About Time between New Zealand and Japan

Around 10:30 p.m. Japanese people have a drink watching interesting TV shows. But!! 10:30 p.m. is the average time when workers in New Zealand go to bed. It is said that children go to bed at 6:30 p.m., so from 7:00 p.m. TV shows for children are not broadcast.

□

□

One of the national characters of New Zealand is that they are often rough to time. In Japan the time of trains, buses, and moreover delivery are fixed punctually. If people from such a nation come to New Zealand, they often feel strange and sometimes deflated to the sense of time. It is usual to wait or keep a person waiting. Even if you wait and find public transportation like bus coming on time, it is sometimes a previous bus. In passing they are punctual with time in closing shops and going home, so you should take care of that.

□

□

If you want more information, let's go to these pages!!

　

　☆ニュージーランドロングステイ情報センター (NZ Long Stay Information Center)

　★ニュージーランドのこれホント!：スペースアルク (It's Real About NZ: Space ALK)

　☆ニュージーランドの楽しい生き方 (How to Live Happily in NZ)

Trivia of Oktoberfest

I’d like to tell you some trivia of Oktoberfest. In passing, not O'c'toberfest but O'k'toberfest.

Do you know how many people come to Germany and how much alcohol is drunk? I’m going to talk about “Numbers of Oktoberfest” in 2007.
・Visitors were more than 6 million.
・Beer was about 7 million liters
　(It is included more than one hundred twenty thousand liters non-alcoholic.)
・Wine was about 80 thousand liters.
・Chickens were more than five hundred thousand units.
・Pork sausages were about one hundred fifty thousand pairs.
How big!! Can you imagine how big this festival is?

You can get more information from this page. Click!

Next, I’d like to talk about “Oktoberfest in Japan.” The first Oktoberfest in Japan is started in universities like Kobe German Gakuin University, and Tokyo and Yokohama German Gakuen School. Several decades later, it became to be held to general people in Japan; for example, in Yokohama, Fukuoka, Hibiya, Matsumoto, Jouetsu, Sendai and Shimizu.

You can get more information from this page. Click!

I don’t like beer, but when I overcome and become to love it, I’d like to visit Oktoberfest in Japan and Germany.

☆ Handa Dashi Festival ☆

Do you know “Dashi”? It is a Japanese float. I’d like to dare to call it Dashi in Japanese. My hometown Handa (in Aichi) is famous for Dashi. “Handa Dashi Festival” is held splendidly every 5 years. It is rarer than the Olympics. The sixth Handa Dashi Festival was held in October 6-7 last year, so you have to wait the next festival till 2011. In passing, it is said that more than 480 thousand people came to Handa to watch Dashi from all over the country and the world.

In Handa there are 31 Dashi in all, and then all of them gather. Each group pulls each Dashi and parades the streets in the city. Attraction is sculptures, curtains, windup dolls and musical accompaniments. I’m sure that you feel the history, solemnity and beauty. Because there are also street stalls, you can enjoy eating and drinking, watching Dashi.

Already have you become to want to come to Handa and watch Dashi nearby? I hope you are impressed with Dashi when you watch them. Oh, I have to warn that you shouldn’t pick a fight with groups of the festival because they are like gangs.

Enjoy!!

Movies are wonderful!!

During the summer vacation, I watched 3 movies: “Detroit Metal City,” “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” and “I Am Legend.”
I saw the former 2 ones at the theater and the latter one on DVD.
Now I’m going to introduce my favorite movie “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” and criticize “Detroit Metal City” that I watched lately. Incidentally, I forgot my wallet in the theater when I watched D.M.C.


First, I’d like to tell about “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” It released in 1991 and gained big reputations. In 1991 I was 3 years old, so I didn’t watch it at the theater of course, and watched on TV when I grew up. Following the previous work, the same android T-800 (T stands for Terminator) appears in the story. But he is different from the previous work, and protects John Connor from a liquid metal new android T-1000 that aims at killing John. In adding to unfolding the exciting story, powerful computer graphics and explosions make us much more excited. I’ve watched this movie more than 5 times, but I’ve never been tired. I really recommend it to you all.


Next, I’m going to write about criticizing “Detroit Metal City.” It has been published as comic books. The story is about Negishi who aims to be a pop musician play an active part in metal music scene. He belongs to metal band “Detroit Metal City,” and he experiences a lot of happenings. I think casting is very nice, but I prefer the comics to the movie because the story is really boring. When I give points to this movie, I give 2 or 3 points within 10 points.

My exciting summer vacation

During this summer vacation, I experienced a lot of events. For example, a camp in Nagano, a display of fireworks, giving and watching live concerts, a match of softball and so on. Among them I’d like to write about a car trip to Shōnan beach in Kanagawa.

Do you know the team “Shōnan Boys”? Surely you don’t know because last G.W. it was organized among my local friends. It was made up of 4 people. It was organized in order to feel wind of Shōnan beach.

◆ September 7
The car trip toward Shōnan started at 1:30 a.m. On the way we dropped in convenient stores a few times. At Circle K in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, we took photos with a strange man. He gave a cigarette to a friend of mine. He said to us “This happening will be a memory for this trip.” Then I fell asleep because of lack of sleeping hours. When I woke up, I found we reach our destination Shōnan beach. It was maybe 9:00 a.m. We went out from the car and we got shocked. Smell of the air was bad and there are not many people. Of course young girls aren’t there. We were shocked. After 20-minute walk, we left there. My friend (the member of the trip) goes to Aoyama Gakuin University and lives in Sagamihara, Kanagawa, so we had decided to stay at his house. As soon as reached there we slept because of tire, but I wasn’t tired, so I was awake and played Nintendo DS alone. When my friends got up, we went shopping to a super market and bought foodstuffs for mizutaki, a pot meal. It was delicious! However taking shower was terrible! As my friend hadn’t paid gas charge, we took a cold shower. I couldn’t help shivering during that. In the midnight we tried to trespass on Aoyama Gakuin University, but because it was strictly guarded, we gave up. After we came back home, we played TV games and slept.

◆ September 8
We got up at over 2 p.m. We had planed to go for lunch to Aoyama Gakuin University, so we went there again at 3 p.m. But the cafeteria had been closed at 2 p.m. We were shocked and decided to go there next day. We change our mind and went to Chinatown in Yokohama. At 5:30 we arrived there and make rounds for souvenirs and dinner. I bought sweets for the souvenirs and I ate Chinese noodle of shrimp covered by wonton. Then we went to a harbor in Minatomirai, where we hung out. After we returned home once, we took a shower and waited for the midnight. The temperature of the shower was good because he had paid the gas charge already. At 1 a.m. we started to drive again in order to visit Lake Tsukui that is famous for a spiritual spot. During summer vacation we had often visited spiritual spots for thrill, so we weren’t afraid at all. But my friend’s picture showed a suspicious figure of a person, and we got afraid when we saw it. After that we ate midnight snacks in Gusto. When we got back home, we slept soon.

◆ September 9
We got up at 12 p.m., so we had the time for lunch. At 1:30 we reach the cafeteria in Aoyama Gakuin University and ate lunch. I ordered katsudon, pork cutlets and rice. In the house until 4:30 p.m. we hung out, clean the room and prepared for going to Aichi. Then we drove to our hometown Handa. I sang songs with my friends and didn’t sleep that time. When we got to Handa at 1:30 a.m., 2 other friend joined with us, and we went to Chinese restaurant Mandoukou. Then another friend joined with us, and we hung out at Family Mart till 5 a.m. Because policemen came there and encouraged us to go home, we went home.

Though a lot of things happened during this trip, we enjoyed ourselves very much. Next year I’m going to study abroad, but I would like to make lots of good memories there.

(685 words)

How Cool!! Martial Arts

Have you ever experienced any martial art? It is called "Budo" in Japanese. I think martial arts are really cool!! Also I had played kendo till high school days. Now I'm going to introduce attractions of martial arts.

Martial arts are sports originated from mainly Japan and China. These days men and women of all ages in the world do them. If you get interested in them, let's go to "Martial Edge" This site introduces overall summaries about martial arts, and moreover you can watch some short movies.

Not only to train your body, but also in daily life martial arts are very useful to guard yourself. "Budo Kissa" shows you the ultimate art of self-difense. It is based on Shaolin (Shorinji) kung fu. But if you don't like reading, it is difficult for you to read and understand it.

Because I especially love kendo, I'd like you to know how cool kendo is, so I'm going to show you my favorites.

• Two-sword player's match → Click here!


• My favorite player's match → Click here!


• Cool but passionate match → Click here!


• Beautiful tsuki(thrust)→ Click here!


• Funny kendo conte(short story) by The Drifters→Click here!

(The picture is from All Japan Kendo Federation.)

Humor / Laughter

First, I’d like to introduce “Laughter. Com”. Sharon A. Braverman, this site’s administrator, describes various kinds of laughter. In life there are a lot of situations to need to laugh; for example, to business, to medical treatment, to party and so on, and this site shows you the way to use laughter in these situations. How about studying laughter? This site is incomplete and unrenewed, but it is probably to your advantage.


Next, I recommend my favorite site “神動画.com”. In this site there are many moving images like You Tube. They all are beyond ‘humor’ or ‘laughter’. They are godlike work. If you watch these images, you will be surprised definitely. This site is written in Japanese, but even if you can’t understand, you can get pleasure very much.


Third, I’m going to introduce “死ぬかと思った”. In this site there are a lot of stories that all sorts of people experienced to be dying. People contribute their own funny or horrible stories to this site. In passing, these stories have been published as books. You can enjoy reading them in or outside your house.