VS Honeymoon

I'm planning a honeymoon now.

Recently, the couple without a wedding party is increasing in Japan. The party costs very much, and it is sometimes not only for the couple, but also for their families, in Japan. Even now, some Japanese think a marriage is not an individual matter but a family's one.
It is not bad in general to respect their family, but sometimes, Japanese wedding party is too formal and boring. So, the people who disike such a party, don't want to have a wedding party. I can understand it.

But, a honeymoon is diffrent. Many new couples like to have it. The first travel with his/her partner is a very important event. It must be a great memory for them. Moreover they can understand each other more in an unusual situation and place. It must be a good chance to test their partners for their long life. And, needless to say, the first travel includes the first night. All couples have to make a rule, a style, a format, a manner or something on their bed at the night. That's why a honeymoon can't be missed by all couples.

My friend Marcy will get married on Nov. And, another friend Kosei will on Dec. too.
Now I'm planning "their" honeymoon. Because, I want to attend them.
It is very good for me to know what kind of honeymoon is successful or not. By arranging it, I can sharpen my honeymoon skill for my honeymoon coming someday.

Now I present my plan to the two friends.
One is confused. Another is asking his wife.
They don't seem to understand why I can attend them. But, they will know the merit of my plan soon.
As we know in general or from our experiece, two persons' travel is very risky for their relationship. They can't escape from fighting.
Therefore, the existing of the person on a neutral position is very helpful for the couples' long time relationship.
I am waiting for their answer "We follow you."

VS Monkey Park

Still hot and humid in Japan. To wipe away our sweat on the face, blue handkerchiefs are needed still. But, we are also feeling a slight change of summer. It looks to prepare for leaving. The festival season is certainly gradually finishing.

I used a few holidays to go to Kyoto, my home town and the most classical city in Japan. I don't always have anything special when visiting my home town, but I go there a few times a year. What I do there is only to see my family, friends and a dog. For I'm not a traveller in Kyoto, I don't have to go to many sight-seeing spots. I can just be relaxed there.

However, as we know, when coming back from a trip, our friends usually ask us a lot about the trip; where did you visit?, what's happened in the trip?, how about the food? etc.
They must have many questions.
But, my answer can be "I visited my parent's house, watched TV with them and ate the dishes my mother cooked." That must make my friends disappointed easily.

That's why, though I didn't have to and want to, I went to a sight-seeing area with my friend. The aim was to make a special episode in this travel.
I went to Arashiyama area.

The area is located in the north-west in Kyoto city. It's famous for beautiful forests and rivers. In fall, the forests bocome yellow, orange and red beautifully. Many people visit there to see the beautiful nature in the season.

Even in summer now, certainly the nature in Arashiyama was beautiful. The air was cool, and the sound of rivers were comfortable. They were nice.
But...., to be honest, I prefer Human to Nature. So, I wanted more attractive events there.
Looking at a travel map for a short time, I found out a good event spot. There are a monkey park there.
Monkey. It's a human...in the future. So, it looked fitted to my preference.

In front of the park, we can see a notice soon.
"Don't look at monkey's eyes. If you do it, they think you are hostile to them, and will attack you."
Ok. I tried not to look at them in the park.

A few problems happend.
First. A lot of monkeys lives there. So, it was very difficult to avoid looking at them.
Second. The monkeys were often looking at me, maybe because they think I have something to eat.
Third. Only when looking at the sky, I could escape from the risk of looking at monkey's eyes. But, it was very boring. "Why am I here now?"

In the park, I tried to only "glance at" them, not look. And, I sometimes whistled to show my peaceful personality to them. I think(or I hope) they could understand my message.
But, maybe, their interest was only whether we have foods or not. So, they didn't seem to have any interest in me, because I didn't have any foods.
At the end of my walking in the park, no monkey looked at me. (They looked at only the people with some foods.) It might be good for me because I could easily avoid looking at their eyes.
However, I want to say, they were impolite.
They should study social manners a little more if they want to be a human someday.
I was a guest in the park, and they are staffs or something there. So, they sould show their politeness to a guest a little more. They shouldn't ignore the guest. They were disappointing.

Conclusion: Monkey has't been Human yet.

VS Samurai Base

Japanese has the desire to be boiled regularly with high-mineral water. So, we invented hot springs.
Last Saturday, I and my friends went to a Japanese restaurent with hot springs, JINYA.

This restaurant has not only hot springs but also hotel rooms, party rooms, a bar and a beautiful garden.
In addition, it has an unique history.
Long time ago, it was Samurai's base. It was used for Samurai's sword practice, in Kamakura eara, about 800 years ago. The existing houses are not the ones built such a log time ago, but they are 250 - 400 years old! Yes, historical enough. We can see Samurai's armors, swords and many other old stuffs there.

You might know TOTORO, an Japanese animation. I found a picture of TOTORO there. I didn't know its relation to the restaurant, but soon the restaurant manager explained it to us.

Fact 1: The restaurant was owned by Mr. Miyazaki.
Fact 2: TOTORO was directed by a famous animation director, Hayao Miyazaki. But, he doesn't manage a restaurant.

Answer: Hayao Miyazaki is a JINYA's relatives.

I heard from the manager that he is the restaurant owner's cousin.
He spent a lot of time there, and got the inspiration of his animation. That's why the picture of his animation character is displayed there.

We used only hot springs there this time, but didn't use the restaurant. When I used it with my co-workers for a party before, the dishes were very good. We could enjoy authentic Japaese foods there. And, the place's classical mood made the party very gorgeous. If you want to have a special party near my area, JINYA is good and reasonable(it's important).

VS Sydney(3)

My traveling policy is to forget my home culture and to focus on the local one. For example; for foods, I think I should eat the local food only.
However, in this trip, I ate a lot of Japanese foods in Sydney. One of the reasons was because my friend Peter loves Japanese food. Another reason was that I was interested in Japanese foods foreigner cooked. How do they interpret Japanese foods?

We went to a Japanese restaurant, KATSURA, which is located in Neutral Bay in Sydney, where many Japanese lives. The restaurant has two divisions; one serves Sushi and Sake, and another serves Yakiniku.
The chef was Korean. For me at first, it was strange that Korean cooked Japanese food. But, he was a good chef. I heard from him that he had studied Japanese dishes for ten years in Japan. In Australia, the materials for Japanese disies are limited, but I could enjoy his work very much.

Another Japanese restaurant, TOTOYA, was also great. It is also located in Neutral Bay.
It is completely same as Japanese typical Izakaya. I could enjoy Yakitori, Tofu, Karaage, Edamame, etc.
I don't know why, but all customer there except for us was Chinese people.

I could go to even Karaoke Box in Sydney, after drinking.
Second stage is generally needed in Japan. Sydney can give it us. For Japanese, no incovenient factor is there. We enjoyed singing a lot of Japanese songs there.

I couldn't have the chance to go to the most famous Japanese (or Japanese-French) restaurant, Tetsuya's. I heard that the restaurant is No.4 in a restaurant competition in the world. We have to book the seat before six months!
I shouldn't miss the restaurant when I visit Sydney next time.

Looking back to my trip to Australia, I have a lot of things I can write here. But, I stop it now.
The last thing I should write is that Syaney is a beautiful city. The wind from the sea was very comfortable. Many historical architectures were beautiful.
I wanna visit there again in Summer time. It may be soon.

VS Sydney(2)

I visited a typical Australian home one day.
When I came into the house, I was comfused; whether I should take my shoes off or not? Because, in the house, the sons and a daughter didn't put shoes on, but the parent did. I couldn't the shoes rule in the house soon.
So, I asked them what to do with my shoes.
The answer was clear. "It's up to you."

This episode was the impressive one for me to understand Australia, and maybe the countries like Australia.
As we know, Australia is the country that many immigrants come together. So, the society is very multi-cultural. It has British culture, Italian, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean and so on. Each person has a very different and unique backgraund. This cultural variety makes Australia attractive.
On the other hand, therefore, it looks difficult to share the same sense of value there.
As we know better, many conflicts can easily happen among the people with the diffrent sense of value.
But, Australian people has a good wisdom to escape from such a problem. "Up to you" is their culture.
They don't mind others too much.
Thus, I could be relaxed in Sydney very much. More relaxed in Japan, I think.
Of course, it doesn't mean they don't care for others. In fact, they are very friendly and easy-going.

Japanese and other Aisan countries' cultures seem to be diffrent from Australia.
Our culture is also internationalized to some extent, but still domestic.
The culture in Asia is a mosaic. Japan is Japan. China is China. Korea is. India is....
We might say that it is also a good point for Asia. But, it sometimes makes us to understand each other.

(To be continued)

VS Sydney(1)

I spent my 10 days holiday in Australia. It was my first visit of Australia, and English-speaking country in my life. Before flying to the country, I was very excited. To be relaxed, I continued to drink beer in Narita airport. It was a great taste.

Now Japan is in summer, but Australia is in winter. After 9 hours' flight, the season changed dynamicaly. I was in T-shirt. It was very cold. But, the temparature was about 10 degrees. So, for Japanese, it was like early spring. Australia is a basicaly warm country.

On the first day I walked around the center of Sydney city, and went to Manly to see my friend, Peter.
Sydney is a business city, a commercial city, a cultural city and a multi-cultural city. This kind of city isn't in Japan. If I have to find out a simillar type city in Japan, Yokohama may be closer. But, Sydney is very original.

My company, Kinokuniya, has a book store in Sydney. So, I went to check it first. It was a very big store, and I heard it was the biggest book store in Australia. I met a friend working there, and had a coffee in the store cafe. As I wrote above, Sydney is multi-cultural. Thus, the book store there is also multi-cultural. There are varieties of books there; English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and other languages' books. It's very interesting for working place.

In this trip, I drunk a lot of cups of coffee.
Actually there are many coffee shops in Sydney. Everybody drink a coffee outside. Outside drinking and eating is a very important culture there. It's very relaxing and makes our feelings open. Especially near the beach, it is very good to drink a coffee listening to the sound of the wave.

Food was also great.
I ate very delicious pizzas near Dee Why beach. Lamb meet pizza was so great. I enjoyed it drinking beautiful red wine.
In this trip, I enjoyed a lot of foods I can't eat in Japan.
Kangaroo meat was one of them.
It was very light, not oily, and easy to eat. I ate it when I went ot Hunter Valley, the most famous place for wine making. The meat was fitted to red wine very much.

If you like wine and have the chanece to go to Australia, Hanter Valley is the place you shouldn't miss the chance to visit.

(To be continued)

VS Kids Engish

When we can explain something to others, we can say "I understand it."

That's why I am trying the course of English teaching for kids.
I took a group lesson recently. It was very fun.
I could learn from a professional teacher how to teach English for kids. Her method was very logical, rational and very professonal. She is investigating kids' mind and has a great technique to catch their interest. I watched her demonstration lesson. During watching, I became a kid. I thought she was a magician.

Teaching not only English but also everything to kids is a difficult thing.
They don't share almost any knowledge with us. So, we can't use almost any resource to explain something.
When we teach English to kids, we sometimes use Japanese to explain. But, kids are not even good Japanese speakers. Thus, our explanation in Japanese can not be enough for them.
Therefore, we have to use gestures, body languages, games, songs, and so on.

If I quit my job, book-selling, it might be good to be an English teacher for kids.
In Japan, learning English is just a leraning.
But, I think learnig English or any other languages is to brush up our communication skill. We should understand and try a different communication style from Japanese.

To brush up my communication level, I will go to Australia today.
I am excited now.