Poor people who are going to a coming-of-age ceremony.
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Scanning Paper
I got a paper cutter and a document scanner so that I can digitise dozens of books I have in the bookshelf. I’m working all day to send them to the cloud.
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Owning VW Polo GTi
I’ve bought a new car. I wanted to drive a German car before I died, so I sold my Peugeot 307 I had bought two years before and got a 2007 Volkswagen Polo GTi. In fact, when I got the Peugeot 307 I wanted to have Audi A4 or VW Golf or Polo, to be honest, but my budget at that time forced me to have the French car by compromise. Peugeot 307 was a nice car, though.
It has a manual gearbox. Probably it would be the last for me to own a manual-transmission car and even the last petrol car I can have because carmakers will sell more and more electric or hybrid cars in the future and such cars would have a continuously variable transmission or a dual-clutch transmission rather than a legacy manual gearbox.
I drive it weekly to get used to its manoeuvres. There are some differences from the Peugeot. At first, a clutch biting point is much lower. As soon as I gently lift my leg with the clutch, it starts to bite. Another difference is that its engine rarely stalls when you lift off the clutch pedal completely in the first gear even with the handbrake on. When you drive on the street, it dashes out very fast by gently stepping on the accelerator. If you give it full throttle, your licence would be at risk.
The clutch, brake, and gas pedals of the Peugeot were too shifted to the left, but it doesn’t go with the Polo. I have enough foot restraint space beside the clutch pedal.
A reverse gear position is different from the Peugeot or other major cars. You press down the gear stick, move it to the left with it pressed down, and then push it forward to put it in the reverse gear. It’s a similar manoeuvre to the first gear, but you should press down the stick before moving it to left and forward for the reverse gear so that you won’t make a mistake.
I don’t know how many years I can drive it, but I’m gonna have fun with it.
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I’m Back!
Apologies for not updating my blog since I did on the first day of this year. I’m usually on Facebook these days.
One of what I did this year is that I moved out of my house at Fukagawa. The rental contract was expiring at the end of July, and I had to choose whether I renewed it to keep living there or terminated it and found a new house. I decided to move to another place. I lived there for four years and was satisfied with life there, but at the same time, I thought I should change my life to change myself.
I found a new house in Oji, about 10km north of Tokyo’s city centre. This neighbourhood is a beautiful area developed in the 14th century, with its fresh verdure and sometimes called “Richmond in Japan” because people in central Tokyo often make a one-day trip to this area since the Edo Era, similar to holiday-makers in London who visit Richmond.
I, together with my car, moved to the new house in the middle of July. Monthly fees for the house and the garage dropped compared with the ones at Fukagawa, which was closer to the city centre. It’s been more than three months since the removal, and the new life here is very nice.
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Annus Mirabilis
Let’s say good-bye to the miserable past and welcome the new year of wonder. May this year be a more magical, more wonderful, more marvellous, more fabulous, more beautiful, and more glorious one. I sincerely hope all the people in this country live in peace and stability.
