2016-04-22 21:26 Bitter Melons (Goya)
Y (Kuma's owner)
As autumn approaches, some of the summer vegetables in my backyard are getting smaller. The zucchinis are still growing, the tomatoes are not too bad, but the Japanese bitter melons (Goya) seem to be almost out of season. They are still in good condition but the fruits are getting smaller.
The bitter melon is my favorite vegetable. They are cultivated in Okinawa Prefecture a lot. Okinawa is an island located in the southern part of Japan. The climate of Okinawa is subtropical, the same as where I live, that's why I can grow them well.
The first time I saw a bitter melon, I didn't have a good impression because the surface of bitter melon is uneven and I associated with a sea slug. The taste is, of course bitter. It depends, some people don't like it but I like it very much.
I didn't expect that I could buy bitter melon seeds in Australia, but I found them on the Internet last year. I bought them and started to grow them. Their germination rate was high so they were easy to grow.
One day, I was looking at a seedling of the bitter melon and noticed the difference between bitter melons and most other plants. Most plants have cotyledons, as do bitter melons. But bitter melons have a second layer of cotyledons. There must be a terminology that I don't know. After the germination, the first layer of cotyledons come up and then another layer of cotyledons come up, and finally the true leaves come up. How unique!
The season of bitter melon has almost ended. I'll keep some seeds for the next season.
2016-04-22 01:30 English blogs
Y (Kuma's owner)
I started my blog in January this year. I had been thinking of writing a blog in English, but couldn't start last year because I didn't think I could do it. I thought I would lose interest soon.
Contrary to my expectation, I have been writing my blog for about four months. I think I have been doing well. No, no wait! Keeping a blog in English is not my target. The goal I am aiming for is to be able to write in English without making mistakes and to write good English.
There is no doubt that writing English is good for improving English skills. However, I think I need to read someone else's blog, someone who is a native English speaker. Native English speakers know lots of expressions so I am able to learn from them. That it would be a great help. All right, let's find some English blogs!
There are an enormous amount of blogs on the Internet. I wanted to read someone's blog who lives near to the area where I live, but I couldn't find any at all. So, I tried to find blogs about the same topics that I'm interested in. I found some blogs about cats, gardening, puzzles and Australia. I saved some of them in my favorites folder on the browser I use. Alright, I'm ready!
I promised myself I will read one or two English blogs everyday, starting from today.
2016-04-20 22:53 Jasper Jones
Y (Kuma's owner)
I think that anyone has favorite books. One of my favorite books is "Jasper Jones" written by Craig Silvey. The reason I read this book was because I wanted to read an Australian author's books. I didn't have any idea about Australian books, so I searched for books through the internet, and found a book which has a good reputation.
It is a story of a remote area in Australia during the Vietnam War. The leading characters are Charlie Bucktin, a boy who loves reading and Jasper Jones who is believed to be a trouble maker. Before I started to read, I expected that the story was a kind of mystery, but it was not so simple. From the beginning, I was absorbed in reading. I'm not going to write the details of the story in case you read it.
I heard that this story was going to be a movie.
Usually, I don't expect much from movies when I had read the original books because some movies dramatized the stories a little bit, and that made me feel something was wrong.
However, there are some movies that didn't disappoint my expectations. For instance, an old movie "Gone with the Wind" was really good. I had read the original book before I saw the movie, but the movie was also good.
I don't know why but I think the movie "Jasper Jones" would be a good one.
I'm really looking forward to seeing it.