英会話プライベートレッスン

Golden Week is full swing! ?I finally had a whole weekend to myself away from the busy grind of work. ?This has been one of the busier months of my life, to say the very least. ?There have been lots of new kids at our preschool, not to mention tons of translation work to be done and needless to say, this has been trying on me. ?So with Golden Week here I have made the grand decision to relax and take it easy. ?No crazy parties, no excitement, just me, a good beer, a book and some study notes. ?I don’t need to do anything wild. ?I just need to lay back and recharge my batteries. ?It’s been to long since I have had any real time to myself, so I am going to take some for the next few days. ?To be honest, that in itself is exciting.

I just walked around Yokohama today, taking breaks whenever I saw a cafe and then studying for an hour or two before moving on. ?I don’t think I could do it every day, but it’s good from time to time.

Then again, maybe I could do it everyday…

One day…

Hope you guys had a good weekend (even thought the weather was pretty terrible). ?Well after weekend after weekend of running, I can finally say I did something other than running last weekend. ?Since I moved to Yokohama I haven’t been able to meet my friends all that often, but thankfully some of my guys friends were around Tokyo. ?My friends are geniuses in a way. ?They have an ability to find cool, cheap places to drink without any effort. ?I wonder how they do it? ?They are also, however, crazy. ?They love to stay out all night and spend that whole time drinking crazy amounts of beer. ?I think those times are finished for me, but I still went with them for the first part of the night. ?We went to an izakaya called Alps, which is somewhere in Shinjuku. ?Good place, good food and cheap beer. ?But more than anything, it was nice to hang out with some men for once. ?Except for Simon, I am the only man in the office. ?That sounds wonderful, and I work with some awesome women, but sometimes you just want to hang out with the guys.

Hi there everyone! The weather is finally starting to looks like spring! ?I say it’s about time ?we got some good, consistent weather. ?It’s especially lucky for me, since now I can run without having to wear a jacket and long sleeves. ?And of course that brings me to my usual blog topic, running. ?Yes, I participated in yet another road race, this time in Yokohama. ?But the important difference is that this time I actually brought some friends along! ?We all joined the Yokohama road race just yesterday. ?Since my friends don’t really run as much as I do, they ran the 10 kilometer course. ?Since I wanted a harder challenge, I ran 20 kilometers. ?All of my friends said it was a bad idea because I hadn’t trained, but I couldn’t tell myself that it was ok to quit. ?So I ran as fast as I could. ?My time was all right… not good, but not bad. ?But my time wasn’t important. ?What was important was that I met the challenge and tried my best. ?In the end, that is all I cared about.

Granted, I can barely move today.

So who was right? ?If I listened to my friends, I would feel much better and I would be able to run around today. ?But since I didn’t listen, I am very sore, however, I can say that I finished the race.

What do you think?

Hello everyone! ?Anand here as usual. ?Definitely looks like hanami season is over in Yokohama. ?Hope you managed to get a good party in. ?The plus side is that it is going to warm up soon enough. ?I had wanted to meet my friends on Saturday, but it was way too rainy. But thanks to a friend at work I found out something to do. ?She turned me on to a website called hulu, where you can watch tv shows or movies over the internet, as long as you pay a monthly fee. ?I had originally subscribed because I wanted to watch Columbo. ?I love old detective dramas, and Columbo is definitely my favorite. ? See I thought hulu was just a way to watch American television and movies.

But to my surprise I was wrong! ?I discovered that there are a lot of Japanese television shows as well! ?Recently I have started watching Ashita no Joe. ?I really can’t understand what anyone is saying because the sound quality is so bad and the Japanese is so strange, but I can still understand the story.

But so far my favorite drama is Tantei Monogatari. ?It’s this old 80’s detective drama starring Yuusaku Matsuda. ?It’s a little hard to follow the story, but it’s pretty funny and simple enough to get the basic idea. ?But what is best about it is that one of the characters is a foreign woman, so every so often there is at least some English ?for me to listen to.

If you have the time, check out hulu.jp. ?You might find something you like, in English or in Japanese!

Hi there everyone! ?Looks like the sakura is starting to tail off. ?Hope you guys got some hanami parties in this year. ?I imagine the smog clouds from China might have hurt the experience a little. ?My weekend didn’t involve many outdoor activities, but I did manage to spend it with some good friends.

On Saturday I hopped on a train and made my way to my old home of Yotsukaido. ?Yotsukaido is where I spent the first two years of my life in Japan. ?This time I was going to meet my friend for a wine-drinking party. ?He’s a doctor with a taste for the finer things in life. ?When I was first in Japan, I had a very hard time. ?My Japanese wasn’t very good and I wasn’t used to life here. ?But I met him at a bar. ?At the end of our conversation he gave me his number, and he told me “If you ever have any trouble, please call me”. ?I never got into trouble, but I never forgot the gesture.

So I met him and his friends and we drank lots of wine together. I mean lots of wine. ?And I tried sangria for the first time. ?It seemed like a great idea at the time, and in fact, I had lots of fun.

However, Sunday was a different story. ?I spent it on my bed promising I would never drink wine again.

I probably won’t, at least until my friend invites me out again.

Cheers,

Anand