水遊び (Pool Play)

今日は、結構暑い日だが、娘の旦那さんは芝刈りを始めた、暑いのに大変だ、何時もなら私も手伝うのだが、あいにく膝を痛めていて手伝えない残念。空には航空ショーの戦闘機が爆音を轟かせ飛んで行く、写真を撮ろうとしたが、早すぎてとても取れない。庭では孫がプール遊び、隣の男の子と一緒にしばらく遊んでいた。
It was really hot today but my son-in-law started mowing early afternoon. I wanted to help him but I had a knee pain so I decided not to. There was an "air show" near the house so we saw fighter planes flying above our head with roaring sounds. I was going to take a picture of them but the planes flew too fast. After my son-in-law mowed the grass, my grandson and his friend in the neighbor spent a time playing in an inflatable pool in the backyard.

ゴルフレッスン (Golf Lesson)

孫が初めてのゴルフレッスンに行くので付いていった。広い打ちっぱなしの練習場横の広場に４歳～７歳位の男の子８人、先生の指導の下レッスンが始まった。打つ球はテニスボールの様な球、身体が皆小さいのでスイングするのも大変、やっている内にだんだん巧くなるから不思議、見ていたら孫は先生に習った通り基本に忠実にレッスンをしていた。孫に感想を聞いていないが、次回のレッスンを楽しみに待っていれば良のですが。
Today was my grandson's first day of his golf lesson so I tagged along there with him. Everybody met at a driving range. There were 8 boys probably around 4-7 years old. An instructor explained a bit and they all started practicing. Most of the kids were small so they seem to have a hard time just swinging a club. But after I watched them practicing for a while, everybody got better. My grandson listened his instructor very carefully and tried to do exactly what he said. He was practicing hard. I didn't hear what he thought about the lesson but hopefully he was looking forward to going to the next lesson.

最終日 (Florida Trip - Last Day)

ディズニーワールド観光が終わり、マンションを午前１０時にチェックアウト (写真の部屋は、私が７泊している間寝ていた部屋）、飛行機の時間が午後５時、時間調整のため小規模な遊園地に寄た。ゲームセンター、ゴーカートがあると思えば小さな子供が乗る汽車が走っていたり、メリーゴーランドが回っている。子供連れの人たちが多く来ていたが、ゲームや乗り物の待ち時間は殆どない。飛行機も来た時と違って定刻に出発、家には午後９時に到着した。
We checked out our condo at 10:00 AM. (the picture shows the room where I slept for the past 7 nights). Since our flight was around 5:00 PM, we decided to go to a small amusement park to kill our time. It had a big video arcade, go-carts, a small train for pre-school kids and merry-go-round. Many people had children with them but didn't look like there were lines for rides nor games. At night, our flight was on time and we came back to our house in Michigan around 9:00 PM.

ディズニーワールド観光六日目 (Florida Trip - 6th Day)

今日は、エプコットに出かけた。７日間の内で一番涼しい日だが、普段運動不足の私、もう一年分を歩いた感じ、疲れはピークに達している、やはり年かな、でも最後のテーマパークだので歩き続けていた。ここにはアメリカ、カナダ、メキシコ、ドイツ、フランス、イタリア、中国、日本など各国のテーマパークが有り、それぞれ国の特徴を生かした模様しものや名産品が紹介されていた。孫はメキシコ館でのディズニーキャラクターが多数出てくる乗り物が気に入り３度も乗ったいた。

Today we headed to Disney Epcot Center. It was the coolest day since we came to Florida - but since I haven't been exercising, I felt like I have done my one year worth of walking since I came to Florida and I was very tired. I guess I'm old. But this was our last theme park, so I kept walking. One side of this park was a "world showcase", and there, I saw bits and pieces of different countries such as U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, Chine and Japan. Each of the country sells authentic wares and presents the shows from the homeland. My grandson loved the ride in Mexico (some Disney characters also appeared in the ride). He rode three times.

ディズニーワールド観光五日目 (Florida Trip - 5th Day)

今日は、休息日朝からのんびり過ごし、昼近くに家族全員でプールに出かけ、泳ぐのでは無く水遊び程度、そばに卓球台やゲーム機があり、そこでも遊べる。私が一番気に入ったのはジャグジーで温泉に入っている様であった。夕食は、レストランに行き美味しいステーキを食べ、今日はのんびりと出来た日でした。
We took a break from going to a park today. We went to a pool at the condo. We didn't really swim - just splash the water. At the pool side, there were two ping pong tables and also video games. So we played there some, too. My most favorite thing to do was to relax in a jacuzzi pool. At night, we went to a restaurant and ate delicious steak. I was glad we were able to relax today.

ディズニーワールド観光四日目 (Florida Trip - 4th Day)

今日は、シーワールドに出かけた。ここもアトラクションがいっぱい、オットセイや象アザラシのショー、シャチの豪快なダイブそしてシャチが尾の平で観客に大量の水をかけて行く、これが半端じゃない量だ残念ながら私たちは上の方で見ていたため水を浴びることが出来なかった。なぜならこの日は異常に暑い日で湿度も高く、座っているだけで汗が出てくる状態でした。変わった魚と言っていいかジュゴンに似た体系でおっとりしているもの、早く泳ぐもと色々な魚類がいた。特別なペンギンツアーに参加し、色々な説明を受けたが英語が分からず理解できず、最後に参加者２０名が一人づつペンギンに触れて終了、ペンギンは思っていたより毛並みよくやわらかかった。最後にイルカに餌をやっておしまい。

We went to Sea World today. We saw a seal/walrus show and an orca show. At the orca show (the famous "Shamu" show), the orca splashed the water to the crowds in front. It's not just "splashed", people who were sitting in front were drenched. We were watching the show in high up so unfortunately we didn't get splashed - the reason I said "unfortunately" was it's a really hot and humid day and I was sweating even by sitting to see the show. At the park, I saw a manatee. It looked kind like a strange fish. It looked like a "dugong". Some of them swam very slow; some were a bit faster. We also took a special penguin tour. Unfortunately, I didn't understand what the guide said even though she was explaining a lot. In the end of the tour, all the participants (about 20 of us) got to touch a penguin. The penguin was softer than I thought. It had very nice feathers. Before leaving the park, we fed a dolphin and went back to our condo.

ディズニーワールド観光三日目 (Florida Trip - 3rd Day)

今日は、アニマルキングドムに出かけた、色々な動物の放し飼いを車に乗って見る、日本で言うサハリパークの様なアトラクションやライオンキングのショー、その他珍しい動物を見て歩く、結構面白かった。夕方（まだ明るい）パレードがあり動物のぬいぐるみを着た人たち、足に何を履いているか分からないが３メートル以上有るダンサー、化粧をした人たちが踊りながら行進して行く、見ていて楽しいし、暑いのに大変だなあーと感心して見てました。

Today, we went to Disney Animal Kingdom. We rode a ride which takes us to see the wild animals (it's like the one in a safari park). We also saw Lion King show and other unusual animals in the park. It was very entertaining. In the early evening (around 4:00 PM - it's still very light!), we saw a parade. We saw many people in stuff animal suits, some dancers who were about 3 m tall (don't know what they were wearing - probably stilts), and many others with a lot of make-up. It was very fun to watch the parade. I appreciated that they worked very hard entertaining us in the hot weather.

(His daughter's comment: On this day, at night, my father was mumbling something in the kitchen. I heard he was saying to himself, "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...". He was staring at his whiskey bottle and worried if his whiskey would run out before we leave Florida. Lucky for him, his whiskey did not run out.)

ディズニーワールド観光二日目 (Florida trip - 2nd Day)

今日はマジックキングドムへ、日本のディズニーランドと同じようなアトラクションや乗り物がいっぱい、３０分以上待つアトラクションはとばして、出来るだけ色々なものを見る予定であったが、なにしろ広い歩くだけでも大変、色々な国からの人々が行きかい久しぶりに沢山の人に会った感じがした。
駐車場の広いこと、乗り物や作り物、飲み物や食べ物、全てが大きいのでゆったり出来るはずですが人が多くそうは行きませんでした。結局見学出来たのは5つのアトラクションでした。

Today we went to Magic Kingdom. The layout of this park is pretty much same as Tokyo Disneyland. There are a lot of attractions and rides. We avoided the attractions for which we had to wait for more than 30 minutes, and we planned to go through a lot of rides. But the park was really big and I was tired just walking around the park. There were many people from many different countries. I haven't seen this many people for a while. The parking was big, all the rides/attractions were big - even the food/drink came big size. Since everything was so big, I thought we didn't have to be in any lines but I was wrong. In the end, we only managed to see five attractions. (we left early...)

ディズニーワールド観光一日目 (Florida trip - 1st Day)

昨日午後９時ごろ帰宅しましたので、ディズニーワールド観光の様子を書きます。
６月２７日家族４人午後７時半の飛行機でオーランドに向けて出発予定であたが、天候の影響で飛行機の出発時間が４時間遅れ、オーランドの短期契約マンションに着いたのが翌朝の３時、眠いので直ぐにベットへ、マンションは３ベットルーム、２バスルーム、そして生活に困らないだけの物は揃っている。相当な数のマンション群で中央には管理事務所やプールも付いていて、なかなか素敵なところで
だ、一日目はのんびり過ごすことに決めた。夕食を日本食でもと思い寿司、うな丼等の看板が出ている店に入り、寿司、牛丼と天婦羅うどんを注文、出てきた食事はとんでもない寿司や牛丼で殆ど残してしまった。　あれでは日本食はこんなものかと思われてしまう。

I came back from Florida last night around 9:00 PM. I will be writing about my Florida trip in my blog. On June 27, four of us were supposed to take a flight to Orland around 7:30 PM. However, due to the bad weather, the airplane had 4 hours delay. So, we arrived our condo (rented for a week) around 3:00 AM on the following day (his daughter's comment: Good thing he brought some whiskey with him... I don't think the liquer store was open that late). As soon as we got there, we went to bed. The condo had 3 bedrooms and had 2 bathrooms. Of course, it was furnished. There were a quite numbers of buildings in that gated community. It had a management office and a pool - I thought it was very nice. On the following day, we decided to relax a bit. At night, we went to a Japanese restaurant... well, so we thought... The restaurant we went had a sign said "unadon" (eel bowl), we thought it was an authentic restaurant. Boy, were we wrong! We ordered Sushi, Gyudon (beef bowl) and tempura udon. But the food was really bad we couldn't eat them. I wish the restaurant didn't advertise as a "Japanese" restaurant. Other people might think "Japanese food" in general is really bad and they might not want to try ever again. (his daughter's comment: He didn't write it but in the morning, he and my husband went to buy some whiskey for him so he was all set during our Florida trip).