Trip to London Part 1

My friend came to London from Japan for a business trip. I was excited.

It took 2hours and 30minutes from Manchester to London by train. So it wasn’t problem for me to go there.

Three days before her coming, I checked for train tickets on a web site and noticed there were no direct trains from Manchester to London on the weekend. So it would take 4hours and 40minutes with a transfer.

I checked for airplanes. However, I couldn’t find a good flight with a reasonable price.

The other possibility was a bus. It would take 4hours and 30minutes. So there is no time difference between bus and train. It’s much cheaper than train and no transfer is necessary. So I chose to go by bus.

My bus left Manchester at 6:45am. I’ve never used a long distance bus service before, so I wasn’t sure whether they would run on time or not. I asked my friend to ring my mobile in case. When she called me I was on a bus and I couldn’t hear her voice. It was raining, the bus was delayed and my mobile didn’t work well. I was in trouble. She called me again but I was on the underground at that time. So my mobile didn’t work again. After I got off the tube, I noticed a voice message from her. She left a message that she had already left our meeting point and was looking for me. She used a public phone because her Japanese mobile didn’t work in the UK. So I had no way to contact her from my side. Anyway I went to our meeting point and listened to the voice message from her again. I had no clue where she was. I’ve not seen her for a year; she may have changed her hair style. Still I was optimistic and I believed I would see her because I came to London to see her. I walked back toward the underground station. And I saw my friend!

Movie

I went to the watch movie “Iron man”. It wasn’t my choice. My friend was excited to watch it so I just followed him. Before going to the theatre, I searched web site. I couldn’t find the Japanese website, so I needed to check the English one. It didn’t attract me. I went to the cinema with low expectations.

But, it was a really interesting movie. I enjoyed the story from the beginning to the end. The story was from an American comic like “Spiderman”. So it was an interesting movie for kids as well. It meant that the story and the English weren’t difficult to understand for me. This is important.


I like Leonard DiCaprio and Tom Cruise not only because of their nice looks but also their clear English. Even though they are nice-looking I can’t catch George Clooney or Matt Damon’s words.


Anyway I was happy to follow the story. I enjoyed a new type of super hero in this movie. He was rich and intelligent. Usually the superhero is poor but has some special ability or personality. In this movie, the hero had everything. He was famous, rich, intelligent, and popular among girls. Everybody envied him. However, one event changed his way of thinking. He found what was the most important thing for him. And he changed into himself as a superhero. Watching the procedures was also nice. He created his robot armour, tried to use it and adjust it. The process sometimes seemed not perfect. He practiced flying and shooting. Sometimes these looked funny. The cool perfect guy suffered from such uncool procedures and changed into a super hero.

I enjoyed watching “Iron man”. It was really impressive. I’m sure this is satisfactory for Japanese who love robots the most in the world.

Celine Dion

I’m a big fan of Cline Dion. Two weeks ago, she came to Manchester for her world tour concert. I bought the ticket in November last year. In general, entrance fees of movies, classic concerts, musicals and operas, are cheaper here than in Japan. However, the concert ticket was not the same. When I search the best available seats by Internet, it showed the seats costs 85 pounds (17,000yen). I bought the seat, but the best seats had already sold out and they cost 125 pounds (25,000yen).

I’ve waited for the concert for 5months and finally I went to the concert. I received a reminder and a schedule of the concert by email. This was useful information. The starting time of the show was written at 8:00pm, however, the schedule by email told me someone else started to play from 8:00pm to 8:30pm. Celine would start to sing from 8:50pm. I didn’t know the first performer, but I went to the arena by 8:00pm. Many people had already been there. The first performer started to sing on time, but some of the audience members didn’t know about it. They seemed to be surprised that Celine didn’t show up at 8:00pm. The first performer’s song was quite good, but many Celine fans didn’t listen to his songs. They were rather noisy. At 8:50pm, finally Celine was on the stage. Thanks to the expensive tickets, the audience members weren’t young people. None of them stood up. This was a relief for me. People are bigger here than in Japan. If everybody stood up, I wouldn’t be able to see. I could enjoy looking and listening to the concert. Her voice was beyond my imagination. I was about to tear-up when I listened to her song “power of love”. All of the songs were impressive and I really had a good time.

I found some differences from Japan. One of them was about the security check. There was no checking of my belongings at an entrance. Anyone could take photos by camera or mobile phone during the concert. It’s usually forbidden in Japan.

Her native language was French, so she said “I sing at least one French song in every one of my concerts.” I thought it was a good idea. For me, whether she sang in English or in French, it wasn’t a big difference. However, it seemed to be a big difference for British people. I felt the atmosphere from the audience was cool or even cold. I recognized that singing French songs in England was a challenge.

As I expected, the last encore song was “My heart will go on.”

New English Class

I’ve heard about a free English class. My current English class is based on volunteer teachers, so it costs only 25 pounds for 10 lessens. It’s almost nothing.

I thought, now I’ve quit my job and have more time, so why not try the free English class. Now it’s good weather and the perfect season to start something new. So I went to the academy.

The free English classes are held by trainee teachers. They haven’t got a license yet, so it is free. It is a two-hour class and four teachers taught us 30 minutes each. Each of the teachers prepared their own study materials.

Before I started to take the class, I needed to take a small English test to find the level of my class. It was 25 questions of English grammar. In general, Japanese people learn good enough grammar to solve questions. After checking my answers, a person who works at the academy asked me “Why do you come to study here if you can solve these questions?” Actually I’ve already learned a lot about grammar and I knew how to get good marks on English exams. However I’ve never been happy with my English. So I answered “I’d like to improve my spoken English.”

It was interesting to talk with people who had come from all over the world. It was also interesting to know that European people understand difficult English words, but sometimes don’t understand very easy ones. This is because difficult words are common in some languages that originate the same language but easy words are easy to be changed.

In addition, I could learn how to become a good English teacher from a variety of teachers.

The best thing is I have new friends there.

Lake District

The weather is quite nice in Manchester these days. This week I went out with half sleeves for the first time since I came here in June last year. I’ve survived cold, dark, miserable weather and finally I enjoy the weather in England. I’ve avoided sunshine before coming to Manchester, but now I really enjoy staying under sunshine.

I went to Lake District last weekend. The followings are the photos.

Aira Force Waterfall:

Lake Windermere:

The Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back.

I’ve been working as a part-time for seven months, but now I have quit the job. The following is one of the reasons.

My working shift starts from 12 noon. The shop also opens from 12 noon. It’s not a popular supermarket, so I know it’s no problem.

I start work 10minutes before noon. One day I couldn’t start 10 minutes before. Still I went 3 minutes before 12 noon. Then my boss waited to open the door for me and started yelling and showing his watch. “You’re late.” He said. I didn’t even say “hello” to him. I lost my words. I just told him, “I’m not late I’m here before 12.” He said, “You should come 10 minutes before 12. You know, if the train leaves 12, the driver started to work before 12. You can’t open the shop at 12 if you come on 12.” I knew it. I said, “In Japan a train driver is paid before 12 and they come earlier. If you want me to start definitely 10 minutes before 12, you should pay me extra.” My boss said, “I don’t know about the system in Japan. Here you’re in England, things are like that. It’s the same in Ireland, Germany, Italy, France......”

I talked about my experience in Japan. “I worked at a facility in Japan it opened from 9:30am. My work started from 9:00am and prepared for the opening.” Then he shouted, “Do you say you don’t want to come 10 minutes before 12?” I answered, “I don’t say it. I usually come 10 minutes before 12!” What I wanted to say was, I usually come 10 minutes before 12 it’s just today I’m a bit late. Still I came before 12. I volunteer to start earlier. He can’t force me to come 10 minutes before 12, because of he pays from 12. However before I said these words, he left me. Probably, other colleagues told my boss that I usually come earlier. After 3 hours my boss apologized to me, “Sorry about this morning. I was really busy, I had so many things to do, and I couldn’t control my words.” I said, “It’s OK.” However my terrible feeling was not dismissed. At 6pm, it was time to finish my work, but a person who starts to work from 6 pm didn’t come and I kept working after 6pm. My boss apologized to me again about how he yelled at me in the morning instead of yelling at the guy who should come at six. My boss is like a barking dog. He yells to women but not to guys. I worked till 6:20pm without extra fee. I don’t talk about small extra wage. Although, it’s progress for my boss to apologize to me, still my bad memories would never disappear.

So many things like that have happened. Each of them might not be a big enough to decide to leave the shop.

Many good things have also happened there. I had many good colleagues. I became friends with some of customers. I enjoyed chatting with customers who were interested in Japan.

I didn’t regret to work to the shop, but I was sure it was time for me to start something new otherwise the last straw would break my back.