Cicadas' chirping in Japan

It’s summer. Crazy sunshine is falling here today. Here in Japan, speaking of insects in summer, it’s cicadas.

When I get up in the morning, I don’t want to go to work if cicadas are chirping in front of my house. They are very loud. I always want to shout whenever I listen to their voice, “Shut up”.

It seems that there are countries which no cicadas live in. I heard it for the first time this year. Well I want to live in such a region.

This is a very famous Japanese Haiku. Japanese short poem. This poem is written by most famous Haiku poet Basho Matsuo. Basho was traveling all over Japan during Edo period. One day, when he was taking a rest, cicadas were chirping. It was very noisy. But he noticed. It seems that cicadas’ chirping is seeping into the rock in front of him. And, it's very noisy around him but his soul was in a quiet peaceful world.

Amazing. He had a beautiful artistic sense, different from me. Please taste this poem.

しずけさや

岩にしみいる

蝉の声

Silent time now—-

Seeping into the rock,

Cicada's voice.

Nara park : Greenery and old Capital

Today I'm in Nara. This place is an ancient capital in Japan. We have so many Buddhists temples and great Buddhists idols here since about more than 1000 years ago. Now many foreign tourists are coming here. Fortunately the pandemic is over.

My mother made traditional sushi

Maybe you know Japanese sushi, and perhaps it's the type of rice ball. You may have seen raw fish put on a small rice ball. But we have another type of sushi called Chirashi-sushi. It's a rice dish put on a saucer. My mother often makes this type of sushi using a big leaf instead of a saucer. This is a very very traditional type and made in the countryside in my region. We can eat it only in June or July because we cannot get these leaves this season only. You will feel the smell of leaves when you eat this sushi.