I could spend more time researching the backgrounds of each drinks. It was interesting to learn the history of each drinks and passion of those who made the first drink, and success of the business.   The main reason I wrote this subject was that I wanted to carry on researching food and drinks abroad. When I was working at travel company, the work involved many research. I wanted to carry on with that, in order to keep the antenna up and keep the writing skil

 When I was young, I came across with a picture of two entertainers in Medieval Japan, called Kusemai dancer, and Shrabyoshi.   They were one of the prominent street performers in Medieval Japan, and they were mentioned in a book called “Seventy One Songs on Craftsmen", illustrating various craftsmen which was established at the end of 1500’s   Here is the link to the original painting of Kusemai dancer and Shirbyoshi. (On the bottle left) 狂言・能楽の歴史｜文化デジタルライブラリー (jac.go.jp)   (Kusemai dancer on the left, Shirabyoshi on the right )   能・世阿弥｜文化デジタルライブラリー (jac.go.jp) So, what are Kusemai dancer and Shirabyoshi ? Kusemai, also known as Mai-Mai (Roughly translated as "dance, dance") is a male street dancer, usually paired up with a singer, and dance while holding a folding fan. Shirabyoshi is a female dancer dressed in men’s clothe and sing song while dancing. Kusemai | the-Noh.com | Noh Terminology Shirabyōshi - Wikipedia   In a book of “Seventy

 One of my friend giggled on SNS, posting a photo of shiso ( Japanese Basil ), saying that nature took its course. Her large garden pot was literally covered with a thousand’s sprouts of shiso.   Shiso (Japanese basil ) is a delightful herb which is harvested throughout summer. It is fragrant, has fresh and slightly sweet aroma.  It has two colour varieties, green and deep red. I think you will see lots of green variety at markets and shops. Red one is mostly used to make pickles. You might recall umeboshi ( Japanese plum pickles) which you can find it in some onigiri rice balls. The colour of umeboshi comes from the red shiso. It gives natural colouring.   Shiso goes well with sashimi or sushi, topped with wasabi horse radish. It has small and pretty white flowers, which is also edible. You could pop some shiso flowers into soy sauce, and dip the fish. The fresh aroma simply fills your nostril.   It is easy to grow from seeds. It is prolific so it is best to watch carefull

 One afternoon, I found some beautiful Kogyoku apples at a supermarket shelve. The apple is pretty hard to come by, it only shows up in Autumn. Kogyoku apple is sour apple, perhaps little sweeter than Granny Smith. When you see this apple, it’s time to cook warm apple pies or apple crumble. This year, I tried making apple pudding. Apple pudding is a simple dessert, and simple to make. And moreover, it is delicious – When I made this at home, half of it went to my neighbor. Within 10 minutes, she rang back and said she loved it.   <Recipe> -----------------------------------------------  Butter – 120g Caster sugar – 120g Egg – 2 large eggs Plain flour – 120g Baking soda – 1/2 tsp Salt – 1 pinch Ginger powder – 1 1/2 tsp Milk   - 3 tbs Kogyoku apples – 1   peeled and quartered, thinly sliced. Honey tbs Whipped cream  ----------------------------------------------------- Grease the baking tin with some butter Pour honey at the bottom of tin

The state of emergency was declared at many authorities in Japan from early .July to the end of September 2021. The number of Covid-19 positive case was high, and it persisted nearly 2 month and half. During this period, I was looking for a job. I briefly worked at a call centre in Tokyo, but I left there due to my lack of high-quality voice, as well as professional speech needed at call centre. Job market was quite fast during the spring of 2021. To be on safe side, I looked for permanent job, or temporary to permanent job, since I will be turning 50 years old soon, and I needed a stable position. While browsing on job agent’s websites and platforms, I came across many temporary position open for young people newly graduated from schools and colleges. It reminded me of recent concern for the job market for young generation in Japan. As far as media reports said, many young college or university graduates in Japan were reportedly struggling to find permanent job. Many can’t get c

 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