英会話プライベートレッスン

Hi there everyone, Anand as usual! ?Hope you all had Halloween weekend. ?Sadly I had to work, so I couldn’t go to any parties this year, but my costume is good and ready for next year!

That said, I am not sure if you guys are aware or not, but there is a huge storm named Sandy that is rocking the East Coast of North America, including Toronto. ?Hope everyone back home is doing all right. ?Stay inside!

Anyway, I managed to spend some more of my hard-earned money on a new toy. ?I ordered a Kindle Paperwhite from Amazon.co.jp

An e-reader is an essential tool for anyone overseas, especially in Japan. ?I try and read as much as I can, but it’s hard to find good English books in a Japanese store. ?In addition, books take up lots of space! ?With Japanese apartments being a little small, an apartment can get crowded quite fast. ?And of course, some books are just huge! ?I bought I am a Cat by Natsume Soseki in paperback form, but I couldn’t read it on the train because it was too big to carry around. ?On the other hand, e-readers are small, light and can store many books at a time. ?Recently Japan has been getting on board with the trend, so I can potentially read Japanese books as well.

So what is an e-reader? ?And e-reader is a device that uses a special technology called e-ink to simulate printed letters on a page. ?While it’s not exactly the same as a book, the newer models are getting closer and closer to the real thing. ?Here is my current Kindle displaying Call of the Wild, one of my favorite books.

E-readers are a great way to get a hold of foreign language books and to study a foreign language. ?At the same time, you can save space, and in a lot of cases, money! ?They are getting cheaper and cheaper, so I definitely recommend one for your studies.

Good luck!

Anand

Hello there, it’s Anand as always. I hope you are enjoying yourselves despite the hammering rain. Once again my were plans were changed at the last minute. I was supposed to meet my friend who was visiting from America this weekend. Or that’s what I thought. See, he told me that he was coming in on “the 19th.” But he didn’t tell me he was coming on NOVEMBER 19th. So weekend was looking to be quite a boring one. But thankfully one of my best friends came to the rescue and invited me to a food festival at Yoyogi Park.

But there is one catch. It was a vegetarian food festival.

I love meat. Nothing beats a good steak or hamburger. I also love making fun of vegetarians. But it was a good chance to get out and enjoy a beautiful day. And believe or not, I had a great time. I even enjoyed the food! I had some good South Indian food for the first time in a long while. The masala dosa wasn’t exactly as good as my grandmother’s but I think it’s as close as it will get in Japan. There were also a lot of hemp products on sale, because I guess a lot of hippies are also vegetarians.

I will have to admit, however, that at several points during the festival I managed to sneak out and buy food with meat. ?The funny part is that right outside the vegetarian booth they were selling both yakitori and meat tacos. ?I bought both and felt better.

So while I am never going to make it as a vegetarian, I am glad for the festivals!

Until next time,

Anand

Hello everyone, Anand again. ?Hope you guys had an excellent weekend! ?Mine was supposed to be excellent. ?I was supposed to go to a university reunion party this weekend, but I wrote the wrong date in my planner. ?But it’s OK, since I managed to cook myself a nice meal and have it with a nice bottle of wine. ?I can’t really think of a better way to spend my time.

So of course, Halloween is around the corner so I have been spending some time (and lots of money) getting a hold of a Halloween costume. ?Since I work at Sunrise Kids, our company’s international preschool on top of working at Awesome English, I decided to be a more traditional Halloween monster. ?See, we are trying to teach our kids about Halloween, so traditional costumes are the most useful.

Considering my already dark skin and wolf-like hair, I figured wolfman was the best bet. ?I decided on this costume.

I realize I look ridiculous. ?I bought a different mask to use for my more “adult” costume, but I will save that for a later post. ?For now, I will just leave you with this. ? I bought another mask for 400 yen. ?I think it’s a pretty good deal.

It’s gonna be a good Halloween.

Well hello again! ?I hope you all had a very nice Heath and Fitness Day! ?I always find it funny that Health and Fitness Day in Japan coincides with Thanksgiving in Canada. ?That means the theme for Japan’s holiday is sports and health, but the theme for Canada’s holiday is eating turkey and stuffing. ?I guess that is why Japanese people live longer than anyone else.

*And yes, you are probably thinking “Wait, Thanksgiving is in November!” ?And you are correct…if you are in America. ?Canadian Thanksgiving is always the first weekend of October!

But while I didn’t eat any turkey this weekend, I did manage to drink a lot of beer. ?You see, in Yokohama there is a big Oktoberfest festival going on by the Red Brick Warehouse. ?Since I basically live half an hour away I really had no excuse but to go and enjoy it with my friends.

As you can see by the picture, it was quite crowded! ?I couldn’t believe we found a seat to be honest. ?But we did…and once we did, the beer started flowing.

Oktoberfest has some great European beers (at least I think they are great, I’m not sure Simon agrees). ?But you have to pay through the teeth to get them. ?Basically, you have to buy a deposit on a glass (about 1000 yen) and then you buy the beer (probably about another 1000+ yen a pint). ?After you drink up, you bring back the glass and get 1000 yen back. ?Now this works fine at the beginning. ?But five or six beers in, you definitely start forgetting to bring the glasses back.

So the night can get expensive, but it is always enjoyable. ?It was great to see some of my best friends, and it was great to enjoy some fine beer.

I think it is still going on through next weekend, so if you get the time, please check it out!

Hello guys, it’s me again! ?Hope you guys had a nice weekend! ?Oh wait, that might have been difficult with Typhoon Number 17 ruining everyone’s plans. ?It looked like it would be pretty terrible judging from the satellite photos, but when it finally came, it was just a lot of wind with a few raindrops. ?I actually went for a walk so I could enjoy the cool breeze!

But that is the thing with Japanese weather. ?You always have to be cautious. ?See, in Canada, if the weather is bad, it’s bad all day without much change. ?But weather in Japan can change instantly. ?At one moment it will be nice, then in about ten seconds it will start pouring. ?Then it will be fine again! ?Does this make Japanese people as crazy as it makes me?

As a result, you can never be too careful when it comes to typhoons. ?My plan on Sunday was to ride the train to Shibuya and meet a friend from Korea. ?I was actually thinking of going in the typhoon because it was such as weak one. ?But then I remembered that typhoons can easily get rough. ?So I stayed home and waited for the typhoon to get stronger. ?But it never did! ?Come on Japanese weather, can you at least be a little predictable?

So Japanese weather is definitely different that Canadian weather, but maybe it’s a good thing. ?Japanese people are good at powering through the bad weather, and maybe that is what makes them so good at powering through bad situations.

So maybe I need a little wild weather to toughen me up.

I didn’t take any pictures of the weather during the typhoon, so here is me being miserable on Mount Fuji. ?It rained then too.

Until next time,

Anand Mohan