Animals in New Zealand

These animals are alpacas. They originally live in South America but now they also live in America, Europe or New Zealand. They are usually had as domestic animals and there are few wild alpacas.

They look like sheep or camels, don't they? They belong to camelid. Their weight is about 50 kilograms and their height is about 2 meters. They eat grass or laver. Their wool is used in many ways like sheep. For example, sweaters, caps, gloves and scarves.

We are also able to see alpacas in Japan. Alpaca Farm is in Tochigi Prefecture. There are about 400 alpacas. No other farm has much alpacas than there. You can take a walk with a baby of alpacas and can take a picture with it. If you interested in alpacas but you can't go to New Zealand, you should go Alpaca Farm!

Dishes for Thanksgiving Day

I would like to tell you about dishes for thanksgiving. Do you know what people eat for thanksgiving? I don't think that you know about dishes so I will tell you about them now.

First, I will tell you about turkey. Turkey is the most important food in thanksgiving. Thanksgiving will not start if they do not have turkeys. They eat turkeys roasted whole with cranberry jerry – it is one of the symbols of thanksgiving – or stuffing. Stuffing is that bread and vegetables are fried. Some people fill stuffing with turkey. Juice from turkey is also used for making gravy sauce. They eat mashed potato with this sauce.

Second, people eat pumpkin as usually pumpkin pie. It is as staple dish as roasted turkey. They also eat pumpkin leaves as salad. American have liked pumpkin for over 400 years now.

They also eat corn, green beans, sweet potatoes in many ways. For examples, corn pudding, buttered corn, baked corn, bean casserole, baked sweet potatoes, brandied sweet potatoes and so on. People eat dishes of thanksgiving with gratitude for family, friends, good health and good food.

Pilar Festival

Pilar Festival is held in Zaragoza, in Spain every October. It is held for a week. It is the one of the biggest festival in Spain.

Pilar which is a Spanish word means a pillar in English. This name is deprived from tradition that the Virgin Mary appeared in front of the pillar which was in front of Saint Jacobs.

They held many events in the festival. Some examples are the floral tribute ceremony, fireworks, special products market of Aragon State, a contest of hota, a folk dance in Spain, and so on.

The highlight of the festival is the floral tribute ceremony. About two hundred thousand people join this ceremony every year. It is a ceremony that many people give flowers to the image of the Virgin Mary. Do not forget to wear a ethnic costume when you join this ceremony! Any costumes are OK. You can join this ceremony if you do not go there. You can give flowers through the Internet or cellular phones.

My Favorite Movie

I will tell you about my favorite movie. It is A Moment to Remember. It is Korean romantic movie. It is made based on the television program “Pure Soul”, Japanese drama. It is Japanese drama in 2001. Hiromi Nagasaku and Naoto Ogata are staring in Pure Soul.

Jung Woo-Sung and Son Yejin are staring in A Moment to Remember. Jung Woo-Sung is one of the most famous actors in Korea. He is a director of music videos. Son Yejin won the Academy Award in Korea. She is also with Bae Yong Joon in April Snow.

I will tell you about the story of A Moment to Remember. Sujin is an adesibner. Chorusu is a carpenter. One day, they met at the convenience store, fell in love at the moment and married. However the happiness didn’t last. She went to the hospital to see a doctor and knew that she suffered from Alzheimer disease. Sujin is losing her memories day by day. At first, Chorusu is puzzled what to do. However he understands her and her disease and he begin to make many memos of everything with Sujin – for example, her own name, husband’s name, the date when they married and so on. Otherwise finally she forgot even her husband, Chorusu.

I saw A Moment to Remember about four times. Every time when I see it, I am moved and shed tears. It is impossible for us to know what will happen in the future. We may be killed in accidents at the next moment. We may suddenly lose someone who is important person for us. We may suffer from serious diseases. So I thought we must not waste time and must live as hard as we can.

My Summer Vacation

　During the summer vacation, I did part-time job very hard. My part-time job is an English teacher at the cram school. It is very difficult to teach English to students who don’t like it. Some students didn’t know grammatical words, for example the subject, a complement, an object, a general verb and so on. The reason is that I had to explain patiently until students could understand well. It was very hard and made me tired but
I felt happy when students said “Oh, I see!” Not only that but also I can remember some English grammar which I almost forgot by teaching them to others.




　I also made friends with teachers at the cram school where I work. I could soon open up to them in spite of being shy in front of strangers because they are really friendly and nice. They held the welcome party for new teachers including me. We ate dinner at the bar. They have a fish preserver so we can eat fresh fish. It was delicias, especially squid. First, we eat raw squid. The next, we can eat deep-fry squid. Some teachers drank alcohol, got so excited and they were laughing at things which ware not very fun all the time. It is interesting for me to see them. After dinner, we went bowling. We enjoyed it but my score was terrible. It was only 40 points. However I had a good time. I promised to eat dinner and go to karaoke with them in October. I am looking forward to it.

Change Eating Habits in Japan

Before Japanese had taken in salt and carbohyrate a lot but less animal protein. We had eaten salty food such as pickled vegetables, plum pickles and small fish or shellfish boiled in sweetened soy sauce with much rice. The reason is because we had not taken in animal protein a lot. In addition, Japanese food is almost healty. Some examples are tofu, natto, seaweed and so on.
However that changed after World War II. Our eating habits became like Europe and United States ones. We came to eat food which contains a lot of animal protein and fat because of changes of social surroundings. That cause is appearance such as fast food, instant food, family restaurants and convenience stores. For this reason, we must check nutritive value before we eat food and control it. These are graphs which show changing Japanese eating habits. This site has more information about it in English.

My Favorite Dessert

I'll tell you about my favorite dessert. It's Powdered Green Tea Pudding. It's very smooth. You will feel good on the tongue. And it's not too sweet because powdered green tea is a little bitter. So, I think people who don't like sweets can eat this pudding. If you have interest, please try it. You can buy it at convenience stores in nufs.

Laughter

　Have you ever heard of Doara? This is the movie clip of him that I think very funny. The character like a koala in the movie is the mascot of Japanese baseball team, Chunichi Dragons. His name is Doara. He is not a normal mascot. He is a little bit different from other mascots. His action is very free, strange and funny. In that way, he always makes people fun. He is a person who is easily elated so when people say to Doara, “One more time! One more time!”, he entertains them in the stadium to flip-flop so much and he falls flat on his face. After that, he imitates Yoshio Kozima. People laugh and get really exited.
　I think laughing is really good for our health because we get relaxed and stress free when we laugh. And you may make with new friends to have funny things in common with them. So let’s laugh and spend everyday happily!