Archive | 10:24 pm

ハナショウブ

7 Jun

Today we went to a 「花菖蒲祭」 (Japanese Iris flower festival).

It was near our house, so we rode our bicycles there. On the way, we stopped by a store and bought some 弁当 (Japanese bento lunches) and had a picnic among all the purple flowers.

It had been raining for the past couple of days, but today was a beautiful day…and the temperature was 28°C (82.4°F). It’s becoming summer. Before long, it will be extremely hot in Tokyo!

shobu

切手

7 Jun

I’m not a 切手収集家 (stamp collector) but sometimes the post office offers 切手 (postage stamps) that I can’t refuse…so I have a few collectors’ sheets of stamps from the Japan Post Office.

One of them is the 「スター・ウォーズ切手」 (“Star Wars” stamps). These stamps came in a nice, hard-cover protective binder illustrated with Star Wars artwork.

Japanese "Star Wars" stamps

Japanese "Star Wars" stamps

And here is the protective binder:

sw_holder

Another series of stamps that the post office in Japan offered a few years ago was what they called 「科学技術とアニメ・ヒーロー・ヒロインシリーズ」 (“Science & Technology and Anime Heros & Heroines Series“)…which included such anime as 「鉄腕アトム」 (“Astro Boy“) and 「名探偵コナン」 (“Detective Conan“)…but the one I got was Series Four: 「科学忍者隊ガッチャマン」 (“Science Ninjas: Gacchaman” (known overseas as: “Battle Of The Planets“)).

I used to watch this cartoon in America when I was a kid.

gacchaman-stamps01

gacchaman-stamps02