The season of “Der wunderschöne Monat Mai” (the beautiful month of May) has arrived again. After a long time I visited Burggarten next to Hofburg and enjoyed the wonderul nature there. Here you can see some pictures.
Looking up, it is a giant tree. As though the leaves stretching up over each other toward the infinite sky.上を見上げて。素晴らしい大きな木です。葉が、天に向かって永遠に重なっているかのようです。
Another oak tree next to the pond. 池のほとりにある、他のオークの木。
Impressive branches. 枝が特徴的です。
Palmenhaus ahead. 向こうに見えるのは「パルメンハウス」。
No idea which bush it is. この灌木は何ていうのでしょう。
Pictures by Yuka Simeno (except the ones showing myself), May 5th 2024 in Vienna.
Starting today, because of the coronavirus, in Vienna there is now a compulsory registration for all customers of gastronomy. This does not apply to take out items. Name, telephone number and/or email address has to be registered by the establishment on a paper form. A friend of mine told me that such a system is already in place in Germany and many people provided false names. She told me that she will not provide her email address because she wishes not to receive any future advertisements. My husband does not want to register and therefore he says we should always do take out. Today we went to get some coffee and sweets from Starbucks as take out. Even though it had rained a little before, we sat outside somewhere on a bench on a street nearby eating and drinking. I would like to value and protect my private information.
The device I mentioned in a previous post was finally active today! This is more than mist however, almost like a gentle shower. One can really cool down, fantastic！
The part closest to Mariahilferstrasse of Otto Bauergasse in the 6th district in Vienna was renovated a couple of months ago. The border between sidewalk and street was removed and the street is now all flat and paved with new stones. This makes the steet appear broader. There are new flowerbeds . Since the advent of Spring, many different plants can be enjoyed. In the flowerbeds trees have also been planted. They are quite slim and look young. It was hard to identify what kind of trees they are. Some now carry blossoms as in the picture above. I know this blossom, I suppose they are from Asia.
There are two different kinds that carry quite similar flowers but they are different after all. One is called “Fuyō” and the other is called “Mukuge”. In Japan in my garden there is a “Mukuge” tree. My mother loved plants and so she had this tree planted in our garden. But she used to call this tree “Fuyō”. Always in summer when this tree carried big soft bright purple blossoms, then my mother said “Oh how beautiful the blossoms of Fuyō are!”. Recently my gardener said that it is “Mukuge”. My mother passed away without knowing it was in fact “Mukuge”. It does not really matter because this tree gave her great joy.
When I see the blossoms of the trees in Otto Bauergasse my thoughts fly to my garden in Japan. Does my “Mukuge “carry blossoms too now? And I think of my mother…
Due to coronavirus related travel restrictions I still cannot go to Italy to my voice teacher. But I still have the previous recordings of my lessons with her and so I can nevertheless learn a lot. At home I kept trying to understand those lessons and kept trying over and over again. I have noticed that recently I can sing the way I want to express myself. I am so happy and want to continue on this path. I give thanks to my voice teacher and look forward to seeing her again soon.
Classical singing, which I am specialising in, truly is a precious art. Everyone can sing somehow but there is only one right way to master this art. That can only be studied with a good teacher. I can say that everything that I have experienced, also with all previous teachers, has supported my path. I am very grateful for that. My path is not straight, there have been many detours and obstacles but I want to believe that all of it has value. In the future I would like to convey the best and most correct to others through my experiences.
When I was a juniorhigh school pupil , I studied piano siries “Children’s corner” by Claude Debussy. The title of the first piece is “Gradus ad Parnassum” and my piano teacher commended me for playing this piece very well, which made me very happy. I heard that this title “Gradus ad Parnassum” means a difficult path which has to be followed anyway. I find it amusing that Debussy chose this title for the first piece in “Children’s corner”. I grew from this children’s corner and now have reached an age when I can look back at the path to Parnassus but I am still continuing on it.
Cats are very cute. Even when they are naughty, I find them cute. I love all about cats! Especially the ears are one of my preferred parts of cats. They are thin and when I lightly pinch them, I feel happy. Cats mostly let me do that without problems. We talk to cats and we think they are listening but I heard that cats can choose what to hear. That may be because we think they are listening to us when in fact they are listening to something else or just ignoring us. You never know!
I think this applies to humans as well. When during my education at university I had to teach at a high school, the class teacher I was assigned to said “the pupils only hear what they want to hear”. For example if there is a trip planned for the next day they like that information but in other cases they don’t remember at all what had been said. Therefore when I have something important to say, I should repeat it several times. I found that interesting and so when once I spoke about important information I wanted to check whether the pupils were really paying attention. I told one pupil to repeat what I had said but she could not and so it really is better to repeat the message several times. This does not only apply to pupils but to adults as well. I have experienced similar situations many times in life. If one wants to really make others understand something important, it is better to repeat that message several times.
I cannot complain about others, I am the same. I sometimes notice that I too am not really paying attention to other people and that my mind sometimes wanders… This may be due to a lack of concentration ability. In this respect I have a somewhat unpleasant memory. When I was a child my father taught me at home, also during the holidays. I am grateful that he so diligently wanted to teach me things, but his explanations were very long and quite repetitive. Therefore I developed a method of seeming to listen and sometimes reply “Yes, yes”. In my head however I heard the music I wanted to hear or thought about things I would have liked to do at that moment. This method was successful but I noticed that I have some difficulty with concentration. When I had to do something with concentration, my mind wandered and other thoughts came to my mind. I cannot blame everything on my father’s lectures but I suspect one factor of it lies there. I started to do concentration exercises sometimes and now I am doing much better.
But the cat ear method of choosing what to hear is not always bad. For example if my flight is delayed and around me there is much noise, I can sink into my thoughts or let music flow inside my head. And I think “I now have cat’s ears”, which gives a funny happy feeling.
When I was very young, I was walking on the street with a friend on a windy night. I noticed that the moon in the sky was moving quickly. I was fascinated and said to my friend “Look, the moon is moving so fast!”. Then my friend said “No, the clouds are moving fast”. That is correct of course, the moon never moves so quickly that it would be visible. I felt quite embarrassed.
I think that such optical confusions exist sometimes. For example, when the train I am travelling on is stopping at the station and there is another train in the opposite direction starts moving, I get the sensation that my train is moving as well. Have you had such experiences?
I think that I am not able to face away from the direction of travel on trains or buses. I have heard however, that this is a deception of my eyes because the outside scenery is coming from behind and is moving to the front which my eyes find uncomfortable. It is said that when one closes the eyes, one cannot exactly sense the direction of movement. I tried it and I think it could be true.
I find the diference between visible and actual things very interesting. When I experience such a thing, I try to enjoy it.
During dinner I like to watch TV. Recently I noticed that TV programs almost always feature shows with criminal contents. I can say that I am in fact a cautiously fearful person and even cannot stand seeing my own blood and when I get an injection I turn my head to the other side crunching my teeth. If I am directly affected by something, even a small injection, often I am able to react. Such a self can watch dead people while having dinner. Since when have I become such a cold hearted person? Do I no longer feel other people’s pain? Then I remembered a scene from a film.
In this film the main character is a mermaid turned human. She watches TV for the first time. She just saw a tragic scene in a film and she is shocked, shows a lot of compassion and starts crying. Her human friend, a man, calms and consoles her by explaining that this violence on TV was not real and in fact just acted.
Nowadays we are overwhelmed by films, TV shows, etc. depicting accidents, violence, and many dead people in everyday life. Also because of the news, the internet, etc. every day we are touched by reports about accidents, violent crimes, etc. I think if we have too close contact with tragedy then over time we lose human feelings such as fear or compassion. This aspect should be considered in the development and production of media so that it does not become too overwhelming.
Of course watching dramas, films, art, etc. enriches our lives and it is good to be informed about the world. Nevertheless I think those who offer and those who receive, like the mermaid having just become human, should not lose our naive and natural hearts and compassion.
Ducks as well as humans facing the sun and relaxing. 鴨も人も太陽に顔を向けてリラックス
Vienna is a beautiful city. There are so many historic buildings, monuments and also many different styles of architecture such as Baroque, Biedermeier, Jugendstil, etc. In the city there are also nice parks with lots of green. Those people who like taking pictures will surely be happy about this. Personally I do not overly enjoy taking pictures but because there are so many beautiful and interesting things exist in Vienna, I get strong motivation to take pictures with my smartphone camera. Thereby the duration of my walks gets much longer than originally planned. Since Vienna has so much to offer, everyone can easily find their own personal favourite photo object. I noticed however that it is indeed difficult to avoid trashcans being in the picture! I have to say that there are really many many trashcans in Vienna. That may be one reason why the city stays so clean and I must think about those people attending to those trashcans doing a very good job and so I get a feeling of gratitude. It may be a difficult to completely avoid having a trashcan in the picture but I think it should remain like this.
In my homecountry Japan on the other hand there are very few trashcans on the street. When I am in Japan I find it unfamiliar in this respect. Also my Austrian husband sometimes complains that one must make an effort to look for a trashcan. That does not mean Japanese streets are dirty. I believe there are roughly two reasons for the limited number of trashcans on the street. First, because of terrorism. I think like this because of an Austrian friend’s opinion. Shortly after the gas attack in the Tokyo subway she visited a friend in Tokyo. Together with that friend she went to an open air festival and had some street food takeaway. Then they found nowhere to put the trash and carried it around all the time. That Japanese friend of hers noticed the decreased number of trashcans. After that terror attack it was meant to prevent dangerous substances from being hidden there. Second, strict separation of garbage. Nowadays in many countries garbage is separated for recycling such as plastic, paper, metal, etc. and this is a sensible thing to do. Also in Japan there are rules how to separate garbage and this is good. Since the introduction of strict rules the disposal of household waste has become quite complicated. There are specific weekdays for specific items starting in the early morning until about 8:30 AM and the waste has to be put in a special place in the neighbourhood. Incombustibles and incompatible waste can only be disposed of once a month. If you sleep too long you cannot throw out the garbage! Also people like us who cannot return home for a long time have to make a plan when to throw out the last trash because there must not be anything left when we leave. This is one thing that makes a stay in Japan more difficult every time. I suppose not only for myself but any people think it is strenuous or they missed the deadline and so they started throwing away their household trash in public places. Maybe to avoid this, many public trashcans were removed.
Eevery country has its own system of waste disposal. I think each country should try to diminish pollution of the environment as much as possible. Personally in Austia I have less stress in disposing of my waste which is quite agreeable to me.
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