Over the winter vacation one of my best friends from America came to visit me. It was her first time in Japan, so I was excited to share this amazing country with her. We met in Tokyo first, then went back to Ogaki, and made a day trip to Osaka one day, and Kyoto another. She really enjoyed herself here, which made me happy. 

One thing we did in Tokyo was eat at an unusual restaurant. See, if we wanted to eat dinner, we had to catch it ourselves. In the middle of the restaurant was a large aquarium filled with different types of fish and crustaceans. My friend and I wanted to catch bigger fish and have it made into sushi, except we weren’t very good at fishing…It took us about 45 minutes to catch one fish! For some reason, they weren’t taking the bait on our hooks. They must have been smart fish. 

Eventually I caught one by simply dragging my hook in the water, but I felt bad for piercing the fish. Even though I love sushi, I guess I should just avoid fishing from now on. 

AHHH it lives!

明けましておめでとうございます。ハローズの2019年の授業も始まりました。また新たな気持ちでこの年をスタートさせましょう。英検に学校の宿題、定期テスト・・・たくさんあるけれど、あらかじめいつあるかがわかっているものばかり。今年ことは計画的に物事を進めてみましょう！！・・・と自分にも言い聞かせています。

I love gyoza!  We call them dumplings or pot stickers in America.  Sometimes at our house, we cook somewhere between 150 to 200 gyoza at one time, and eat just a lot of gyoza for dinner.  We always have leftovers, so we eat them for breakfast the next day.  The main ingredient in gyoza is hakusai, or Chinese cabbage.  Chinese cabbage is a winter vegetable, so we often have to wait until winter to make gyoza so we can get a lot for a low price.

Last winter, we used our hotplate at a neighbor’s house to eat yakiniku.  The next time we wanted to use our hotplate, we couldnt find our power chord!  That means we can’t use our hotplate to make gyoza any more!  Oh no!  We looked all over the house many times, and talked to our neighbors to see if they knew where the power chord was.  It was nowhere to be found.  Sad story.  We didn’t use our hotplate all the way through the next  year, but now winter is here again and we really wanted to eat gyoza.  We ordered a new power chord so we could make gyoza again.  It was finally time to eat gyoza again after a year of waiting.  When I opened up the box to the hotplate….there it was.  The missing power chord.  We looked everywhere except inside the box!  You see, we always hang the power chord on a nail on the wall, not in the box!  I felt pretty dumb for not looking inside the box.  Unbelievable.  

We made delicious gyoza and now we have two power chords.  

Happy New year!

2019年が始まって6日が経ちました！

明日から学校がスタートする人が多いのではないでしょうか。

宿題、終わっていますか？僕はギリギリにやるタイプだったので、学校が始まる前の日は大変でした。

明日から始まるのは学校だけではありません。ハローズの授業も明日から始まります！

今年も元気に楽しく、英語を勉強していきましょう！

Catching a cold is one of the common events of winter. Viruses can navigate the cold, dry air easily, and people spend lots of time indoors in close contact with one another. This makes winter the perfect season for cold epidemics, putting a damper on many people’s winter holiday celebrations.

Have you caught a cold this winter? I got a bad cold last month that took more than a full weekend of rest and self-care to conquer. Of course, there’s lots of medical advice and folk remedies floating around. It’s common sense that you should hydrate a lot, eat hot, simple, nutritious foods, keep your body warm, and get plenty of sleep and bed rest. But what other things can you do to fight off colds?

I personally like to drink lots of tea and hot soups loaded with veggies. I have a Polish friend who recommends eating lots of garlic and putting sliced onions in rooms where you’ll be working or sleeping. I’m not sure such a fragrant folk remedy is quite to my tastes, no matter how poorly I’m feeling! Do you have any advice or folk remedies for people battling colds this season?

Ryan