少なくともこの州ではファションを気にしなくてもよい。自分にとっては大変楽なことである。
Living in a big city like Tokyo was very exciting. It always has new restaurants to visit, new food to taste, new department stores for shopping, new amusement parks, and everything else one can imagine. There are always concerts for popular musicians and singers. There are also many movie selections. Weekly entertainment magazines are filled with information about these activities. Several years ago, Tokyo even had an artificial ski dome. The restaurants are open late, and many of them are open 24 hours. Sometimes one might have difficulty deciding among the many choices. Rarely does one feel that there is nothing to do. Conversely, living in a small city or town is a completely different story. The choices are limited in terms of what one can do. The smaller city usually only has things that were highly popular a short while ago in Tokyo. Lately, this situation is changing a bit and some pop-culture items are arriving earlier, but there is still a time lag. There are some concerts for musicians that were once quite popular, but not now. To attend a concert by a currently popular musician is a very rare opportunity. The weekly event magazine is really thin and choosing a restaurant is often difficult because of the low selection. A resident from a larger town also has a different fashion look and style. There are more fashionable people in big cities. They have the latest clothes, hairstyle, and accessories. Sometimes, just watching people walking in Tokyo is really fun. Often, I will see “goofy looking” people in a small town. According to population statistics, most people in Tokyo were not born and raised there. They moved into Tokyo somewhere in the middle of their life, so they should look the same. Why one might ask, is this the case? This is possibly due to both inspiration and imitation. You see some one dressed fashionably and get inspired and someone else sees you and also gets inspired. As a matter of fact, I don’t care about what to wear in Wonderland, but when I go to Tokyo, I am forced to care about what to wear. There is much more social pressure to try and “fit-in” by being cool and wearing fashionable clothing.
2008年4月30日水曜日
2008年4月29日火曜日
大都市と小さな都市
米リカ合衆国にはすばらしい国立公園がたくさんある
To me, living in a big city is “exciting” and living in a small city is “boring.” My hometown has pleasant mountains and a nice-looking ocean. It’s truly a beautiful city. To me, living in a big city is “dirty” and living in a small city is “beautiful.” In a sense, my family was quite conservative. There is an older, traditional way of thinking in Japan. My parents seemed to think that the oldest brother is #1 in everything and I didn’t like that way of thinking. I wanted to become very independent. I wanted to get away from my parents. I left my hometown at age 18 to move to Tokyo. At age 28, I left Tokyo for the Komerica. I felt like I had come a long way, but after several years I realized that Wonderland is a similar city to my hometown. I was trying to get away from my hometown and I traveled all the way to the other side of Japan on the earth, but the final destination was very similar to my hometown. I was born and raised in a small city with a population of approximately 300 thousand. The population of Tokyo was around 10 million. Compared to Tokyo, I lived in a really small city. Most of the things I saw on TV were focused mainly on things happening in Tokyo. Tokyo seemed to have everything I wanted in life and I grew up longing to live in Tokyo. Right after I graduated from high school, I made the change and decided to move to Tokyo and start enjoying the big city lifestyle.
To me, living in a big city is “exciting” and living in a small city is “boring.” My hometown has pleasant mountains and a nice-looking ocean. It’s truly a beautiful city. To me, living in a big city is “dirty” and living in a small city is “beautiful.” In a sense, my family was quite conservative. There is an older, traditional way of thinking in Japan. My parents seemed to think that the oldest brother is #1 in everything and I didn’t like that way of thinking. I wanted to become very independent. I wanted to get away from my parents. I left my hometown at age 18 to move to Tokyo. At age 28, I left Tokyo for the Komerica. I felt like I had come a long way, but after several years I realized that Wonderland is a similar city to my hometown. I was trying to get away from my hometown and I traveled all the way to the other side of Japan on the earth, but the final destination was very similar to my hometown. I was born and raised in a small city with a population of approximately 300 thousand. The population of Tokyo was around 10 million. Compared to Tokyo, I lived in a really small city. Most of the things I saw on TV were focused mainly on things happening in Tokyo. Tokyo seemed to have everything I wanted in life and I grew up longing to live in Tokyo. Right after I graduated from high school, I made the change and decided to move to Tokyo and start enjoying the big city lifestyle.
2008年4月28日月曜日
ネットワーク ルーター
何年か前までは米リカ合衆国の方がブロードバンドは進んでいたと思う。いつの間にか逆転されてしまった。日本のブロードバンドの方が安くて早い。これができたのは、日本は国が小さいというのが一つの理由かもしれない。
Lately, every morning we have been having problems with our home network. Originally, I had thought the problem was being caused by the cable company, but that was not the case. It turns out that there was a problem with our network router. I went to a local computer shop and purchased a new router. Right after I came home, I told my house mate that I bought a new router since he was complaining about the network issue. He replied, “thank you, but the network problem seems to be gone for now.” A small part of me regretted buying a new router, but I also realize that in the long run this issue is going to be occurring again and again.
Lately, every morning we have been having problems with our home network. Originally, I had thought the problem was being caused by the cable company, but that was not the case. It turns out that there was a problem with our network router. I went to a local computer shop and purchased a new router. Right after I came home, I told my house mate that I bought a new router since he was complaining about the network issue. He replied, “thank you, but the network problem seems to be gone for now.” A small part of me regretted buying a new router, but I also realize that in the long run this issue is going to be occurring again and again.
2008年4月27日日曜日
デジタル カメラ
基本的に米リカ合衆国では買ったものは使っても返品できる。友達や知り合いが返品したもの。コンピュータ、ビデオカメラ、鉄アレイ、服、ローラーブレード、テント。この国ではとりあえず買って使ってみるのがいいのかもしれない。
Today, my friend went to buy a digital camera and I went along with him for the support. My friend will be going back to Japan very soon. He had been in a little trouble because his digital camera was recently broken. He bought travel insurance and that covered $250 for the camera. In his insurance plan, he was trying to buy the camera under that amount. The broken one was about 2 or 3 years old and the price was about $400. As first glance, there was a new camera for $150 which had about the same features as his broken camera. But after we talked to the sales person, we found out that the $150 one is not as good as his broken one. While we were checking around and exploring our options, we found one which was around $200. This one seemed to be kind of average, but my friend wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. Then he saw a sign saying that the store had a 30 day full refund policy. There is no such thing as this type of wonderful policy in Japan. Over there, once a customer buys something, they are usually stuck with it no matter what. He decided to purchase the camera and if he is not completely satisfied with it, he will return it before going back to Japan. He looked quite happy when he bought that camera.
Today, my friend went to buy a digital camera and I went along with him for the support. My friend will be going back to Japan very soon. He had been in a little trouble because his digital camera was recently broken. He bought travel insurance and that covered $250 for the camera. In his insurance plan, he was trying to buy the camera under that amount. The broken one was about 2 or 3 years old and the price was about $400. As first glance, there was a new camera for $150 which had about the same features as his broken camera. But after we talked to the sales person, we found out that the $150 one is not as good as his broken one. While we were checking around and exploring our options, we found one which was around $200. This one seemed to be kind of average, but my friend wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. Then he saw a sign saying that the store had a 30 day full refund policy. There is no such thing as this type of wonderful policy in Japan. Over there, once a customer buys something, they are usually stuck with it no matter what. He decided to purchase the camera and if he is not completely satisfied with it, he will return it before going back to Japan. He looked quite happy when he bought that camera.
2008年4月26日土曜日
湖の公園
Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of the nice weather by going to park near my place to read several essays. I spread a large blanket on the soft grass and laid down for reading. This was a very happy moment for me. It was quite comfortable. In the past, when I was working for a large company, reading an English book during the daytime would have been a truly unimaginable scene. People say, “If one can imagine something, it will come true”. The saying might be true. At any rate, regarding this weeks reading, it’s really been quite tough. There were many words I simply didn’t know. I had to look up those words in the dictionary many times. Perhaps, one day I will eventually no longer need dictionaries, but I wonder when that day will come. Since I read the essays, today’s quiz went better than the last time a little bit. My only regret was that I missed the question about what was the age of the author when she got sick. I had thought the answer was 7, but it turns out the correct response was 4.
ジャンバラヤ
Currently, my housemate’s brother is staying at my home. Originally, I was asked to let him stay for a couple of days, but I think it’s now been about one week. He is very quiet. He is also a really neat and organized person. So, I didn’t mind his staying longer, but I think he is sorry for that. He invited me for dinner last night. He made it especially for me. This was a really tasty dish. My housemate is about my height, but 60 lbs. heavier than me. I think because of his diet. Primarily, he eats and drinks Dr. Pepper, Cherry Coke, steak fajitas, Papa Johns pizza, mint-chocolate chip ice cream, Chips Ahoy cookies and Reese’s peanut butter cups. However, he does not eat many vegetables or fruits. His brother seems to have a similar appearance. He is also kind of a big guy. I thought he must have a similar diet to my housemate. However, I was mistaken. He really enjoys eating healthy food. He eats different types of meat, but he also eats vegetable too. So, the dish he made, Cajun chicken jambalaya, had a lot of vegetables too. After I eat tasty healthy food, I have a happy feeling and am quite relaxed.
2008年4月25日金曜日
オブジェクト指向
Lately, I have been devoting myself to C# coding. It’s pretty crazy on keeping me busy with long hours, but I enjoy it a great deal. I was a system engineer and coded quite a bit, but I did not do that much in C# until recently when I had a C# class. Writing code now is super fun to me. The C# programming language was created with the idea of being object-oriented. The concept of object-oriented programming has been around for a long time and there were various kinds of object-oriented programming languages, but there were never any computer programming languages that truly implemented the idea fully. I liked the idea, but since there was never a perfect object-oriented program language, I had given up on learning it. However, time went by and now the technology has progressed. It does exist now in a very efficient format. I used to think that if there was this kind of program language, I could do this and that and everything in between. Now, I see that I can do most of the things I want to do with this truly object-oriented program language. Over the last several weeks, I have been thinking about programming all the time. I am quite addicted to C# these days. I sit in front of the computer for more than 15 hours straight and often without any food or drink. I should probably stop myself from doing this, but I can’t help it. I just wonder how long this time in my life will continue.
2008年4月23日水曜日
日本食レストラン
外国に住んでいると日本食レストランはとてもありがたい。寿司や天ぷらなどは比較的簡単に手にはいるがそれ以外がなかなか食べられない。ラーメンもなかなかおいしいのがない。
Shigeko is a very cute and powerful woman. She runs a cozy Japanese restaurant in downtown Wonderland by herself. I often go to see her. She sometimes says, “I’m your Orecon grandmother”, but she does not look that old. She is probably about my mother's age. I recall a time when I was impressed with Shigeko, who cherishes me like her grandson. One day, a person who wanted to buy her restaurant appeared. Shigeko consulted with her daughter quite seriously about this matter. Shigeko began leaning towards selling her restaurant. After some time had passed, she started consulting with her daughter about a new lunch service for the restaurant. Her daughter asked her, “I thought you were going to sell this restaurant?” Shigeko replied, “Maybe this restaurant is going to be sold or maybe not, only god knows about the true outcome. I will try my best on making this restaurant succeed until the very last second.” I was quite impressed with her uplifting attitude. She always tries her best against anything she encounters and I felt like she radiated an energetic power that day. Sometimes, Shigeko can be a bit scatter-brained and she can sometimes make a mistake with an order. However, she has many fans at her restaurant and a large number of "regulars," because she is always smiling and she always tries to give her customers great service.
Shigeko is a very cute and powerful woman. She runs a cozy Japanese restaurant in downtown Wonderland by herself. I often go to see her. She sometimes says, “I’m your Orecon grandmother”, but she does not look that old. She is probably about my mother's age. I recall a time when I was impressed with Shigeko, who cherishes me like her grandson. One day, a person who wanted to buy her restaurant appeared. Shigeko consulted with her daughter quite seriously about this matter. Shigeko began leaning towards selling her restaurant. After some time had passed, she started consulting with her daughter about a new lunch service for the restaurant. Her daughter asked her, “I thought you were going to sell this restaurant?” Shigeko replied, “Maybe this restaurant is going to be sold or maybe not, only god knows about the true outcome. I will try my best on making this restaurant succeed until the very last second.” I was quite impressed with her uplifting attitude. She always tries her best against anything she encounters and I felt like she radiated an energetic power that day. Sometimes, Shigeko can be a bit scatter-brained and she can sometimes make a mistake with an order. However, she has many fans at her restaurant and a large number of "regulars," because she is always smiling and she always tries to give her customers great service.
2008年4月22日火曜日
米リカ合衆国と自動車
米リカ合衆国は、ほんと自動車社会だと思う。ほんと自動車なしじゃやっていけない。だから Orecon 州では１６歳から免許を取れる。ガソリンは日本より安いけど、自動車保険は高いのかなあ？
After living in Komerica for several years, I feel that the best representation of Komerican life is the car. It is used not only for daily life such as traveling to work, running errands, and shopping, but cars are also widely used for leisure traveling or vacations. If I were in Japan, I wouldn’t even think about driving to such places as the Whistler ski resort in Canada for a vacation, due to such a long distance of approximately 400 miles from Wonderland. However, because Komerica is a society dominated by cars, Komerica’s car environments are very nice. At public spaces such as colleges, hospitals, and malls, there are always plentiful and large parking spaces. The roads are wide and there are many lanes to use. In Japan, I never saw 5 lanes for a one way road. Gasoline prices in the U.S. are about half compared to the price of gas in Japan. The fact that the highway is practically free is amazing. If the Interstate Bridge were in Japan, you would have to pay 10 dollars every time you crossed the bridge. While I was in Japan, I used to walk around 10,000 steps a day, but now my pedometer says I am averaging only 2,000 steps each day. In fact, I have gained more than 10 pounds since I arrived in Komerica, due to my dependence on the automobile. This reinforces my belief that the “Car is the Komerican way of life.” My life in Komerica seems to be a life from garage to garage or garage to parking lot.
After living in Komerica for several years, I feel that the best representation of Komerican life is the car. It is used not only for daily life such as traveling to work, running errands, and shopping, but cars are also widely used for leisure traveling or vacations. If I were in Japan, I wouldn’t even think about driving to such places as the Whistler ski resort in Canada for a vacation, due to such a long distance of approximately 400 miles from Wonderland. However, because Komerica is a society dominated by cars, Komerica’s car environments are very nice. At public spaces such as colleges, hospitals, and malls, there are always plentiful and large parking spaces. The roads are wide and there are many lanes to use. In Japan, I never saw 5 lanes for a one way road. Gasoline prices in the U.S. are about half compared to the price of gas in Japan. The fact that the highway is practically free is amazing. If the Interstate Bridge were in Japan, you would have to pay 10 dollars every time you crossed the bridge. While I was in Japan, I used to walk around 10,000 steps a day, but now my pedometer says I am averaging only 2,000 steps each day. In fact, I have gained more than 10 pounds since I arrived in Komerica, due to my dependence on the automobile. This reinforces my belief that the “Car is the Komerican way of life.” My life in Komerica seems to be a life from garage to garage or garage to parking lot.
2008年4月21日月曜日
ホットヨガ
Hi, I decided to start my blog from today on. Whatever I come up with in my mind I will put it here. So this place would be for my journals and essays. I will try to write this blog in English. However my mother tongue is not English, it might switch to Japanese, but I will do my best, though :-)
For the first day, it’s about hot yoga!
初めてホットヨガに行って来ました！ 気持ちよかった！
I heard a lot of good things about hot yoga and finally I went there to see for myself what it was like. It’s not just yoga. It’s yoga in a very hot room. Once I entered the room, there were several heaters running and the room was extremely hot!I don’t know if this is true or not, but here is what I understand about hot yoga. Yoga originated from the country of India, where it is a very hot all year round. If you learn yoga in a manner similar to the environment of India, you will be able to learn yoga more efficiently. Actually, it is very good to learn this way! I had never done hot yoga before, even regular yoga. Yoga is similar to intense stretching, but somehow its poses are more mysterious. Maybe this is due to the fact that yoga came from India which I believe to still be a somewhat mysterious place for most people. I tend to have bad posture and sometimes I get a backache. Probably hot yoga will help fix my bad posture, but above all sweating a lot was quite comfortable to me. I probably lost more sweat than I ever have in my life there. I would definitely go one more time to figure out more about hot yoga.
For the first day, it’s about hot yoga!
初めてホットヨガに行って来ました！ 気持ちよかった！
I heard a lot of good things about hot yoga and finally I went there to see for myself what it was like. It’s not just yoga. It’s yoga in a very hot room. Once I entered the room, there were several heaters running and the room was extremely hot!I don’t know if this is true or not, but here is what I understand about hot yoga. Yoga originated from the country of India, where it is a very hot all year round. If you learn yoga in a manner similar to the environment of India, you will be able to learn yoga more efficiently. Actually, it is very good to learn this way! I had never done hot yoga before, even regular yoga. Yoga is similar to intense stretching, but somehow its poses are more mysterious. Maybe this is due to the fact that yoga came from India which I believe to still be a somewhat mysterious place for most people. I tend to have bad posture and sometimes I get a backache. Probably hot yoga will help fix my bad posture, but above all sweating a lot was quite comfortable to me. I probably lost more sweat than I ever have in my life there. I would definitely go one more time to figure out more about hot yoga.
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