Used to Symbol Set

What is your town/neighborhood like?

I live in Tezukayama, Nara.  In my neighborhood, there is one good restaurant and one old style coffee shop.  The restaurant is called Ihatovu.  It has a reasonable lunch special and is very popular.  The food is great.  In my neighborhood, there is a liquor shop.  It’s name is Hikari Liquor.  It has hundreds of different kinds of wine.  In my neighborhood, there are 3 parks.  My neighborhood also has a small public library and 3 bus stops.  There is a small river in my neighborhood, but the river isn’t very clean.

Music from an Osaka Point of View

Today, we would like to talk about music.  We love music.  Japanese teens think music is universal.  How about you?  We often listen to music everywhere, like on the train every day.  We especially like western music and J-pop. 

Among our friends, Miley Cyrus, The Beatles, and One Direction are popular.  In Japan in general AKB48 and groups produced by Johnny and Associates, or "Johnny's", are popular, but in our school One OK Rock and SCANDAL are more popular. 
Here is a video of One OK Rock:

SCANDAL first started playing live right here in Osaka at Osaka Castle Park.  Here is a video of SCANDAL:

The students in our school listen to many other kinds of music, too.  For example reggae, Japanese reggae, and K-pop (Korean pop music).  Shonan no Kaze is a popular Japanese reggae group.  Here is a video of Shonan No Kaze's song, "Pure Love Song/Junrenka":

We like to listen to music on our iPhones, iPods, and Walkmans.  Sometimes we listen to CDs.  We never use records.  Do young people in your country still listen to records.  We also often use YouTube to listen to music.  YouTube has many videos, so it is convenient.

We would like to introduce you to a song by Bump of Chicken.  Our class member Burian (T.) picked the song.  Bump of Chicken is a Japanese band.  The members are Fujiwara Motou (voice and guitar), Yoshifumi Naoi (base), Hiroaki Maukawa (guitar), and Hideo Masu (drums).  They love to make music and they love the planet.

The Song we picked is called, "Tentai Kansoku."  In English it means "Observing Celestial Bodies".  But we think a better title is Star Gazing.  We translated part of the song for you:

Star Gazing

At 2AM at the railroad crossing

I carried a telescope

A radio tied to my belt

It looked like it would not rain.

2 minutes later you came

On your back

you carried too much baggage

Let's start stargazing

and search for a broom star

I'm was just trying not to get swallowed up

in a deep darkness

On that day I tried to take your hand...

...Then, if you notice,

when was it,

earnestly searching for something

a definition of happiness

or a place to put your lonliness

from the day you are born

to the day you die

always searching

anyway, let's start stargazing

and search for a broom star

I remember everything I have found

and the hurt of not taking your shaking hand

Trying to know things I didn't know

I looked into the telescope

I looked for a faint light like a light in the dark

I still remember that hurt I knew

The broom star that is now

by myself I chase it even now...



You can watch the video for Star Gazing here:

We hope you will leave us a comment and tell us about the music you like.  We are also looking for other English students who have an English blog or other classes who have an English class blog.  Please tell us about your blog so we can visit it!

Who we are, the International Course from a what we can and can't do POV

We are the 2^nd year students at Clark Memorial International High School in Japan.  We are going to introduce ourselves by telling you a little about what we can and cannot do.  We hope that this will also help you learn a little bit more about Japan as well.  If you have any questions or would like to leave us a comment, we would really appreciate it!

①

Hello, we are Y., K., and T.

Today, we will introduce some of the things we can and can’t do.

We can’t drive a motorcycle, but we want to be able to drive a motorcycle on the highway. In Japan you need to take a special test to get a license to drive a motorcycle.

Triumph T 110 650 cc motorcycle from 1954: CC attribution
source: http://www.yesterdays.nl/images/Triumph%201954%20T110-1.jpg

 Here is information about getting a Japanese motorcycle license in Japan.  

We can ski, bowl, and play table tennis, but we cannot surf or play rugby.  And we can’t run for a long time, but we love running anyway.  K. likes Usain Bolt, but Y. doesn’t like him.  T. can play soccer, but Y. can’t play soccer.  But we all like soccer.  The most popular soccer team in Japan is the Nadeshiko Japan team.

Image source: http://imageshack.us/f/296/japan2007ye7.jpg/

Nadeshiko Japan is the women’s national soccer team.  You can read more about Nadeshiko Japan here.  We want to play many sports.

In our school, we can take 16 different types of class in one week.  This is a normal Japanese school class schedule.  How about you?

Thanks for reading about us.

 

②

We are T.M. and S.S.

We can have a birthday party together in May.  When is your birthday?

We can’t drive a car, but we want to drive a car!!

We will drive a car next year when we turn 18.

We can’t fly, but we want to be able to fly.

We cannot play the guitar, but we love the guitar.  Takamizawa of the band The Alfee is a great Japanese guitar player.  Here is a video of Takami:

We can make Okonomiyaki.  Japanese Okonomiyaki is very delicious.

We like to play soccer, but we can’t play soccer at my school because there is no soccer team or soccer club.  We also like to play baseball.  We like Yu Darvish who plays for the Texas Rangers.

We can ride my ship every day…but actually, I don't have a ship.  This is a Japanese joke.

We can make curry and rice.  Japanese curry is very popular and very spicy.  Here is some more informations about Japanese Curry from Wikipedia.



今話題の京都市役所前の地下街で食べたカレー。 CC Attribution:
Author: Hyougushi from Kyoto Source: Flickr



③

We are M. and R.

We can make music.  We are in the same band at school.

We often cook Takoyaki. Takoyaki are octopus balls.  They very hot. 

We can’t study math very well, but we love Mrs. Sone, the math teacher, anyway.

We both have smart phones.  They are smart, but we want our smart phones to be able to have hands and feet, so they will really be able to play with us.

We often play the app “Puzzle & Dragons”.  We call it Pazudora for short.  It’s fun.  Here is a video of the game:

  

We want to go to Universal Studios Japan, in Osaka.  We like the ride “Waterworld”, but we don’t like “Backdraft”!  But we love USJ anyway. 

We like the Hanshin Tigers baseball team. We can sing Hiyama’s Hanshin fight song:

And we have Makoto Imaoka’s uniform. But the Tiger’s home stadium doesn’t have any parking areas for cars.  So we can't drive to the games.  But we can take the train.

We love the Tigers!

 

④

We are SU and MA

We listen to western music.  We love Glee.  We can sing Glee songs.  Our favorite song is “Don’t Stop Believin.”

  

 We can’t play sports and we don’t like baseball.  But we love baseball players.  They are cool.

We like wearing makeup.  We can put on makeup very well.  One of us likes to use a lot of makeup and one of us likes natural makeup.  We want to be able to wear Kate Perry’s makeup, but we can’t buy it in Japan.

We can’t eat mushrooms, because they look like Bananaman’s Face.  Bananaman are a comedy team in Japan.  Here is a video of a Bananaman comedy skit:

  

We love the band 1D.  One of us loves Zayn and one of us loves Louis.  We can never go to One Direction’s concert, but we want to be able to go to their concert.  We can’t get tickets easily because they are so popular.  Here is a video of their press conference in Japan.