A Whole New World

I visited Dubai for 5 days. Last year in June, I left Japan and came to Manchester via Dubai airport. At that time, my friend applied for a job in Dubai. I thought if she got a job there, I would visit her.
After one year and one month, the day has come!

People at the immigration office wore traditional clothes and were very serious. I couldn’t imagine my friend’s life here. I was happy because my friend came to pick me up at the airport. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known what to do there. My first impression was it’s a whole new world.
The weather was opposite from the one in England. It’s sunny and hot. I really had good time in the sea. It was calm and beautiful.



After swimming in the sea, we went to the world's only seven-star hotel, Burj Al Arab. Its inside was also really gorgeous.



One thing I felt uncomfortable during my stay was there were few women in local places. That's the same when I got on a boat called Abra:



and even when I went to shopping at the market called Souk:



The reason is that 60% of population in Dubai are workers coming from South Asia. Now they are creating the tallest building in the world, Burj Dubai:




Even the outside is 47℃, they can enjoy skiing inside.




They are planning to build the biggest amusement park in the world. They also plan to build a hotel in the sea. I cannot imagine what will happen to this place in several years. I look forward to seeing my friend again and visiting this dramatically changing place.

Sports

I watched football games, Euro Cup 2008, and Wimbledon Tennis. I did not watch these games when I was in Japan. What happened to me?

One of the main reasons is that I try to act like British people. They enjoy watching these games, so I would like to share their feelings. Also it is a good topic when I do not have any common things to talk about. I can talk about sports without worrying about complicated matters like politics or religion.

If I watched games more, I would understand the rules better. I am gradually getting in to watching football and tennis. Still I never have tried to watch Cricket. Once my English teacher explained about the rules, but none of class mates understood it. I imaged that its rules are similar to those of baseball.

In Europe, many people do not even know the rules of baseball. Once I tried to explain to my friend about baseball. In my opinion, baseball is good, not only physical, but also mental. Each player is more concerned about winning for the team than about their own glory. This kind of mental team-play has strong connections to the Japanese way of thinking. That is why the Japanese love baseball. However my friend told me, “If you're talking about team-play, football is also team play. We cannot play it alone. And you say baseball matches the Japanese way of thinking, but it came from America.” I see. Football could be more popular than baseball in Japan soon. Actually for the younger generation, football may have already became more popular than baseball.

These Days

Since I quitted my part time job in April, I've been attending free English classes. It's “first come first serve”. So I should be there approximately 40 minutes before the class and wait until it starts. I spend this waiting time chatting with my class mates. Sometimes I talk too much before the class and am quiet during the class.

Japanese students usually try to answer correctly. I try to find the answer that the teacher expects to hear. Because I take a long time to answer, I miss my chance to speak in the class. Other students speak out whatever they think. I don’t think I could speak anything in the class, but I should speak if I have some ideas. Anyway I am happy to see people and listen to the stories about their countries. We have a different six teachers every two weeks. Every teacher has a different accent. Thanks to this class, I’m getting used to British accent. Once I start to like British accent, I like British people. Although, I still have many things to complain about. For example after waiting eight months, I'm still on the waiting list for the dentist. The registration procedures for the dentist never end. In my flat, one of three lights in the kitchen is broken and one of two rolling curtain is also broken. I have complained about these problems twice, however, they have not been fixed yet. I dislike these things. Of course I still can't say I like this, but now I can accept this.

In Japan, things are efficient. On the other hand, I always feel pressure that I should do everything people expect of me. If anyone waits after me, I automatically hurry up. Here, no one would hurry for others. And no one would let me hurry. It might be hard for me to adjust to the Japanese style after coming back to Japan. So far I enjoy the British style.

Did I Improve My English?

I just finished my English classes from a volunteer teacher. In the last class, our teacher asked us “Did you improve your English?” My answer was “I’d thought I would have improved my English more.” All of my classmates had the same impression. We were happy with our English teacher. He always brought interesting topics like recycling, foods, art and education systems. The classmates were coming from all over the world. Sometimes I had different ideas from them. I enjoyed talking about these topics and listening to other's opinions. All of my classmates really enjoyed our class, but we’ve never been satisfied our English. Even I could talk about some specific topics it didn't help understanding daily conversation. As my excuses, people in Manchester speak very fast. They are talkative and speaking to me, but they don't care whether I understand them or not. Even though I didn't understand what they said, I pretended like I understood. And the conversation was over. It was frustrating.

When I watched TV at home, I didn't fully understand the story. I needed to read subtitles. It was tiring. Yes, I’m lazy. I had dreamed that after staying one year in England, I could be a fluent English speaker. It's been one year since I came here. However, it didn't happen to me. Sometimes I feel happy about my speaking, but still I don't feel any progress in English.

In my daily life, I'm not expected to speak fluent English. All I'm expected to speak is short clear sentences. So it doesn't help in improving my English.

I'm not saying I'd like to speak like a politician, but I'd like to communicate with local people without a problem. I'll stay here more, so I wish I could improve my English before coming back to Japan.