I finally ran my Ekiden!  After four months of training I ran 9.3 km in 37:03.  My team was quite slow so we didn’t win any awards, but we went to an onsen and an all-you-can-eat Shabu shabu restaurant afterwords to celebrate.  It was a cold windy day and I had to wait at my starting point for almost 3 hours.  While I was there I met another runner named Michael!  We talked about running for a long time, and then in the race he finished only 7 seconds ahead of me!  I’ll keep training so I can keep up with him in the next race.

Two weeks ago, I took a trip to Kyoto.  It was amazing.  I just popped in for a quick day-trip and took the local JR train—which was so much cheaper than I imagined.  Since I only wanted to go in for the day, I left super early and arrived in Kyoto around 7:30am.  After drinking a big cup of coffee—something I desperately needed after my early morning—I visited Nijo-jo.  I’ve seen Nijo-jo before and loved it, so I wanted to make a point of going back again. It was great to be there so early in the morning, because there were almost no people and I could really take my time looking at things.  Then, I ate sometakoyakiand taiyakinear Fushimi Inari Taisha.  I took my time climbing up through the toriigates and enjoyed the beautiful views of the city I had along the way.  By the time I got to the end of the trail, I was beat.  After a brief—but adventure-filled—few hours, I caught the train home.  It was a great day!

(Takoyaki time!)

I love watching movies no matter if they are being shown on TV, watching a DVD, or by far my favorite way to see a movie, by going to the movie theater! And beyond the watching the movie itself, another thing I really like about going to a theater here in Japan is checking out all of the movie souvenirs that are for sale at the theaters themselves. I don’t often buy much, but I do like checking out the goods themselves and occasionally picking up something for those movies that I really loved. Every time I check out those shops, it reminds me that there aren’t usually shops that sell movie good at movie theaters in the U.S. At least not at the movie theaters I used to go to.

When I was a little boy though, one piece of movie memorabilia that was often made for movies that were geared for kids were movie storybooks. These were great books filled with pictures from the movie and they also told the basic story of the movie itself. They were made and sold at stores not only as a way to advertise the movies and as another way for the movie studios to make a little extra money, but also as a way to help kids get or stay interested in reading. The four that I still have, as seen in the picture in this post, are for the original Superman movie, Ghostbusters, E.T, and Return of the Jedi. In many ways I can’t believe I still have them after all of these years, but I also can’t imagine getting rid of them. They are just way too cool to possibly throw away! I was a bit curious if they may have become collectors’ items these days since all of the movies are still very popular, but I was surprised to find out after a quick internet search that they might only be worth about $20 each at most. But no matter what, they are priceless to me because of the memories I have connected with them.

John

英検の一次試験も終わり、二次試験の面接練習をする生徒のみなさんが多くなってきました。

SHIMON GROUPでは二次試験の試験日が3月3日（日）ですが、一般受験した方は今週の日曜日が

テストかもしれませんね。

英語の面接は緊張するかもしれませんが、面接試験の準備をすればするほど、落ち着いて試験を受

けられるはずです。自分の力を信じて、試験で力を発揮してください！！

One of these past evenings I tumbled down the YouTube rabbit hole and got really interested in watching all sorts of cooking videos. How I ended up there, I have no idea. My favorite video that I came upon was one focusing, 18 minutes on various types of cheeses. A cheese expert – which sounds like an AWESOME profession – was analyzing different makes of cheese and guessing which cheese would be the most expensive between cheeses of seemingly similar make. It was an enlightening video; I never knew how complex cheese flavors could be! 

-Kyle

(the answer to the questions is edam  )