Satoyama Near Lake Biwa: Summer Vacation

The summer vacation has begun.

 

Wow! That’s fantastic.

 

Well, not my vacation, my son’s.

 

It means he is at home all day and I have more work to do.

 

We have a group morning exercise called Rajio Taiso starting at 6:30 every morning, and I have to go with him to participate in it at his elementary school.

 

My son takes an online English lesson for 25 minutes every day and I sit next to him while he is taking his lesson, and review the lesson with him for 30 minutes after that. He can do the rest of his English study by himself doing ABC mouse for 30 minutes and watching cartoons on Netflix for a few hours.

 

And yet, he still has some time to kill. I can’t let him watch Netflix all day, and he doesn’t seem to want to do it either.

 

“Can I go outside and play?” he asked me.

“Sure, you can play in the garden.”

“No, I want to ride a bike to the rice fields.”

It was hot outside as it was still around 2 in the afternoon, and I didn’t feel like doing it, on top of the fact that I had a lot of work to do.

“I can go there by myself.”

When I was a kid, it was perfectly okay, I remember riding my bike to my friend’s house or parks and played with other kids all by ourselves, but that isn’t the case anymore.

 

Finally we decided to go to Blumen Hugel Farm which is only a 20 minute walk from our house.

He was happy to come here because a summer festival called “Noryousai,” which is held for people who want to escape summer heat and enjoy a cool evening, was going to be held here last Saturday but it was cancelled due to the Typhoon.

It is last year’s Noryousai.

 

That reminds me that we have a lot of community work in summer. As I told you before that I am a member of the local community center’s running committee, and we were supposed to organize the Noryousai. So for me, I was relieved when it was cancelled.

 

Yes, summer is a busy time for me, let alone all the weeding I have to do.

It is the time I regret buying the Omi-merchant’s house.

 

But you know what? There is one great thing about Blumen Hugel.

They sell local craft beer.

 

Now, I can have my summer vacation-haha.

 

Click here to get a free newsletter Zen and a Way of sustainable prosperity: Balance, financial success, and sustainability with the secrets of the Japanese Omi-merchants.