Glimpses of Japan Local - in JEnglish

I'm not a big fan of bugs, especially those flat, shiny brown cockroaches. But back in my childhood, bugs were one of our mischievous playthings for us. Tying thread under the wings of ladybugs, holding them in our hands, and letting several of them fly at once while we ran... Or using a homemade slingshot and tiny pebbles to knock down cicadas singing in the trees... In the evening, we'd stick our fingers into the small holes in the ground and catch the cicada larvae (cicada nymphs) clinging tightly, then let them rest on the garden trees, observing how they moulted late at night... I might have read the children's book " Fabre 's Tales of Insects," but I have no memory of it at all. As this season approaches, I find myself peeking at the preparation stage of the works in progress and watching the exhibition on TV, thinking, "I have to go!" Ashiya is known for producing numerous Cast Iron Tea Kettles used in the Tea Ceremony,  several hundreds of ye...

  It's November, but summer weather still lingers on. I've been taking it easy on my bike rides, often opting for short trips by car to see specific places. But today, I decided to switch things up a bit and take my trusty Brompton "Pota-kichi" on a ride through familiar roads. The riverbank path has been neatly trimmed, offering clear views of the surroundings. As I pedalled along, hints of red caught my eye amid the greenery.  The ripe fruits of  " Karasu-Uri "  (lit.  crow -melon) gleam golden-red. It's funny how we associate  crow s with  black , but in the world of plants, you come across names like  "Karasu-〇〇〇"  surprisingly often, never black in colour.  Speaking of which, I stumbled upon something interesting recently –  I turned to Google Lens for help and found out it's called "" Ki (yellow)  Karasu-Uri . "  Realizing that I hadn't visited the Cosmos flowers by the  Onga  River this year, I decided to...