hirosさんの日記 - 英会話ドットネット-英語クイズSNS

A short stay in Japan

2008-06-12T19:00:09+09:00

I came back to UK from Japan. During my stay in Japan, I went to a cheap sushi restaurant with a French and a New Zealander. All of us strongly agreed with the opinion that English dishes are not delicious. Furthermore, we know that even many Englishmen agree with the opinion. Then why don’t they change their life style to enjoy delicious dishes? I know that cultural traditions are not easily changed. But, the New Zealander said that, although New Zealand inherited food culture from Britain, the dishes were much better introducing sea foods and etc. By the way, it was their first time to try natto-maki. The sushi master had a strong concern if they liked it or not. But, they said that they liked it very much.

Coming back to Japan

2008-05-31T06:33:12+09:00

I am going to come back to Japan tomorrow in order to join an international conference in Kyoto. It is only two month since I left Japan. However, I sometimes feel that my life in Japan is like a dream. I gradually loose the feeling of reality.

How is my home which is empty now? How are the flowers in my garden? I hope that they will welcome me. Oh, returning to the real world, I need to be ready for the conference.

The Megalithic Culture in Great Briton

2008-05-19T17:47:44+09:00

I had a trip by car to Cotswolds, where many English traditional villages are kept as they used to be. The scenery around there was very beautiful. Houses are built of stones. Therefore, it is very interesting to see that the color of each village is up to the color of stones quarried from its nearest mountain. Some villages are yellow, whereas the others are gray.

In my way home, I dropped in Avebury Stone Circle and Stonehenge. They are the remains of the Neolithic age about 5000 years ago. It is my great wonder how rulers at that time could make people work to build such big stone monuments. It is inferred that the remains are a consequent of two streams from East. One is the spread of agriculture from Near East. It seems that agriculture changed people’s life style from hunter-gatherer to settling farmer, made the differences greater between rich and poor, and thus between rulers and the ruled. The other is the spread of megalithic culture from Ancient Egypt. I think the big stone was used as the symbol of the power of rulers.

The final matches of Premiership fooball of this season

2008-05-11T23:22:08+09:00

I like watching football games not only on TV but in stadiums. I am a crazy supporter of Kyoto. I was in a great joy at Hiroshima stadium last December when Kyoto got qualified to go up to J1, But, it does not well at the latest match, hence I have a strong concern if it goes down to J2 again.

By they way, I like England football, too. In England, the Championship (it’s the second league) matches finished, and all the final matches of Premiership starts from 3pm today. However, it is a pity that no channels provide a program of any matches (In UK, Premiership matches are televised in Skysports channels.). Now Manchester United and Chelsea are at the top. Both get 84 points. Manchester United is facing Wigan, whereas Chelsea is facing Bolton. The goal difference of Manchester United is more. Hence if both teams win, Manchester United gets the title.

The Phantom of the Opera

2008-05-03T00:20:35+09:00

I went to Her Majesty’s Theatre in London to watch the Phantom of the Opera yesterday evening. This is a famous musical consisting of two acts, and it is so famous that maybe I need not introduce it to you. If you are interested in it, please visit the following webpage.

http://www.thephantomoftheopera.com/poto/home.php

It was just once that I watched a film version of this on TV. What had been remembered was just some music in this musical. Hence, it was just for my curiosity to watch this in the theatre. However, as you can easily imagine, the plays, music, performance, and stage were all excellent. The story itself can be interpreted from many views. It can be viewed as a sad love story, an interesting play having some plays within, a mental development and a skill up of the heroin Christine, and so on. From the final view I have just pointed out, we are not able to find the phantom is real or not. The phantom can be just an image of herself in her inner world which helped her to develop herself.

Roundabout in UK

2008-04-27T02:15:56+09:00

I had a one-day driving to a forest park near my home. Now I am gradually getting used to driving in UK. At first, because some traffic signals, rules, and customs are different from those of Japan, I often come up against cases where I don’t know what I should do. Roundabout was a kind of devil at first. Although I used to driving along this, but I still think that it is a product of irrational idea. Traffic jam is not terrible in the country side in UK where I live. Even so, I often come across heavy traffic jam facing some roundabouts in busy time. How do British people believe that the roundabout is rational for driving?

My life starts in UK

2008-04-21T04:59:37+09:00

I arrived at UK on 1st April, and am to live here for a year. I’ve been here for several times, but this is my first time to live. It was tough to set up many things for my life : to set up phone, to make internet available, to pay council tax, to get TV license, to make a registration in GP, to buy a car, and so on.

Gradually, I’m getting used to the life here, noticing many differences between Japan and UK. I’ve found which goods or foods have reasonable price in a supermarket. As you can imagine, some are very reasonable and cheap, whereas the others are terribly expensive without high quality.

British are very interesting people who created industrial revolution, and make their language international, whereas are not sensitive to create fine arts and music. Furthermore, foods are not nice. I believe that the key word to resolve this is ‘rationality’. But, now, I need to know what the rationality that British people believe in is? I will keep this question during my stay here.