I reached "kiju" in May last year and received a celebration present from Urayasu City. Since then I have been blessed with the benefits for latter-stage elderly people including medical care.
I have no special feeling about this age in my heart, but my body is honest enough to make myself be aware of getting much weaker.

One year and a half have passed without my noticing, and now I am at the age of 78 and 6 months as of the year 2018.
I just would like to write my nowadays looking back on my bygone days.

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I was managing the company of my own with monthly pay after I had quit Daido Steel at the age of 48. So, it was about 20 years ago at the age of 60 or so when I finished working for a salary.
I started up my homepage "Viva, Seniors!" two years before my retirement, and since then this has been like my very best friend all the way.
"Viva, Seniors!" is generally our couple's personal history, mainly with travel notes both domestic and overseas, various essays, and several autobiographical novels. I have also been trying their English translation and the recording of my reading.
It includes the introduction of my hometown and Emiko's haiku poems, too.

The regular pace of its work has visibly slowed down since a couple of years ago. The main reason is definitely a decline of travelogues due to the decrease of travels.

The overseas travelogue consists of about 20 works partly including English translations. But it was until five years ago that I put myself into such works. The last satisfying travelogue for now is the one for the 9-day travel around the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in early summer of 2013.
I worked it out spending one month. In addition, I translated it into English and read both of them. Japanese: 1 hour 8 minutes. English: 1hour 14 minutes.

Before this trip, Baltic countries and Poland (2012), Morocco (2010), four countries in Central Europe (2009), Egypt andTurkey (2008), ... Beginning with China (2002), our couple traveled abroad more than once a year and I made a travel note of each.
The previous overseas travel was to Bali Island and Jogjakarta of Indonesia for 6 days in 2014. We were relaxed during the days and I made an English small essay, which is the last work abroad for now.

Where would I like to trip abroad in the future, if possible? The West Coast of the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Greece, Korea, ..., interesting scenes and countries come out to my mind one after another. Nevertheless, only the desire reacts too quickly with no action, making Emiko feel deplored.

What about domestic travels? We joined a tour to Yahiko Village in Niigata Prefecture for 3 days this May and to Tohoku District for 4 days this July, both of which are carried in "Zakki-cho" as a travelogue.
But except Kyoto tour for a week early summer last year, we have also been enjoying only easy and healing trips mainly to local spas during recent years.

Our couple joined the tour to "Kintaro Spa" in Toyama Prefecture for 4 days from October 26. Our main purpose was the celebration for Emiko's "kiju" (the 77th birthday). Besides, I had considered that the famous Kurobe Gorge was not far there and was looking forward to visiting this spot, too. However, the gorge was actually too far by the present transportation system. We could never get any satisfaction with the visit there, like I wrote the travelogue in Zakki-cho as the 117th story (in Japanese only.) Incidentally, I was a little satisfied with my writing ability even though it was a short story of 40 minutes of my reading.

Well anyway, one and a half years have now gone by since the "Pleasure Birthday" for myself.
During these several days, I have taken notes of my recent happenings. Nothing may be exciting nor thrilling, but everything is my reality.
Thanks to too much leasure time, I am going to pick up several of them.