A delicious Christmas cake 2014 !

How expensive Christmas cakes are!

Under the influence of the weak yen, the price of butter and wheat flour has been rising recently, and of course it’s because of the Christmas season. I wanted to have a Christmas cake, but it is expensive, so I thought, “what can I do?”.

I thought up a good idea that I would make a cake by myself. However, I can’t make a good sponge cake, therefore, I bought a handmade sponge cake made in a bakery shop near my house and decorated it with my family. 

 Ta-dah! 

It’s a strawberry and chocolate cake, and we can enjoy two different flavors at once. I flatter myself that we did a good job!

May your Christmas be filled with plenty of joy and happiness  \^o^/

Japanese technology will help Myanmar’s future

Farmers in Myanmar want to grow good rice, but they cannot afford a good fertilizer and an irrigation system as they are expensive. They also think that they can grow rice two or three times a year if they have a good facility. Moreover, they are eager to be one of the major rice exporting countries similar to Thailand and Vietnam. Recently, Japanese government has been planning to aid them with about a 14.87 billion yen low-interest loan for an irrigation project.

If Japanese technologies can help farmers' development, I would be very proud of it. I think that Japan has excellent technologies to grow good rice because our staple diet is also rice, the same as other Asian countries. Japanese farmers also have potential opportunities to grow their income if they think of the neighboring countries. 

TPP has a big issue among farmers because it might threaten the farmers' livelihood as they have a big support from the government right now. If they think of globalization, they will have many business chances to help the neighboring countries with their excellent skills, which is a strong point of the Japanese.

The Joy of Giving

Do you like to give presents to people? 

Giving something to someone seems to have a good influence on us.

According to a study in the U.S., people who give presents to others or donate money feel happier than people who spent money on themselves. Also, some business books are often written that you should donate ten percent of your salary, although I’m not sure whether this is to make us happier, but it might have the same influence as giving a present.

If you don’t feel happy, should you present something to somebody? It might feel good, or how about donating money? Every convenience store in Japan has a charity box in front of the register. If you put your change in it, you might feel better.

I like to give presents to families and friends, but I feel much happier when I’m looking for the presents for them. I get very excited when I think whether it will suit her/him or not.

It was not easy for me to learn how to scuba dive...

It took a lot of time to take out a license for scuba diving. I’ve heard that most people can take it out in only a three day and two night camp, but I spent 2 years to acquire the license.

I can swim but I wasn’t good at swimming in the ocean, because I hardly went to sea when I was a child as my hometown was located far from the ocean.

My friend told me that scuba diving is not difficult as I had excellent reflexes and I also knew how to swim. I believed this, but I couldn’t go under the water while wearing the equipment. I understood in my mind that I could breathe through a regulator, but I couldn’t feel that it was safe and I was very afraid of diving under the water.

If nobody had supported me, I would have easily given up. Under such a situation, all I did was that I never gave up. I took the training several times, and finally, I got the license two years later. I did understand deeply that I can do anything if I don’t give up.

Now I’m enjoying going scuba diving. Last week, I went to Tateyama in Chiba Prefecture and I encountered many sharks, ray fishes and a big longtooth grouper. It was fun.