Yesterday, a mini-documentary about me was published on a popular YouTube channel. The topic is about owning guns and hunting in Japan.

My friend Bobby is a professional videographer and producer here in Okayama. He worked on making this video for the past year. He attended many hunting events with me and took a lot of video and interviews.

The video is really amazing. He put everything together in a way that makes it easy for the audience to understand. The channel it is on a very well known channel about Japan. The video has over 20,000 views so far.

Two weeks ago, there was a pretty big blizzard on the east coast of the US. My mom sent me some pictures and videos as the snow piled up.

フルサイズで表示

How it started...

フルサイズで表示

...and how it ended up.

The snow caused a lot of trouble, as you can imagine. My dad was afraid he couldn’t get to work in the morning, so he drove there the night before. He had to kill time for 8 hours before his shift even started! And my brother spent a long time shoveling the snow the next day. Of course, everyone had to be slow and careful when driving in those treacherous conditions.

The one silver lining: when it snows like that, a lot of birds tend to come looking for food. My mom got some nice pictures and videos of them using the bird feeder in the yard. You won’t find these ones here in Japan!

フルサイズで表示

This is a cardinal. They always stand out against a snowy landscape.

This is a kind of North American woodpecker.

独学ではなく、英会話のレッスンを受ける上での一番の特典は「英語を直してもらえる」ことでしょう。英語を話す友人たちがいたとしても、間違った箇所をいちいち訂正してもらうことはできないものです。そのため私はよく「直してもらってなんぼ」と皆さんに言っています。その最たるものがずばり、英語でのライティングです。

NEOで出す宿題のうち、穴埋めの練習問題も大切ですが、お題を出されて自分の意見を書くライティングがなお重要です。細かなところまで訂正してもらえて、レベルによっては文法上は正しくとも、より良い自然な表現があればそちらに訂正します。これこそお金を払っている価値があると強く思う私です。

ただ、フルタイムで働く皆さんが時間を捻出して趣味として習う英語です。ライティングの宿題をするのが面倒なこともあるでしょう。提出日までに出来ていなくても、後から仕上げて持ってきて下さる方も多いのです。

そんな中、N子さんが、とあるライティングの宿題を持って来てくださいました。元々は数か月前に出されたお題ですが、それを時間をかけ写真付きで完成させれました。

３年ほど前にお子さん二人を連れて、ご自分の思い出のあるカリフォルニアのDisneylandへ行かれたときのお話です。全てご自分で手配され、息子さんと共にハマリにはまったCarsの聖地にも行かれました。ライティング用紙の周りに写真を付け、出来上がりが大作になりました。私たちが読むだけだと勿体ないのでNEOの掲示板にドドーンと貼りだしています。

ちゃんとこの宿題は書いて持ってくるから。待ってて。そう言われて有言実行されました。

まさにBetter late than never.です。

日本語言うならコレかな？「やらんよりまし」「せんよりまし」平仮名にすると威厳がないですなぁ。

A few weeks ago, me and my wife went to have a fancy dinner at Hotel Granvia downtown. We wanted to celebrate our marriage, and we were a little late to finally go out and have a nice meal. Usually, I do not like going out to expensive restaurants, but this was a special occasion to celebrate.

The restaurant is on one of the top floors of the hotel. It has three main tables where customers sit around, while a chef cooks everyone’s meals in the middle. It also has a great view of the area around Okayama station from above. Luckily when we were there, it was quiet and there were not so many customers. They serve a course meal which is served in several small dishes. The main event of the meal was steak. The steak was from Kyushu, which is well known for its delicious beef. It may have been expensive, but it tasted amazing. There were also several smaller dishes which included soups, salads, and other kinds of foods.

At the end of our course, they brought us dessert plates. I was surprised to see they had made a special message for us. The dessert included maple ice cream, which I had never had before. My wife used to have an egg allergy, so she requested a dessert with no egg. Sadly, her plate was not as exciting as mine and was mostly just fruit. To finish, we took some commemorative photos which they prepared for us in a special display.

While it was a bit too expensive of a meal, we had a good time and enjoyed celebrating together. I would recommend it as a nice place to eat out for a special celebration.

Last Monday (February 9th), I went to Mt. Nagi for a snow hike with NEO student M-san.

We left M’s house at 7am and we expected to arrive around 9am, but there was a lot of snow on the roads the closer we got to the Tsuyama area. Last Sunday there was heavy snow across the whole country. Even Okayama City got some rare snowfall.

We got stuck behind several accidents and traffic jams, so we didn’t arrive at the mountain until around 10am. Also, we couldn’t get to the hiking trail parking lot because the snow on the road was so deep. Even M’s big truck with massive snow tires and 4-wheel drive couldn’t get through. So, we had to park about 800 meters down the hill and park on the side of the road.

We strapped on our snow shoes and started walking through knee deep snow. It took about 45 minutes just to get up to the trailhead.

Our original plan was to do a six hour hike to the peak of Nagi-san and follow a different trail down the mountain. It was quickly apparent to us that this would be an impossible task in the current conditions. So, we decided to just hike a little bit around the lower part of the trail. We also took a side trail to a pavilion that overlooks a small waterfall.

The old trail through the snow was totally covered in fresh snowfall, so we had no choice but to blaze our own trail through the fresh snow. If you have ever tried to walk through deep powder snow before, you know that it is a tiring task to be the lead hiker. We took turns walking first, but even a few minutes was tough and I was sweating hard even after taking off my hat, gloves, and unzipping my jacket.

We weren’t able to follow our original hike plans, but the scenery on this hike was truly fantastic. We were walking through undisturbed snow-covered forest and absolutely everything was pure white and beautiful. In less than 3 hours, we only covered about 3.1 km, which means that our 6 hour plan would have taken over 10 hours if it was even possible at all.

We wrapped up the hike earlier than we thought, so we went to M’s favorite teishoku restaurant on the outskirts of Tsuyama and had a gargantuan lunch. It was a wonderful day out in nature.