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Bamboo Grove
Last week I finally managed to travel to Kyoto! Kyoto is a very beautiful city with nice structure and very tasty matcha ice cream. Top of my list for a visit to the city was the Bamboo Grove in Arashiyama. Arashiyama is in the west of Kyoto and is at the base of the Arashiyama Mountains.
Before I went there, I had already seen some nice pictures of the Grove. However, that did not compare with the real feeling of actually standing in the middle of the grove and listening to the wind and the movement of the bamboos. There is a main path which leads to the top of the hill and finally get you to the Okochi Sanso Villa which is very beautiful.
Arashiyama and its peaceful surroundings are the best gateway from the everyday city life that can sometimes become tiring and even boring.
Tanya
Autumn is coming…
It has been a very hot summer this year. For the first time in my life, I have started using an umbrella in summer!
However, if we do not think of the heat too much, we can see the beauty of summer as well. The trees are very green and lively and we can hear the birds and the cicadas singing. The sun is quite warm and bright and this is something we will dearly miss very soon when winter arrives.
While walking home last night, I was just looking at the pavement and I noticed the tree leaves on the ground. I looked around and I realised that the trees had started to lose their leaves already. This is how the trees prepare for the colder seasons you know. By losing their leaves, they can save their resources and also become stronger against windy weather in autumn and winter. I have also noticed that days are getting shorter and shorter. A few minutes of sunlight is lost each day as the new season approaches.
I really like autumn and I look forward to it. It is still very hot but don’t you think autumn is already on its way to Matsuyama?
Tanya
My animal friends in Australia
My name is Helen and I am from Australia. In Australia my family lives on a farm in the country and we live in a wide, flat landscape with many trees and animals. My family are wildlife rescuers and carers and we look after many types of native Australian animals. If an animal is injured we help rescue and rehabilitate them, or if there is an accident on the road and a mother animal is killed we look after the orphan baby until it is grown up and can be released back into the wild. The animals we care for are not our pets, we love and care for them but they will always return to their home in the wild. We carefully follow the process of Rescue, Rehabilitation and Release. Of course sometimes the animals we release come back to visit. Here are some grown-up kangaroos eating grass in my family’s garden.
We care for native Australian birds, reptiles and turtles, but my favourite are kangaroos and wallaroos. Kangaroos and wallaroos are part of a species category called ‘macropod’ (macro = big, pod = foot). Baby kangaroos and wallaroos are called ‘joeys’ and when they are small they need a lot of special care. They sleep in cloth bags we make to replicate their mother’s pouches. Here are some wallaroo joeys, notice the female joeys are pale and the male joey is dark.
Joeys need to drink a unique milk rich in vitamins multiple times a day and we feed them using special bottles that have very long plastic teats (because their noses are so long!).
When the joeys grow up they start to explore the safe farm and make friends with wild kangaroos. Slowly they become adults and finally they leave our house and garden to live in the wild and have their own joeys. We are always very happy when they come back and visit, but for us the biggest reward is to see the kangaroos and wallaroos become wild animals that are healthy and free.
サマーパーティ
Speaking of art…
When talking about art, it is so common for most people`s minds to imagine all the great artists of ancient times. We have become so caught up with studying the great works of the past to the point of almost missing out on the great works of today。So I have taken it upon myself to introduce you to a great artist of `now`. Some of you may already know him or at least seen his beautiful work and some of you may not yet be familiar with his name. Mr。Tatsuhiko Sakamoto。This great artist not only lives right here among us in Matsuyama but he is also enrolled at Amic. I have seen many beautiful paintings but not many have had a huge impact on me, mainly because as beautiful as they were I didn’t really know their story and it was up to me to imagine their story. As fun as it is to cook up a whole story behind a painting, it`s just not something that excites me because I will still always have questions about the artist`s mindset when they created their artwork and what message they were really trying to convey. Tatsuhiko Sakamoto`s paintings are different, not only in the painting technique that he uses but also in that he has shared the fascinating stories behind each painting. I urge all of you to take a look at his blog online where you can read about his work, exciting adventures and see his beautiful creations.
I have also added images of two of his paintings that I admire greatly and I hope you find them as beautiful as I do