Dinasour feather

According to Nature, sinosauropteryx( one kind of dinasour) feather was just discovered.
The discovery of dinasour's feather is the first time in the history it seems.
We are likely to believe that dinasours are green or gray colored,
but it is said that the sinosauroteryx was covered with reddish and orange colored feather. The scientists say that the feather is bird-like. However, we can't say that all dinasours have feathers like this. Some dinasours are thought to had no feather and only skins. But it's interesting that the dinasour has a color like that, be cause my image of dinasour is scary and bloody, so the color like orange is far from scary. Rather it looks cute.

making a school with plastic bottles

An elementary school in Guatemala has made a school with 6000 plastic bottles.
Students cooperated together and helped build their school. They took part in making the walls and collecting pet bottles.
But, plastic bottles are too weak to use for building..don't you think?
Therefore they came up with an idea that they first make a fence filled with plastic bottles first.
Then, they covered the fence with three layers of cement. They say that, by doing so, they could make stronger walls, and the strength is almst equal to the normal one.
The school with pet bottles looked nice, and you can't tell it'sfrom the outside lookthat it used plastic bottles for its building.
I think the idea is interesting, but still it can be dangerous because pet bottles are weak and easily to get old.

okinawa 4

This time I'm going to talk about the oceans is Okinawa.
Although the oceans in Okinawa are beautiful, the number of coral reefs have decreased recently.
It is said that many many years ago, the main island in Okinawa was not bigger than it is now.
The island used to be surrounded by a huge coral reefs.
Only the northern part of the island was a big hill, and other parts of Okinawa ( middle and south ) were in the Ocean and had coral reefs.
Then, the sea level changed and those coral reefs became grounds, which means that middle and south part of Okinawa is made of dead coral reefs and mud in the bottom of the ocean.
So I think that in the old times, the ocean in Okinawa could have been soooo beautiful.
Nowadays, we face global warming, and the number of coral reefs has decreased, even in Kerama islands, which are well known for its beauty of coral reefs.

Okinawa 3

I liked the old Shiraho district, where I can see my grandmother's friends in old, traditional houses.
However, only two of them are alive now. Also, the district is not like past anymore.
There are new houses, and the traditional Okinawan houses were torn down.
People from mainland Japan have moved to the district, and what is sad is that people don't talk with their neighbors anymore.
The beach I used to swim has also changed. There used to be a lot of coral reefs, but now it's almost gone.
I liked the island in the past, but now it has changed so much that I can hardly see anything beautiful in the past.
My grandmother visited the island last year, and she said " It seems like everythings have changed." she looked sad.
I think the urbanization is not always good, because it lacks of unique traditions.
I've seen an article that says that big cities looks the same. I think it happens to small cities also.

Okinawa2

This time I will talk about my father's home island.
He is from Ishigaki island.
His parents ( my grand parents ) are also born and lived in Ishigaki island.
My grandfather was lived in Taiwan for a while, because Taiwan used to be a Japanese territory.
My grandfather's father was a teacher in Taiwan, taught at a Japanese school..
So we have a family grave in Ishigaki island, and we have to go to Ishigaki once in a while to maintain the grave.
One time, my parents were cutting grass around the grave, there were a big Habu. Luckily I was playing in the sugarcane field so I didn't see it. They gave the Habu to a local factory and they made a Habu-shu ( alcohol bottle with a habu inside ).
My grandparents lived in Shiraho district and I often been there and swimed in Shiraho beach when I was an elementary school student.
-continue to the next blog,,-

Okinawa 1

I was thinking about topics which I can write about easily, and found that I can write many things about travel spots in Okinawa.
This time I will going to talk about Shuri Castle.
When I was an elementary school student, I visited the Shuri Castle for the first time.
I was a hot summer day, and some of the building( the main castle especially ) didn't have air conditioners.. I've been there 4-5 times since then, but the main castle doesn't have the air conditioners because they have to maintain the building. The Urushi ( red paints ) that covers the buildings has to be in a humid environments, they say.
I've showed it around to my Danish friend 2 years ago, and she liked it.
Also, when she and I answered the quastionare, we got beautiful pencils and book marks.
It was very nice.

Foreigners work at nursing homes

Despite the recession, some companies or institutions want to increase the number of hiring.
The nursing homes that takes care of elders especially look for people who want to work there.
However, the field is not popular among young people, because the job requires physical work and the payment is not good enough..
Also, the population of Japan is said to be slowly decreasing.
Therefore the Japanese government allowed more foreiners to work in Japan.
Because of it, the number of foreigners who work at such fields increased by 30%, most of them are women from Philippines, China, and South Korea.
It's good for the field to hire them, beause I think the more people work in the filed, the more care they can give to the elders.

Cleaning

Some people like cleaning, but I don't like it at all.
I just don't feel like cleaning,,,
I keep a dog at home, so her hair is flying in the air and it covers the floor when the season changes.
It is stressful to look dirty floors and tables or shelves that have many stuff.
So I think what is important is not to put many things on the floor, and force myself to clean the room once in a while. Also it might be better to sell or put away stuff that haven't been used for a long time.
I'd like to know how people clean their house or if they are cleaning regularly.
Maybe I shuld force myself to clean for only 5 minutes, everyday.

Hip Hopper Monk in Tokyo

In Tokyo, there is a Monk Bar. In a Buddhist temple near the bar,
monks sing hip hop and attract people singing and dancing.
They say that the traditional or old way of teaching Buddhism does not work for people in Japan today.
Besides, many temples are shutting down because there are not many people who want to take care of those.
Also, Buddhism is becoming less popular in Japan, because it is hard for the ordinary people to understand what it means.
They came up with an idea that singing hip hop music to teach the Buddhism will attract young people. They sing hip hop in the temple, and make cocktails.
Their idea worked well, and the number of young people who visit the temple doubled.

cutting sugar intake

The numbers of people who are fat is increasing in many developed countries( and developing countries) today.
In the United states, almost half of people are overweight. In Japan, there still are fat people.
Even people know they are overweight, it's hard for them to change their diet(
or their lifestyles) quickly.
I'm also trying to lose weight, but it's hard for me to exercise regularly, or change my diet.
I love to drink coffee with sugar, love to eat cakes, snacks, and chocolate bars.
However, I found an article from TIME magazine that you can easily cut sugar intake by
stop drinking soda. A soda has about 8 teaspoons of sugar in it.
Maybe I should stop drinking coffee with sugar?

Babies cry in native language

Infants cry in their mother tongue..
It is hard to believe, but according to the latest research, babies in their mom's womb
listens how their parents speak. They pick up their parents accents, and after they are born,
they cry with rising and falling pitch.
They examined 60 babies, half French and the other half German.
French babies start to cry with low pitch and then high pitch. German babies cry opposite way.
The pitch patterns reflect the intonations of their parents' language.
The research concluded that, even before birth, babies learn languages.
So it's better to talk to baby as much as possible so that they can be advanced language speaker!

The Haiti Earthquake

On Jan. 12, a big earthquake hit Haiti, about 50,000 people were killed so far.
The Magnitude was about 7, and the news I saw yesterday said that it was bigger than
the Hanshin earthquake happened in Japan in the past.
Earthquakes often happen in Japan, so the building technology is very advanced here.
However, Haiti is known as one of the poorest countries in the world,
and they didn't have enough money to make buildings strong enough to stand the earthquake, even the government office was destroyed.
Haiti is surrounded by the beautiful nature, but the nature sometimes attacks humans.
I'm very sorry for people in Haiti.