2018年5月11日金曜日

2018年5月11日金曜日 -

Tony： My Golden Week


This year my family didn't make any travel plans for Golden Week. We decided to stay in Kansai, try to find some local things to do, clean the house, and maybe sell a few things on Mercari. Living in Osaka means there is no shortage of things to do, but we didn't even want to catch a train, so for a bit of adventure we chose to walk from one end of our local shopping street to the other for the first time in years. 
       It took no time at all to find something new. There was a new pizza restaurant with a karate dojo on the second floor. Previously a florist had been in that building. The pizza shop owner was out front, and after we introduced ourselves he told us that he'd been living in New York for the last five years, fell in love with the pizza there, and now that he was back in Japan all he could think about was recreating the pizza that he'd fallen in love with.  We went back a day later and ate awesome pizza!
       Past the pizza shop things looked the same. A stationary shop with faded advertisements, a coffee shop with a picture of Arnold Shwarzenegger in the window, an off-brand 100-yen shop, a bike shop, a Chinese restaurant, a senbei shop, a korokke shop, a candy shop, a takoyaki stand, a socks shop. Really normal stuff for a local shopping street. But, something seemed missing.
       It was my son who noticed. Toyota's Karaage was gone! I'd been buying fried chicken from Toyota-San for the past 17 years! His shop was gone and nothing had replaced it. The steel shutters were down, and there was no notice on the door. The shop next door sold tofu, and the old guy who ran it was out front, recognized us, and waved us over.


       “What happened to Toyota-San?” I asked.
       “He retired,” said the old guy, with a short, sharp wave of his hand. He looked irritated.
       “That seems kind of early,” I said. “He wasn't even sixty yet, was he?”
       The tofu seller eyes flashed and his lips pressed thin.
       “Early? Yes it was early! I'm seventy-one and here I am working everyday and Toyota-San retires before he's even sixty. Some peoples' luck! He won the damn lottery!”
       We talked a little longer, I bought some tofu, and then we went home.
       Congratulations to Toyota-San, but I'm going to miss his karaage. He was a master.

Shortage：不足
one end of ～ to the other：～の端から端まで
Previously：以前
out front：店頭に立っている
now that：今や～なので
faded：色あせた
replaced：替えられる
Some peoples' luck! ：ラッキーな人もいるものだ！
lottery：宝くじなどのくじ
miss：食べたくなる

2018年5月11日金曜日 -

Anna Moric - Travel


Although I don't talk about it very much, when I first came to Japan, I decided to make a “mission” for myself to make my experience here even more fun. It will probably take a very long time to complete, but I decided that I want to visit all forty-eight prefectures at least once. I've now lived in Japan almost five years, and so far I've been to ten different prefectures. Hopefully, by the end of the year, that number will increase to twelve.

When I was living in America, I rarely traveled anywhere within my own country, since my family mostly only traveled to places where our other family members were living, or places that they knew well. Since my hometown is in the countryside, the only way to travel was by car, and to travel somewhere far away could take over one day to drive. Now that I live in Japan, transportation is much more convenient, and even without a car it's very easy to go wherever you want compared to where I lived before. That's one of the points I like best about living here.

When I travel in Japan, I usually take the bus if I have time. It's usually the cheapest option, and traveling by bus feels much more fun to me since it's like an adventure. I don't like flying very much, and I've never taken the bullet train before, so I'm glad there are so many places I can go by bus in Japan, even if they're far away from Osaka. Riding the bus really lets you feel the distance you're traveling, since it's much slower than a plane or the bullet train, so you can understand and see the places you go much better. I really like driving through Shizuoka because the mountains and ocean are so beautiful.

After this year, the part of Japan I want to go to the most is Shikoku! I've never been there before, and all the pictures I see look so nice and calm. If I have a chance, I want to be able to experience the Japanese countryside for a while.




Mission：使命
Increase：増加する
Rarely：めったに～しない
Transportation：交通機関
Compared to：～に比べ
option：選択肢
even if：たとえ～だとしても
the bullet train：新幹線

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