Fields of Paddy and Wheat

毎週金曜日は過去に投稿した記事を英訳して再投稿する、といいながら2週間もスキップしてしまいましたが、まだ諦めてはいません…

今週はこちらから。

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I just returned from a month long business trip from Germany on Sunday afternoon.

Seeing FIFA World Cup match Belgium vs Japan just start, I arrived at the hotel in Kiel. Nearly a month passed since the exciting night. It feels like the night was much more than a month ago due to those hectic days there.

Picking up the suit case and getting on Sky-liner, an express train for Tokyo from Narita Airport, I saw from a car window paddy fields grow deeper green and weeds higher than a month ago.

The sky was so blue just after a typhoon had passed and a cumulonimbus cloud so big and white.

"Ah, I did come back to Japan" ... I indulged myself in my emotions.

when I got to Frankfurt Airport, I took a train from Kiel to Dusseldorf and a bus to the airport. The scenery from there was not green paddy fields, but golden wheat fields.

For German people gold would be another color to depict a typical summer scenery in addition to green and sky blue.

Except for the gold of wheat fields, the landscape from a rail-car window in Germany and Japan looks really similar.

The big difference be found when you are coming to the central part of Tokyo. Skyscrapers and could of people walking hastily among the buildings.

Changing at Nippori station to Yamanote-line for Shinjuku, the humid and hot wind welcomes you and what you'll see is people, people and PEOPLE!

The hustle and bustle, which I thought I already got used to, sounds more aloud. The number of high-rise buildings surprises me again.

I said to myself, "Oh, I did come back to Japan in the summertime"

The last summer in Heisei era will ends within a month...and what shall we do?