I’ve never had a cat at home. Just from my curiosity, I visited a cat cafe near my house. There were about ten pedigreed cats in the cafe and they were so cute!!! It was very nice place to relax playing with cats.
Tag Archives: culture
My Purikura Photo
When I went to karaoke last month, the shop gave me a free ticket of playing “Purikura”. Purikura is an instant photo booth and normally placed in the game center. I took my pictures by the machine and they made me surprise. The pictures are different from real me! They are far more young and cute. All wrinkles and spots were disappeared because I was lit up from all angles. In addition, it seems that the lines of my face was edited too. I don’t want to show you my before-after photo here, so let me give you other people’s examples.
http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2134390466930750401
https://twitter.com/co2071503/status/439087280599224321
I don’t think my purikura photos have a big difference like these. If you are interested in them, check out my Twitter account.
Photoshop software can edit as you like too. Examples Where Photoshop Makes Pics Better Don’t believe everything you watch!
WATCH: 99 per cent grade average student from Maple Ridge
Sean Okawa, who is one of my blog friends, is a genius! He is going on to The University of British Columbia this month. I hope he has a very enjoyable and rewarding college life.
Transformers
I went to the movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction” this month. It was the first time for me to watch this series. In the movie, some unknown words and names came up. Therefore I couldn’t follow the story enough, but enjoyed it. I’m a little hooked on the various transforming scenes. Why don’t you watch them?
Rice-Cake Making By Firefighters
Hello, everyone. It’s been a while. How did you spend your holiday season? I hope that you’ll find hapiness and success in 2014. For Japanese, New Year’s day is more important than Christmas. Till the end of the year, we clean our house and prepare “osechi” the special dishes for the coming year. On New Years, we eat osechi foods with family and relatives. One of New Year’s foods is “zoni” vegetable soup. Japanese eat “mochi” rice cakes boiled in zoni on New Year’s Day. Not only that, we eat mochi with ground soybean, or sugar and soy sauce, in winter.
Near the end of the year, I happened to see rice-cake making (pounding boiled rice into mochi) festival by firefighters when I went to a shopping mall. Firefighters served rice cakes out to shoppers. Besides, they were giving a chance of riding a fire ladder truck to them.
Tsujunkyo Bridge
– A continuation of the last story –
After leaving Heitate Shrine I visited Tsujunkyo Bridge. Both are located in Yamato-cho.
Tsujunkyo Bridge is Japan’s largest stone-arch aqueduct bridge, which was built in 1854 for water supply to local farmers. For more information please click Japan Web Magazine.
Fancy meeting Kumamon there!
Fortunately, I was able to see the waterfall which is a rare occurrence.
A Spiritual Place – The Heitate Shrine
The other day, I drove to a country side “Yamoto-cho” where it took an hour and a half to get from Kumamoto city. There are several sightseeing spots in Yamato-cho. One of them is the Heitate shrine. Most people living in Kumamoto don’t know it. However it is famous among some Japanese because it is known as a spiritual place, where a mystic force provides energy, good luck and healing to a person who stands there. It seems that many people outside Kumamoto visit there.
You have to go up a long stone stars to reach the shrine.
This is the main shrine.
The history of the shrine is written on the board. It has a long history as nobody knows when it was founded. It worships several Shinto gods.
There are many huge trees around the shrine. Somehow I felt refreshed.
The Shinto priest was performing a purification ceremony. Some Japanese go to shrine to pray or purify something such as wishing their happiness, good health, or exorcising a person or place of evil spirits. I’m not a religious person, but I have also gone to a shrine for a purification ceremony a few times before.
My 2nd Liebster Award
I received a comment from outforalonglunch right after I came back from Hawaii. She nominated me for the Liebster Award! This is the second time I got this award. Thanks a lot, outforalonglunch. Her blog is filled with interesting stories and pictures of food. Why don’t you take a look! Out For a Long Lunch I’d like to join the award and answer her questions. The logo is different from the last one.
Let me quote the rule from her blog.
“Liebster is an loving German term and that mean ‘sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome’.
The Liebster Award is kind of a pay-it-forward blogger award. The rules are: If you receive one you must answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who awarded it to you, list 11 random facts about yourself, and then come up with your own 11 questions for the 11 bloggers you choose to bestow the award upon.
The Liebster Award is a clayton’s award, meaning there is no real award. It’s existence is merely for fun and a way of discovering new blogs.”
Do you think it a tough assignment? Take it easy. Enjoy it.
Outforalonglunch had asked me the following questions and my responses are:
1. Why are you blogging? It’s fun to have communication with people on the net. Also blogging stimulates my life.
2. What is your favourite cuisine? There are too many to choose one.
3. If you could have one wish, what would it be? Please keep disease away from me until the end of my life.
4. You have 10 bucks. What do you do with it? I buy chocolate bars “MilkyWay”, which aren’t sold in Japan.
5. What’s your favorite childhood memory? What I played a lot in the park near my house.
6. What is your proudest moment? hmm What I gave birth to my kids.
7. If you could do it all over, what would you be doing right now in your life? I would live a mundane life as it is now.
8. What can you not live without? dancing and singing
9. Name a thing you would not eat (not because of religious reasons), even if someone pay you lots of money to eat it.What’s your favorite site/book/thing you share with people? I would eat anything if I can get big money, but it should be edible. My favorite site now is “Utasuki” karaoke social networking service. I’ll write about it later.
10. If you are given the chance to launch your own perfume, with a condition that it is going to smell like food, what flavor is the main chord going to be? fruit flavor, something like oranges or pineapples.
11. If you are a contestant in a cooking pageant – is there one? – and you have to cook something that represents yourself, what would it be? That is a difficult question. Sushi? because it can be arranged as I like.
11 Random Facts About Me
- Dancing and singing are the center of my life now.
- I take several dance lessons at a health club.
- My favorite dance lessons are hip hop and flamenco now.
- I’m practicing rap songs.
- I want to snorkel in Okinawa next summer.
- I have my hair dyed by henna.
- I have many cooking books, but my cooking is the same routine.
- Two hamsters became my family members this month.
- I saw the movie “Now You See Me” last week. It was not bad, but I thought the leading role was miscast.
- I saw the movie “Song for Marion(UK)””Unfinished Song(USA)” last month, which was nice.
- I usually listen to music when I can’t sleep.
Drum rolls for my nominees, please!
My questions for my nominees
- What is the thing that you have the most fun doing?
- What is the thing that you feel the most boring?
- What is your favorite site/thing you want to share with people?
- Are there any movies that you recommend?
- Are there any music that you recommend?
- Why did you start blogging?
- How long do you sleep every night?
- How long are you all right without internet?
- How do you want to be in ten years?
- What do you think was the year’s biggest news? What was your year’s biggest news?
- Do you have a pet?
I hope my Nominees accept this award, and pass it on if time allows.
Here is the article in my Japanese blog.
American Cartoons
When my family stayed in Hawaii, my daughter found a funny American cartoon on TV. Does anyone knows the title of it? Please leave a comment. I want to watch it ! The story was very interesting. The father turned out to be a gay, then he got a sex change surgery and became a female! lol What a story! I’ve never heard the story like that even on a TV program for adults in Japan. In addition, pictures of American cartoons are very different from Japanese ones. They are very unique. Some of American cartoons are available to watch on pay-TV in Japan.
Regional Differences in American English
When I was checking Pinterest photos, I came across an interesting one.
“What is your generic term for a sweetened carbonated beverage?”
“The midwest(blue) calls it “pop,” the Northeast and West Coast(red) call it “soda,” while the South(green) is really into brand loyalty.”
There is another map which is more interesting to me.
“What is your “general” term for the rubber-soled shoes worn in gym class, for athletic activities, etc?”
“The Northeast and south Florida(blue) puts on sneakers, everyone else finds a pair of tennis shoes.”
Is it true? In Japan, people call them sneakers. I wear tennis shoes only for playing tennis. Please click to see more results. 22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Differently From Each Other
I had many comments on Lang-8. Those are very interesting too. Comments on Lang-8
My Fun Life 