Blog #8: Tail, a member of my family

Hello, I'm Nozomi.

I have a cat. Its name is Tail and it is a she. This time I want to talk about it.

When I was in the second year of junior high school, I went out for a local festival with my mother. A shopping district held the festival, and many shops offered such games as quoits (輪投げ), target shooting, strike out. Under such circumstances, an animal hospital which was in the shopping district was looking for foster parents of cats. At that time I had no pet and I had not kept any cats, so I wanted to keep a cat as soon as I saw the cats which were in cages. My mother readily allowed me to keep one cat. In this way, I decided to keep it. It had been only six months since the cat I chose had been born, and it was the youngest baby of three sisters.

My older sister called it Tail, because Tail is the same name as a cartoon character she liked then.

Now that it is about 70 years old if it is compared to a human being, it is always sleeping. However, it is still cute and all of  my family love it!

blog#8 Mattease food

  Hi every one!! I'm Airi. This time, I'll explain about Malta again and I'll put some pictures here.

 Maltese foods are similar to Italian foods. For example pasta, pizza, bread and wine is also famous. And you can get wine from €2～3. (750ml)

 ↑ This is traditional Maltese food, "rabbit pasta" they eat meat of rabbit and I was surprised at the first time. And I was sorry for them but I tried to think that it is OK...they already dead. It taste liked a chicken and finally I liked it ;)

  
↑ I ate them on the ship and surprisingly it cost me only €3　including drink!! I enjoyed meal with beautiful view.

 

↑　This is creamy caramel ice cream. I got it in Valetta and it taste sweet and texture was soft and creamy :)

 
↑ I think you've seen it in Japan, but you can't find it in Japan. The flavor was blood orange. Of course it was great!!

And I ate delirious sea urchin pasta. Malta is an island, so it is famous for sea food.
I like enjoying meal in foreign countries!!

I became hungry... so I think I should stop here.lol
See you!!

Blog#7 : Summer activity

 I went to Ikebukuro with my friend and had fun.  We ate lunch there. The spagetti we ate there was great and I like it. After lunch, we walk and looked for a desert. We wanted to see movie, but we couldn't, so I want to see them next time!!

Blog #8: Taiwan

Hello, everyone! This is Saori. It's starting to cool off. Autumn is the season for good appetite, harvest, reading and the art. So let’s enjoy beautiful autumn! :)

This summer vacation, I went to Taiwan for 3 days to travel with my friends! Taiwan is a Chinese island located in the west coast of the Pacific Ocean. We went for a trip in September, but there was so hot and humid. I introduce some great sightseeing spots!

This is National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. (国立中正記念館)

This monument was made for the first President of the Republic of China publicly. When we arrived this place, we were just overwhelmed in the magnificent building and huge area of the park. We couldn’t say any words besides beautiful.

    The next place is Hsing Tian Kong. (行天宮)

  

This is the famous temple in Taiwan and devoted to Guan Yu (関羽) who is the god of businessmen. There are many people there to pray for their wish. My friend and I challenged Taiwanese pray. First say the name, the address of home, and the birthday in my mind to tell the god who prays to him. Then pray what I want him to come true. It was so interesting!

  

Last place is Din Tai Fung. (鼎泰豊)

This is the most famous restaurant in Taiwan! Actually, I was looking forward to visiting this restaurant! Din Tai Fung is known internationally for its xiaolongbao (小籠包). However, it is also known for its chicken soup, seaweed, bean sprouts, and mung bean noodle. Of course we ate 小龍包！！It was so delicious!!! This restaurant is also opened in 新宿!

I was moved many great places, yet most impressed thing is the warmness of the people. When we are lost the way to get to the station, many people helped us to go there before we asked them. They are so gentle and kind that my friend and I were deeply impressed to their warmness! I really recommend the trip Taiwan!

Saori Aida

Blog #7: Memories of summer vacation

Good evening, everyone :-)

I'm Nozomi.

It's been ages!

I want to speak today about my summer vacation.

In the mid August I went to Numazu, in Shizuoka prefecture for an overnight seminar camp. There I listened to interim reports of graduation theses by forth year students. In addition, I played dodge ball, long rope jumping and so on with my friends and a seminar professor.

The camp gave me a precious experience: making kamaboko, a steamed fish paste, and chikuwa, a tubular roll of boiled fish paste. I have a picture of chikuwa which I made. It is the left one. My chikuwa is far from a general one...

In the camp I could build more close relationship with my friends and the professor, and had a good time.

Blog #8: Getting nervous

by Asami Yoshikawa



Hello everyone, this is Asami. October 5^th presentation makes me nervous! However, I will try to do my best on my presentation. Once you get nervous, do you have any methods to take your mind off your tension? There are many ways to extricating people from the stress or nervous in Japanese style! I would like to introduce some of them: to stroke over palm to “write” “人(human)”, to imagine that there is a balloon, and think about something until balloon break up, and think about that audiences are “vegetable”.

1.     To write “human” in your hand

when you gets many audience, you will feel a sense of being overwhelmed by audiences. This method is to think when you write a “human” in your hand, and then you drink(imagine!) it, you will not be taken in audiences atmosphere. The reasons are: you can “hold” your audience in you hand, and the number of audiences will decrease because you drunk them!

2.     To image balloon that bursts

When your tension is the highest nervous, like a taut wire, let’s think about that there is a balloon in your mind. Then it bursts, your tension will be burst, too! However this method is kind of strange because I think I will not 
 have room to breathe if I get nervous. Sometimes people imagines water balloon and insert a needle into the water balloon.

3.     Suppose audiences are vegetable

When you get many audiences, you will get nervous so this way is to think that audiences are not human, so “there are no audiences”. Usually it is used for cheer someone up. In Japan, regularly people called audiences as a potato, and sheets for audiences are like a potato field.


I can only say that this is kind of escaping way from the worst situation that superstition ever invited if only so felt and so remembered. True problem of getting nervous is the mind, so if your mind is clear, then you will not be high tension. Moreover, sometimes nervous makes you to be susceptible so you will mention that usually not noticed. Please try those methods, or find your ways to escape from getting nervous!