I haven't been able to find time for reading these days, unless I am on vacation, but I did recently read "1Q84", the latest novel by Haruki Murakami. He is my favorite Japanese author. I was waiting to read this novel for a long time. It is said the title is inspired by George Orwell's "1984", as the pronunciation of Japanese number 9 is same as the English letter Q. Despite the other temptations that usually keep me away from reading, I just couldn't put the book down. As I enjoyed it very much, I almost didn't want to finish it. Even though there are so many other forms of entertainment available today, it reminded me how one can still be very entertained by a book.
Japanese translation

The Japanese autumn is celebrated with many delicious foods. Autumn is referred to as the season for appetite (shokuyou no aki). There is also a word for popular fall foods, which is "Aki no mikaku". They include chestnuts, pine mushroom, pike mackerel, persimmons, Japanese sweet potatoes, Japanese pears and so on. I miss all of them when I am away from Japan, but I especially crave chestnuts during this season. I like chestnut rice and various sweets made with chestnuts. In North America, there are not many dishes with chestnuts. Do you eat chestnuts in your country, if so, how do you eat them?
Japanese translation

The Japanese have adopted many Western customs (Christmas, Valentine's Day etc.). Since Halloween was not widely known when I was little, I didn't have any Halloween experiences in my childhood. I liked wearing fancy dresses, just like many other girls, and I would have enjoyed the opportunities to dress up as a princess very much. Halloween is becoming more popular nowadays, probably more for commercial reasons. You see many Halloween candies and chocolates sold at stores. Halloween special events are promoted at Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan (in Osaka). Unfortunately, I don't think many people have a chance to make Jack-O-Lanterns (kabocha-chouchin), because the big orange pumpkins in North America are not commonly grown in Japan (though I found some for sale on the Internet!). Japanese translation

My last name, "Abe", is quite common in Japan. It is ranked as 23rd among a hundred thousand Japanese surnames . In North America, I am often called "Abe" like Abraham, but in Japanese it is pronounced as "a-be." There was the Prime Minister Abe a few years ago, though the kanji characters for his name were different from mine. I didn't like my last name much when I was young because it is too ordinary. However, I liked the fact that I was usually the first on the name list at school. (The Japanese alphabet order goes as "a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko..., therefore unless there are names like "Aoki" or "Aihara," "Abe" would be the first. )
Japanese translation