交流 Friendship

１月６日（金）には新年度最初のＥＥＣＣ（英会話クラス）が始まり、いよいよボランティア活動が再スタート。今年も楽しくやりたい。午前と午後のクラスを終えて、お正月第二弾のハウスゲストをお迎えする準備に大忙し。夜、夫がいつもの時間に大学から二人のゲストと共に帰宅。南京からの林教授と今千葉で３か月前から中国語を教えている同じ南京の大学の李先生のお二人が今回のゲストである。李先生は昨年日本に来られてから一度我が家に来ておられるので今回は二回目だが、林教授には初めてお会い出来た。お二人とも非常にフレンドリーでお話好きで以前からの友人のような素敵な印象を持った。自宅でディナーを共にし、乾杯（カンペイ！完全に一気に飲み干す、ボトムアップ）を何度繰り返したことか。李先生とは日本語で、林先生とは英語でという忙しいやりとりは楽しかった。

January 6, Fri, my first English class this year started. I do hope it will be another enjoyable year by conducting the class. I have two sessions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Today is the day when we have two Chinese as our second house guests this year. They are from Nan-King, China. Masao came back from his university with the guests as scheduled. One is  professor Rin, directry from Nan-King, the other is a teacher, Mrs.Ri, from Chiba where she has been teaching Chinese since three months ago. She is also from Nan-King. They are very friendly and open minded so that we are able to communicate to each other with a confortable/ We enjoyed talking over the dinner table. How many times we repeated Kanpei (Bottom up)! The professor was so strong to repeat his Bottom up in a real way, which surprised us. We talked with him in English and with her in Japanese. Sometimes I confused English for Japanese.

翌日は新年から二回目の奥日光行き。吹雪いていないことを祈りながら決行したが、結果は最高。素晴らしい天気であったことと、三つの瀑布（華厳の滝、竜頭の滝、湯滝）を一挙に堪能していただくことが出来、お二人とも感銘して下さった。湯本では粉雪が降り最高の冬の雪景色を見ることが出来て大変幸運であった。昼にはアストリアホテルに行き、昼食後、温泉へ。この温泉が又いい。硫黄温泉で温泉の香りを楽しみながら、露天風呂では雪が降る中で、これまた情緒があり、とにかく、私も久しぶりで温泉らしい温泉を満喫。李さんの明るい笑顔とお話が何より、微笑ましく、私も３０代にカムバックした思いであった。ゆっくり入って、一度、我が家に戻り、夜は改めて外出。霧降のレストランで貸切状態の雰囲気の中で、誰に遠慮することも無く、美味しいディナーを堪能出来た。テラスから、真っ暗な中で霧降の滝の白さが輝いて見え、満月に近い月も雲から顔を出してあたりを一瞬明るくして何とも幻想的な世界を味わうことが出来、皆満足して帰路についた。今年の新年は来客で忙しかったが、All is well taht begins well.とでも言えそうな一年になることを願いたい。

The next day again we took them to the deep Nikko as we did a few days ago. The weather was so good against our worry about windy snowing weather. Everything turned to be wonderful. We were able to visit  to the Kegon Water Fall, the Ryuzu no Taki (Dragon Water Fall) and Yu Taki. These three are supposed to be the three greatest water falls in the deep Nikko. They were very much impressed with those falls in such a holy and severe atmosphere in winter time. On the way back we dropped in Astoria for lunch and hot spring. In a hot apring, we enjoyed bathing in open air. It was snowing, which took us into a romantic feeling. I enjoyed talking with Ri-san who keeps smiling face all the time. Very cheerful and smart. It seems everybody from abroad enjoys Japanese style hot spring. I noticed a spa can be a good hospitality for foreign people. We went back home onece to have a little rest and a couple of coffee, then went out for dinner. We went to a restaurant in Kirifuri. Frome the terrace of the restaurant we appreciated another water fall named Kirifuri no Taki, of which the water seemed divine white in the darkness. There was another romantic world down there in front of us. In the sky the moon was gently watching us down. We had a treasurelike time being with nice friends. We had a wonderful start in New Years Days.