英語学習にも役立つ、札幌の外国人英語教師の英語日記 札幌 英会話 [ステップアップ]

busy busy days

2014年4月15日 (火)

Hey everyone! Spring time has finally come!!! I am very excited. At the start of spring I am always very busy, usually because I have a dog. This time of year I have to get my dog vaccinated against all those scary summer insects. My dog is like my baby, so I always worry about him. This week I am mostly going to be doing things for my dog!

Golden Week is coming. I am excited because this year I will go to Vietnam. I am planning to cycle around the northern part of the country for 7 days. As most of my students know, I have a wrist injury, so I am a little worried about that. I wonder what everyone else is doing for the Golden Week holidays. I hope you all can relax and hopefully enjoy the cherry blossoms. Speaking of Golden Week, don’t forget that stepup is closed from 29th April to 6th May. I hope you all study English very hard during that time! (hahaha, only joking!) I hope everyone has a wonderful Golden Week.

My first marathon

2014年4月12日 (土)

Hey everybody! Have any of you ever run a full marathon? There are a couple of students at StepUp who have and they seemed to like it. Well, for better or worse,  I’ve entered this year’s Hokkaido Marathon. I’m not a particularly strong runner. I don’t particularly like running. But, in the interest of staying trim (and being able to say that I’ve run a marthon) I’m going for it! So I’ve started training…and I’m pretty slow. The Hokkaido marathon is very strict timewise…moreso than the Tokyo race. So if I want to finish, i’ve got to train hard. Say hi to me if you see me running along Toyohira river this spring/summer. I won’t be hard to catch:p

Japanese omelet

2014年4月1日 (火)

I love Japanese omelets!!! I could eat them every day. I am not so skillful at making them, but I keep trying. Sometimes I even add some crazy ingredients to see if I can make it even better. Unfortunately I am not such a good cook so usually it`s a disaster!

This week I was lucky enough to have a long weekend (when you have 3 days off in a row) but I didn’t really use my time well. I baked a cake and cooked some dishes for friends. I think recently I have become a little lazy. Usually at the start of spring I jump into action but this spring… I just want to stay under my kotatsu eating tamago yaki!!!!

Shocked!

2014年3月21日 (金)

I have been living in Japan for over four years, and I think I have pretty good knowledge of this country’s customs and traditions.
At first, there were a few times when I experienced culture shock, but I studied about Japan before moving here, and I am good at adjusting to new circumstances, so I think it was relatively easy for me to get used to living here.
As a result, I am now only very rarely shocked by something that happens in my everyday life.

Today, I had a big shock.

During my break I went to the cafe just up the street from Step Up, and I ordered a coffee float. I like coffee and I like ice cream, and when I was a kid back in California I used to enjoy root beer or coke floats.

Well, when my float arrived I was completely shocked to find ICE in it.

I didn’t know what to do. It has been many years since I had a float of any kind, and I’m not used to having ice. We never mix ice and ice cream in California (I think nobody would like Gari-Gari Kun) so I never expected that there would be ice in my drink.

What to do?

Well, I took the ice out of my drink with a spoon and put it in my water glass. I then enjoyed a delicious coffee float, ice-free.

Is putting ice in floats common in Japan, or is this cafe strange?
Let me know 🙂

Slushy snow

2014年3月5日 (水)

Hey everyone! I hope you are all happy and healthy. Today I want to talk about slushy snow. I hate slushy snow, its so….. slushy! Slushy is half melted snow, like wet snow. The reason I hate it so much is that I can`t ride OR walk in it.
This time of year I feel spring is trying to defeat winter but winter is too strong. I guess I will have to wait until all the snow melts, then　we can all enjoy spring. Do you have any plans for spring? Hokkaido`s spring is so short and kind of cold. I think we should all go to Okinawa or Shikoku and enjoy the beautiful weather. Enjoy March everyone!