England Trip 2009
Posted in General on Aug 4th, 2009
A scene from London
Vocabulary
A scene from London
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.
- 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.
- Connected to the weather, hardly anyone in England uses umbrellas. The only people that do are usually over the age of 70.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
