An American Summer Vacation
アメリカの夏休み

　Hi everyone! I'm writing this from my parents' house in America. I've been here for a few days with my two children and we're just getting over jet lag. We spent the first few days with my grandfather, who is ninety years old, in Chicago, and now we are in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where my parents live. Isn't Kalamazoo a great name for a city?!

　Yesterday we had a busy day. We visited a Japanese garden! It was designed by a Japanese man and built in a city called Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was very beautiful, and did remind me of things I've seen in Japan, though it was so new that it didn't really seem real. One of the things I love about the temple gardens in Japan is how old they are, and how you can feel that people have loved and cared for them for hundreds of years. Maybe in two hundred years this garden will feel like that.