Adorn the entrance with Christmas ornament

This year Thanksgiving Day is on November the 23rd, which is also the national holiday for labor thanksgiving in Japan. The Christmas season is also just around the corner!! You can already find the Christmas decoration here and there, walking around on the streets.

I've adorned the entrance with the Christmas ornaments with my husband and daughter:

My children used to go to the kindergarten, in which they go out on Thanksgiving Day to present apples, oranges, and the like for the kindergarten bus driver, the police officer, who works for the neighborhood, and the neighbors, who support children by making a rabbit hutch for rabbits which children feed, or doing any other things. On the day after Thanksgiving, nurses and children start to adorn the inside of the kindergarten with Christmas ornaments. After three advent meetings, they do the Nativity Play on the fourth advent meeting. My elder daughter played the role of the third inn's employee. She actually wanted to play Mary. The nurses arranged so that she can do Mary in the rehearsal, on the very day another girl did it, though. I really appreciated for their consideration. My younger daughter did a shepherd. She only said in the play: "Now! Let's go to Jerusalem along with sheep!"

It was a long story, isn't it? Anyway my children made some Christmas ornaments in those days. These ornaments are also put on the wall for decoration now.

Whenever I adorn the entrance in this season every year, these ornaments they made remind me of those days.

Penguin

TOPIC: Common Sayings

John prepared the the following list of "Common Sayings":

1) Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

2) A man is known by the company he keeps.

3) Don't count your chickens before they hatched.

4) Variety is the spice of life.

5) A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.

6) Still waters run deep.

7) Opposites attract

8) A fool and his money are soon parted.

9) You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

The subjects are:

(1) Guess the meaning without looking into a dictionary, and then,

(2) Choose one common saying from the list and make a short speech giving an appropriate example.

For "love is blind", for instance, my friend is going out with a girl that smokes, drinks, slouches and burps but he is blind to her faults or bad points.

I've learned some Proverbs in school age: there is no accounting for tastes; it is no use crying over spilt milk; and so on. But almost all common sayings on the list were new for me. It was so interesting!

Everyone in class did a good speech by bringing a good experience or story up.

Penguin

GRAND CENTRAL OYSTER BAR&RESTAURANT

The Tokyo branch is located at "atre Shinagawa". The first restaurant is on Grand Central Terminal, Manhattan,New York. As they say the interior decorations in Shinagawa branch are almost the same as the Manhattan's one, it seems to be a casual restaurant, but in fact one piece of oyster costs around 500 YEN, a little bit expensive. They prepare various kinds of oysters from both home and abroad. I ordered the lunch menu A including caeser salad, clam chowder, grilled salmon, and lemon ice cream, and an oyster plate. The oysters were milky and delicious, but salty. I suppose they use a lot of salt for preservation.

http://www.oysterbartokyo.com/ja/fromny.html

After lunch I visited Takanawa Prinzchen Garten, which composes of the French restaurant, "Colombages" and the Christmas Shop, which deals in various christmas-related goods, such as tree ornaments, greeting cards, and so on all the year round. The inside of the shop is colorfully decorated with a lot of Christmas ornaments. In the restaurant, a wedding party was being held. The Takanawa area of the northern part used to be more lively than the Konan, the southern part. But the Konan area has been drastically redeveloped in the past few years, and now seems to be more vibrant.

http://www.p-garten.co.jp/

Penguin

HatoBus English Tour

On July 29th, several members in FESC joined in Cityrama Tokyo Afternoon, o ne of HATO BUS tours. The tour courses included (1) Tokyo Tower, (2) Imperial Palace Plaza, and (3) Asakusa. HATO BUS lady, Mai-san guided us with Picachu character as a tour sign.

On the way from TOKYO TOWER to IMPERIAL PALACE PLAZA, we also could see National Diet Building.

(1) Tokyo Tower

Mai-san said that Tokyo tower is 333m high and transmit broadcasting signals for nine TV stations and five FM radio stations. The main character of the tower is "Noppon." (http://www.tokyotower.co.jp/333/06_noppon/index.html)

We could see Hamarikyu Park, buildings in Shinjuku, Odaiba, Roppongi Hills and so on.

The weather was not so fine. If the weather was fine, we also could have seen Mt. Fuji.

July 29th was about one week after sutudents' summmer vacation began. Thus, the tower was a little crowded with many elementary school students.

(2) Imperial Palace Plaza

Mai-san told us that the palace buildings and inner gardens are not open to the public. Only on January 2 (New Year's Greeting) and December 23 (Emperor's Birthday), visitors are able to enter the inner palace grounds and see the members of the Imperial Family.

In the Imperial Palace Plaza, we spent only 10 minutes because of the security. Many pine trees were planted in the place where we visited.

On that day, there were a lot of people who enjoy jogging around the palace.

(3) Asakusa

In Asakusa, we visited Nakamise Shopping Archade, and Sensoji Temple. Mai-san showed us that Nakamise Shopping Archade has 90 shops who sell typical Japanese souvenirs such as yukata and folding fans, various traditional local snacks from the Asakusa area such as

Agemanju (deep fried manju, soft cake with red bean paste filling), Ningyoyaki (small cake with red bean paste filling).

I bought Kaminari-Okoshi and two Agemanju in Asakusa. Since the Sumida River fireworks was scheduled on that day, Asakusa was very crowded with a lot of people who intended to visit there before the fireworks began.

We could visit several famous Tokyo sightseeing places effectively using HATO BUS and learn how to explain them through English guide. Thank you very much for joining in this event!

Kazunari Sugiyama

犬と暮らす （1） Living with a Dog - 1

I lost my dog, Koro this February.

It was in midsummer 6 years ago that she suddenly came over to my house. She used to be a stray dog, wearing no tag and no collar. I walked with her around the neighborhood and even next town to find her owner, but I could not find. So she became a member of my family. She was a mix but looked like Kuroshiba. She was so cute. I could accept any behaviors done by her. Of course, if my children would do the same things, they must have been yelled, though. My family members loved her. We often took her to the park in our neighborhood on Sunday in good seasons. But time is not forever. I had noticed some sighs of her aging in the past one year or so. And finally she had the end of her life. I had thought that I would never ever have a dog. But after a while I thought I wanted to have a dog, and would do all the things I could not do for Koro.

Dogs in a pet shop have a lot of chances to be bought by people who want a dog. On the other hand, there exist many dogs which are abandoned and cannot have new his/her owners. I checked some web sites for needing fosterers for abandoned dogs, and finally I became a pet adopter. --- to be continued (by Penguin)

いわゆるミスコン A beauty contest, so-called "Miss Con"

What do you think about a beauty contest, so-called "Miss Con" in Japanese?

This is one of controversial issues in some people. As you know, in this kind of contest, people, especially young women compete on the beauty of their physical appearance. Some people criticize this kind of contest, saying: women are commercialized by men; women with an inherent beautiful appearance have an advantage over women without it, so it is a kind of discrimination; or the sense of beauty varies among people, so setting an objective criterion of beauty is nonsense.

Even in the high school my daughter attend, their beauty contest will take place in the party to be held after the annual school festival is over. However it is quite different from typical one, and unique! Only boys who are nominated by themselves or the others can enter this contest. They have to dress up like a girl and make up. They compete about how they become a "beautiful girl".

I suppose that a spoon of humor makes an event with a delicate aspect nice (by Penguin)

英語学習について / About English Study

英語学習とは？　私は“練習”と答えます。要はスポーツと一緒。用語、ルールをある程度学んだら後は基礎体力、キャッチボール、素振りなど毎日の練習、たまには誰かと話したり、TOEICなどの試験を受けたりの対外試合をする。何の準備も無しに海外に出ることは水泳でいえば溺れるか、溺れながら泳ぎを身に着けることで何れにせよ厳しい現実が控えています。「大リーグでヒットの打ち方」という本を何度も読んで、メジャーリーグでヒット打てるのであれば誰も苦労しません。その手の本は英語学習について多いですね。“一日にしてイチローに成れず。”幸運にも私は府中英会話サークルで経験豊富な方がたをお手本に継続して英会話の学習をすることができました。実は参加当初の6年前は殆ど話せませんでした。まだまだ修行中の身ではありますが今では海外出張にも胸を張って出かけています。「継続は力なり」　by KOBA　

What is the best way to learn English? I will answer ‘’practice’’ is the only royal road. It is the same as sports. After learning basic words and grammar in junior high and high school, physical training, catch and swing are needed as a daily practice. In addition, talking with someone or taking the TOEIC test would be good for your brush-up. To go abroad without preparation is like to go drowning or to learn swimming during the drowning. In anyway, quite harsh reality is waiting. Can you send a hit in the major league after reading the book like “How to make hit in the major league?” We can see such books for English leaning around there. Don’t you think so? ‘’Ichiro is not become in a day.’’ Fortunately, I have been practicing English speaking with good friends in Fuchu English Speaking Circle for six years. Now I can go on oversea business trip alone with confidence.　　”Never give up” by KOBA