Osaka

My Senpai(senior friend) who I met in Buffalo came from Tokyo so my friend and I took him to look around Osaka city. He helped me a lot when I was in Buffalo so this time I wanted to do something for him.

We went to Aquarium, Dotonbori and Umeda Sky Buillding, and ate some kinds of Osaka food such as Okonomiyaki and Kushiktsu. It was pretty fun. We didn't meet each other for a year since I came back from Buffalo, and we had a lot of things to talk about.

There are still many places where I want to take him so I'll do that next time he come here.

New Year

Happy new year!
3 days have already passed since new year's day.

Now I need to change my mind to the next step.

Unlike every other year, my family and I didn't visit my father's grandparents' house so my new year was kind of simple than last year.

While I was spending my new year's day in here, I realized that there were less New year's mood than before in the town.  I mean, usually many kinds of new year decoration and music were everywhere in the town, but this year weren't.  I don't know, maybe I just felt like that, but it's a little bit sad if it's true.  I think we are gradually losing our sense of season.  However, I still can see some kids and their father were flying a kite in the park, and bunch of people were going to shrine in the new year's day so I felt relieved.

And my family and relatives were also still trying to keep doing a traditional way of celebrating new year's day.

But not like normal Japanese family.  Japanese people usually eat "Osechi (new year's food in kinda big bento-box)", but both of my parent' family don't have that custom.  I just ate Osechi one time 3 or 4 years ago because Osechi looks so beautiful, and I really wanted to try it once.  Honestly, Osechi was not that so delicious than I thought.  

Anyway, this year I went to my mother's parent' house, and they served Ozoni (Soup for new year), Sashimi, and spareribs(Japanese style).  In their most traditional way, they serve 3 kinds of Ozoni, and there are goat meat in it.  But goat meat is not good for the old people's health so we don't do that anymore.

I really enjoy listening those kinds of story related to new year custom, and I think I'm lucky to have these old-fashioned family and relatives.


By the way, I also went to shrine and made some wishes.

It's Kiyoshi-Kojin shrine.  My written oracle said my year will be so-so.  Hm...but this shrine's written oracle is famous because it's really harsh so so-so is great for me.


Anyway, those are my new year's days.  Happy new year for everyone, and hope you have a great year.

Pho

My friend and I ate Pho in my favorite Vietnamese restaurant.  This restaurant's Pho is just amazing.  I think I can eat this everyday.

Pho's noodle is made from rice, and ingredients are basically bean sprouts(もやし) , green onion, and Chicken or fish ball.  The soup tastes very simple and light.  I didn't know that until I watched a video of how to cook Pho, but it actually takes a lot of works to finish it.

My friend has been to Vietnam before, and said this Pho tastes better than Pho in Vietnam.  This restaurant is in Umeda, but that'll be good if I have cheap Pho stall like Vietnam near my house so that I can eat Pho everyday.

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas for everyone!

Although Christmas day is totally nothing to do with me, I like to see how people and city are getting excited about this.  And this year, Santa Clause came to my home after his 7 or 8 years absence.  He gave me a bag which is exactly what I wanted to.  That was kinda surprise because I almost forgot about him, and didn't tried to be a good girl for a whole year.  Well, He actually gave me a present, and I think he is really good guy.

Anyway, my Christmas day was over.  No drink, No dance, but staying in a warm room with Kotatsu and good Takasugi's cake ：）

Winter

Hi !
Long time I didn't post a blog in here.  I'm basically doing very good :)
The weather in Buffalo is getting cold day by day, but today is kind of warm day.

Now I'm writing this in the library called "Capen".  UB has many libraries, but this library is the only library which is 24 hours operation.  I sometimes study in this library until midnight, and I can see many students study, too.  I think students in here are very hard working.  One of my friend said that he couldn't go back to his room recently because he has a lot of homework from his classes.  He said he spend almost of all his time in library.  Wow...


Now I'm planing to go to Boston in this thanksgiving holiday.  After that, I don't have so much time in here.  I booked my airplane ticket to go back Japan in December 13th, and our classes will be finished in December 7th.  I'm going to be very busy until thanxgiving holiday.  I have to hand in 6 pages of report, and give a presentation.  Wish me luck.




Ayumi

Weekend

Good morning.
It's September 17th, 10:06 a.m.
Today is holiday! But I don't know what kind of holiday it is. Anyway, I don't have class today.
Now I'm in Lockwood library. Maybe, this is biggest library in UB. I can't compare with Konan library. It has 6th floors, and we can eat and drink inside the library. There are many spaces which we can focus on the study. My favorite one is this individual booth. Today is study day. I'll finish up my class assignment! :)


This Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I spend very fun time with my friends. On Friday,we went to IMAX theater to watch new "Resident Evil." That was the first time for me to watch a movie in IMAX, and that was fabulous! The screen was huge, ans sound system was like that I was actually in the movie. The movie itself was also good, but I felt that the Resident Evil isn't zombie movie anymore.

Saturday was also fun. I had a dinner at my Korean friend's house with 3 korean, 1 American friends. The owner of house, one of Korean friend, made us many kinds of Korean food.

She made Yakitori for me! That was actually taste like Japanese Yakitori. We also drunk Korean alcohol, Soju.


Yesterday, Sunday was Japanese Student Association(JSA)'s BBQ event!
I met some new Japanese exchange students who came from mainly Konan Cube, and other university in Japan, and foreingn people who are interested in Japanese culture.
If you are Japanese exchange student, you might concern about how to make a relationship with other Japanese exchange students. While you are in foreign country, you will face some difficulty. At that time, your Japanese friend is going to help you. You don't have to feel guilty to communicate with Japanese people whan you are in foreign country.


Anyway, I had a good weekends!
See you!

Recently

Good Evening!

Now the time is 12:25 p.m.
I have not been uploaded my English blog such a long time...
The days in here are very busy. I'm using almost of all my freetime to do my class assignment.
I'm taking 4classes now. 2 classes for ESL(English as Second Language) class, and rest of them are academic class. Academic classes are "American Foreign Policy" and "Fundamental Journalism."
Both of them are really hard to catch up with the speed, but they are very interesting.

So many things are changed from the summer time. Especially, my dormitory.
In summer time, I was living in Greiner Hall which is the newest building in North campus, UB. Actually, many of the ELI(English Language Institute) students, including me, are the first people who were live in that building. But after summer vacation, we had to move to another place, and now I'm living in the building called Ellicott complex. And now I really feel I want to move out.

For exchange students, it seems like there are no other choices to live in here without dormitory. However, actually there are many other choices. Many people said it's good for us to live with the person who has different culture, and It's also help you to learn English. I think it's not wrong, but actually we don't have so much time to talk to our roomie. And sometimes It's disturb you to concentrate on your work. In my opinion, your room should be a place where you can be relaxed.
For the person who plan to go to UB, I'll introduce some other choices later. I'm talking about this because me myself found some difficulty to live in dormitory now.

But anyway, my life in here as UB student gradually became stable. Although sometimes feel very stressful, and loneliness, I'm trying to cope with it by myself or with someone who can rely on.

So, yeah...see you later. I'll sometimes come back here to write journal. I believe it's gonna be helpful for my study. Bye!

Walden Garellia mall

Today, I went to the biggest mall in Buffalo that is called Garellia Mall.
It was kind of ELI's activity, and they arranged buses for the students who studying in ELI.
They usually have one bus for us, but so many new students came here some days ago so they arranged two buses. Two buses were full of people.

We have 5 hours to do a shopping. It seems so long time, but actually it wasn't totally enough.
The Garallia Mall was very big, so it took a long time to just see around the mall. And all shops were so attractive. Moreover, Independence day is come soon, so all shops were having sell.

Finally, I bought some clothes. And me and my frineds ate cheese cake in Cheese Cake Factory which is very famous for delicious cheese cake and meal.

There were so many kinds of cheese cake, and I choose original one.
At first, cheese cake was very delicious. It was little bit different from normal cheese cake. But after I ate a half of them, I became bored. And finally I couldn't eat it up. It was very heavy cheese cake.

After that, I had my ears piersed in the Jewely shop. I used to have hole in my ears, but I had been didn't worn earrings long time so they were already closed. It was good because I only had to pay for the earrings, and it wasn't hurt.

And now I came back from a mall, and already finished my dinner.

I'm in U.S. now.

Hello!
It's been a long time when I posted a last blog.
Now I'm in U.S. as a exhange student in University at Buffalo.
I think I'm doing pretty well now :)

I made another blog to record my days in UB. For now, I'm posting that blog everyday in Japanese.
However, I think I came here to study English so It's better to write a blog in English also.
I didn't decided yet, but maybe I'm going to re-start this blog again.
Maybe I can't post everyday because a life in U.S. is busier than I thought.
I have three English classes everyday, and homework is pretty hard. But now I become get used to it.

So... I hope you stop by here sometimes, and see how I'm doing.
This is my blog that I writing in Japanese→http://daily-vege.blogspot.com/
Please check this blog also if you have time :)


See you soon.





Ayumi

Two months

2 months...

I watched two new movies. "TIME" and "The Iron Lady".
I had dinner and lunch with my friends including exchange students.
I went to bar first time.
I gave a speech about Tohoku earthquake.
I read some books "Jiro Shirasu", "古事記は日本を強くする", "旅する力‐深夜特急ノート‐".
I did a parttime job 4 times in a week.
I studied a lot about international relationship and politics in Koji Nakamura's class.
I went to Kiyoshikojin, Arima-onsen, Suma so on.
One of my lovable dog Fusa passed away.

That's all? I don't know.
I think I spend a great spring vacation.
But the last one...hmmmm....That was very very sad for me. I still feel big loss in my heart.
I think I need more time to fix this.

Actually, I went to Suma today. I had no class today so I planned to go to cyber library and do some reserch. But...weather! was so great today. so I called my friend and ask her to go to Suma beach.
Suma beach...wasn't so beautiful. no. It was dirty. But sea made us feel so open. We talked a lot. After that we went to cafe in Sannomiya, and talked a lot again. It was so fun.

It's already about one month left before going to study abroad.
I'm going to study and experience things as much as possible.

I'm ready to recieve your chocolate.

Today is St.Valentine's day, but also my mother's birthday. Happy birthday my mom!
Me and my parents went to crab buffet restaurant as mother's birthday party. I won't eat crab after 6 month, I guarantee.


I'm taking a class with some exchange students now. In this class, we have to speak only English. I think it'll improve my English speaking skill. However It's so difficult to keep up with their discussion. Every time class was finished, I felt so exhausted and little depressed by my ignorance. So recently I try to watch and read the CNN news and Asahi newspaper everyday to know what's happening in the world now. It's very hard to share one newspaper with my parents in every morning.

I think I must to know about geography. Honestly I'm completely not good at geography. I didn't know where the Syria is, and why Syria got strong effect of Arab spring. News and geography are closely related. I realized it.

By the way, I think CNN intensively focus on Syria and Greek(and Whitney Houston) now. In contrast, I think Japanese media doesn't much care about these issue. I don't know why, but I think it's a little problem.


Anyway, I will keep trying this. And I want to do a practice to making my opinion about many kinds of news in English here.

"Yuuenchi"

When you were child, maybe your parents sometimes took you to an amusment park such as Expo land, Kobe portopia land, Ayameike amusement park and so on. However all amusement parks, I stated before, were closed now because of depression, huge effect of USJ or an accident happened there. For me, most memorable amusement park is "Takarazuka Familyland". Takarazuka Familyland was opened in 1911 by Hankyu corporation near from Takarazuka station that is aimed to attracting customers to use Hankyu railway.

But this amusement park was also closed on August 31st, 2003. I remember that some TV channel broadcasted special TV programs about the history of Takarazuka Familyland and they also broadcast a last closing time of Takarazuka Familyland. I was maybe 12 years old, I watched one of these and cried. I had never realized it but I loved there so much. The memories of there were always so fun and so happy(Of cours I'm happy now!). Even now, I often use Hankyu Takarazuka line, and when I saw the site of Takarazuka Family land, I feel so sad. I know it's little odd, but I think if you had been to there, you may feel something for this place.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about is one feature program in TV news"Cast" on January 16th. They focused on "the second life of play equipments". These days, many Japanese amusement parks are gradually closed. Then a Japanese company "Okamoto MFG" repairing play equipments in these closed amusement park, and import to other amusement park mostly in developing country such as China, Vietnam, Thailand etc...  Why developing country? It is because that these recycled play equipments are cheaper than new one, and "made in Japan" is well trusted.

I was so surprised that a ferris wheel in Takarazuka Familyland was also repaired and imported to other country. This ferris wheel was called "Flower Wheel".

It was very unique ferris wheel. Takarazuka familyland was only place that this kind of ferris wheel existed, and this was a symbol of Takarazuka Familyland. After Familyland closed, this Flower wheel devided to two parts, and one of them went to other Japanese amusement park "Beppu-Rakutenchi", and rest of them went to Myanmar(!).

This is "Beppu" one. I can't found the Myanmar one. I felt...very proud to hear that. I rode this some time when I was a child, and this time, this "Flower Wheel" amuse children in Myanmar! It's very wonderful thing. This ferris wheel made me to feel connect with children in Myanmar.

Wow It's very long blog. Anyway, I hope this movement will continue, and I really want to go to Myanmar to see this Flower Wheel someday.

Frozen days

Long time no posted.
My examinations were over in January 27th, so spring vacation is already started!
Yeah! ...but I know. There are too many things I have to do before going to studying abroad.
Thanks to Mr.Koji Nakamura(He is a professor in my university ), I'm attending a class that is aim to learn about Japanese customs and history with some exchange students. I thought this class is gonna be a good for my English study, and the first class was in January 31st.
However, when the class finished, I realized that I can't speak and listen English at all! Moreover, when teacher asked me "What makes Japan?", I completely didn't have any clear answer. Even I'm a Japanese, I've never re-thought about Japan.
I think I read and heard this kind of things before, but this time, I experienced. It was such a shock.

I disappointed myself, but I think I'm very lucky. Because if I didn't take this class, I couldn't have any chance to know how my English is awful. So...yeah, all I need to do is "Doing my best"!



Maybe you can't believe how my home is cold. In this morning, the water didn't came from a tap because all of our water supplies were frozen. And about 8cm ice covered my dog's water bowl.
I felt like that I'm living in Hokkaido(I've never been to Hokkaido, though.).

My resolution

It's a responce blog for my English teacher Mayumi Asaba.

My resolution for 2012 is...

"Just do it!"

Is it a resolution? I don' t know...
I mean, I should move, in any case.

I try to be active, and challenge many things.
In more detail, I want to...

    ・Learrn how to take a great picture.
    ・Read many kinds of books. (Both in English and Japanese)
    ・Be a specialist of something.
    ・Be a good English speaker (Of course!)
    ・Know what happening in the world→Read newspaper everyday.
   
                                                                                                                    etc...

I just wrote a loose list.

Happy new year!

Hi everyone! Happy new year!
I'm back from Kochi yesterday.
I can't believe that the university going to start tomorrow. It's too early! isn't it?

Anyway, I had a great time in Kochi.
I ate Oshogatsu food such as Ozoni, Soba, Sushi, etc...wow...I should go on a diet.
By the way, Soba(Japanese noodle) in Kochi is little different from others.

See? It's very big and short.
I was so surprised when I saw this first time, but now I'm get used to this.
And I think it's very delicious!
In December 31st, I try not to eat dinner too much. I make a space in my stomoch for this. haha...

And in January 1st, I went to shrine to do "Hatsumode".
We went to small shrine near from house. I think this is kind of like "secret spot".

My uncle told me that this shrine were made by our ancester. Wow...

I took this near from shrine.
I'm not interested in plant, but I think moss is cute and beautiful.



I introduced a dog "Hime" before. Do you remember her? (Check my last post!)
She loves to drive, so I presented her a goggles.

Soooo cool! Haha...!



That's all!

I hope everyone spend great time !
Happy new year! :)
                             
                                                                  Ayumi

Titanic

My laptop was completely broken.
Now I realized how my laptop was important for me...
Moreover, I have no money to buy a new one.
But...It's ok. I thought I should stay away from PC for a while.

-----------------------------------------
I restarted to read academic reading.

It's a real story of Titanic.
I watched the movie so many times, and cried every time.
One day, I saw a documentary about Titanic in National geographic channel, and I was so excited. Titanic has been there in 3,650m under the Atlantic ocean since April 15, 1912 at 2:20am.
I heard that the last survivor passed away in 2009. And she was also the youngest person on Titanic(9 weeks after she was born), so she said that she didn't remember anything about Titanic.
Another survivor's story in this book was so interesting. The second officer of Titanic survived, and he continued to work on White Star Line(same company of Titanic). After that, he worked for 2 ships called "Oceantic"and"Falcon", but both of them sank too.


Anyway, I introduced this in one of my English class, and I became more interested in this topic.
Big ship in dark ocean... this kind of stories are so attracted me.

------------------------------------------

I decided to quit Twitter.
I have been tweeted the new post of this blog, so I hope everyone continue to check this blog!
Please bookmark here or you can come here from my profile of mixi.
Goodbye Twitter! Thanks for long time!

Lose Yourself

Ooooh...so cold....

These days, I really don't want to go to school.
I just want to stay home, and read books. I have many books to read.(Of course in Japanese!!!)

I think, winter is best season for thinking.
Recently I often think about my future.
And maybe almost of all my friends also think about their future, because it's the time to do jobhunting.

I'm little confusing now.
But I think, I'm in a way to solve this problem.
I try to think and move. Because, It's my life! It's now or never~♪ (I love this song! haha...)


Anyway! I want to introduce my favorite song again.
I think it's also about "Life", but little bit different from our life.
It's "Lose Yourself" by EMINEM.
I love this song because the rhyme is very comfortable to listen for me and rhythm isn't monotonous.
And just so cool. Listen.


The opportunity comes once in a lifetime.
I love this song, and I love his song.
When I was a high school student, I listened his song on the radio, and  go straight to CD shop to buy his album.

If you watch the movie "8 mile", you can understand his background.
Some scenes in this PV.

Japanemation

Do you know the word "Japanemation"?
Maybe all of you guys understand what this word meant.
The animation in this country has been achieved more than any other country.
However I didn't realize it since I watched one famous Japanese animation.
It was "Evangelion".

When I was a high school student, one of my friend told me that "Evangelion is great".
She wasn't the type of Otaku, and I was little bit surprised that she said so.
Because I thought that the Evangelion is just "Robot fighting animation", and maybe the story is easy to predict.
But, I was wrong.

Some years later, I started to watch Evangelion. And I was so impressed.
The story was so grand and constructive. There are some elements of religion. It showed one idea of how mankind was born and why we gonna die out.
All of characters shows their difficulty of living in their age. And we can have sympathy with them.

Then, why I think Evangelion is great "Japanemation"?
It is because that they aren't lose the elements of Japan . If you see the title, you can aware of some elements of Japan. For example, they use Japanese old letter such as "ヱ"and "ヲ". And the orders of movie are expressed by "序" and "破". They originally meant the ways of playing Japanese old music instrument and "Noh-play". All name of characters are Japanese, and they aren't living in shelter or spaceship but they living in small japanese style apartment. Actually, the place of this anime is based on Hakone in Kanagawa.

The animation of Evangelion began airing in 1995, and the movies are still continuing untill now. Newest movie "破" was screened in 2009, and the amount sales of this movie was over 5billion yen.
Sometimes people avoid to watch anime, because they think that anime=otaku.
But, "Seeing is believing". If you watched "anime" once, you can understand why Japanemation is such a big sensation.

Moldman the Bellringer in Dublin

I went to see a play "Moldman the Bellringer in Dublin " with my friend Erika.
It was played by Konan-Ichiza that is a drama club in Konan university.
They usually played in Konan university, but in this time, they played in Osaka because they participate in "Osaka Student Drama Festival". And the place was very big.

I think it was great! I know almost of all actor and actress who appeared in this stage, so I was able to understand how they improved. And the script is also good. They used the script that was writed by Hirohito Goto(Not original one), so the story line is clear and interesting.

Their stage in Osaka was finished today. But they gonna play in Novemver 26th and December 3rd in Konan university. If you want to know more about this show, please visit their HP.

JICA

Yesterday, I went to JICA in Osaka with my friend.
We participated  the lecture of Mr.Koji Nakamura(a teacher of Konan university)
I have been intersted in that kind of international organization, then, my friend asked me to go to his lecture.

He did a lecture about Japanese culture and history to 30 people who came from mainly Africa.
Before the lecture, we have to introduce myself in front of them, and actually I felt vey nervous.
But they listened very warmly so I became so relaxed.

The lecture was very interesting. Mr. Koji Nakamura is very funny, but he talked about Japanese war history very seriously. They listened his lecture very carefully.

The lecture in JICA was very good experience for me, and I'm very thankful for him to inviting me.


After the lecture finished, my friends and I went to JICA cafeteria to eat lunch.
It was a buffet day, so we can ate many kinds of foreign foods.

That was great! and it costs only 600yen!
But...we ate too much...haha...