English Masa Blog

A scene from London

Vocabulary

thunder (n)　雷

e.g. I couldn’t sleep last night because of all the thunder.

hardly (adv)　ほとんど　～ない

(Be careful, hardly is always used with the positive form of a verb)

e.g. Masa hardly ever updates his blog.

the little things (phrase)　大した事じゃないこと

e.g. You shouldn’t spend your time worrying about the little things.

blase (adj)　無関心、無感動な

e.g. The child was blase about the danger of not brushing his teeth properly.

I recently went on a trip to England for a week with my family. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused any of my students. While in England, I noticed a few things that are different between England and Japan. I would like to list some of them below.

1. The weather - not only is the weather cooler in England (the hottest it reached was 19 degrees) but it also changes all the time. In one day at the beach, we had rain, sunshine, thunder and heavy winds.
2. Connected to the weather, hardly anyone in England uses umbrellas. The only people that do are usually over the age of 70.
   
3. The level of service in shops is not very good. In most of the shops I visited, the shop staff would talk to their coworkers while serving me.
4. People don’t worry/care about the little things. In Japan, it is quite common for people to be very worried about very small matters. People in England tend to be more blase.
5. Things are expensive: petrol is 170 yen a litre, a 500ml pet bottle of drink is 240 yen, a packet of cigarettes is 1000 yen. Of course there are things that are cheaper in England but overall it is an expensive place.

The above list looks fairly negative, but to be honest, I had a good trip to England. It was nice being there, it was very nostalgic and it was good to experience a different life to my one in Japan. I think travelling is so important for that reason. It makes you appreciate the good things about home, but it also shows you how you can improve life at home. Most of all, it reminds us how big the world is and how little we are.

Read Full Post »

First and foremost, there is no excuse.

I fully admit that I am a 三日坊主.  I realize that it has been about 8 months since my last post, for this I apologize.

Having said that, I don’t really expect anyone to still be visiting this blog. If you are reading this, I thank you and promise that I will try harder to keep up with my posting. I have decided to focus on things that I am interested in and can therefore continue to write about.

As a result, I will be writing mostly about cooking and gardening.

I am also going to be making a new section with menus from last year.

Read Full Post »

Sorry, this travelogue is turning into a rather long and drawn out affair. It might be Christmas by the time I get round to finishing it!

Anyway, (more…)

Read Full Post »

For some reason or another, we ended up in an Irish-themed bar. 　Actually, living in the same city for a long time makes you take for granted knowing good places to eat and drink. The bright lights (and rather seedy) parts of Susukino were enough to deter us from looking for somewhere too adventurous to settle for a drink. I suspect that is the main reason we ended up at the Irish pub.

After getting a few drinks we sat down, a little weary from travelling and it was then that I noticed a selection of beer mats in a frame on the wall. There were of course various beers and lagers represented on the wall. In addition, there were a few football teams as well. I was very surprised to see my hometown team (Norwich FC) on the wall. The logo is very distinctive, it is bright yellow and green and has a big canary in the middle. However, not since the early-nineties has Norwich been a successful football team, so I was a little surprised to see a beer mat hanging in a pub in Sapporo. Oh well, I guess stranger things have happened.

(My apologies for the blurry picture)

Vocabulary

for some reason or another:何気なく

seedy:suspicious, sleazy

deter:make one not want to

distinctive:different from anything else

Read Full Post »

After spending a full day on the ferry, we came into Otaru port. About an hour out of port, there were lots of strange lights in the middle of the sea. I don’t recall where I read about it but for some reason I thought that they were for catching Sanma (am I right?)
Anyway, (more…)

Read Full Post »

Although the picture may look like it is an update to my post about recent high-definition TVs, it is in fact a representation of the ferry I took to Hokkaido.

Some of you may know, I went on a little trip to Japan’s home of good food. I went there with a friend (more…)

Read Full Post »

I had a few hours to kill the other day, so I spent that time as constructively as I could, I went to Yodobashi camera. I am a complete technophile. I love nothing more than to browse around electronic stores.

On this particular day, I decided to (more…)

Read Full Post »

Someone pointed out to me recently that the entries for my blog have changed. In her words “It has gone from being an educational blog to just a blog”

For me, this was a bit of an eye opener. I suppose subconsciously I realized that I (more…)

Read Full Post »

I have finally given in to my obvious bias towards trains in my posts and created another category, specifically for trains.

Actually, I read a bunch of articles about writing blogs before I started this blog, and they said that as you start writing you will find a number of subjects that you will repeatedly write about. These should then be the topics that you choose to write about. Maybe this is telling me my blog should be labelled 電車マサ rather than English Masa.

Or, (more…)

Read Full Post »

For some time now, I have been thinking that the emergency services in Japan are a little more sedate than the ones I used to encounter in England.

In England it wouldn’t be unusual for you to (more…)

Read Full Post »