Traditional Christmas Lunch!

Roasted Turkey and all the traditional vegetables



chocolate log and Christmas pudding


Christmas cake


mince pie

I forgot to take a photo, but I had a bowl of soup and a loaf of bread before the main dish. I'm full now.

Link

Last Thursday and Sunday, I watched Manchester United on TV. I’m not a big football supporter but I enjoyed watching the game because it was held in Japan. Before the match on Thursday I sent an email to my brother and he told me he would definitely watch the game on TV. I also sent a message to my sister but she replied, “I’m watching the game, and I will be supporting the Japanese team.” At first I thought “Why does she support Gamba Osaka?” However it was me who changed my mind; if I were in Japan, I would support Osaka but now I am supporting Manchester United without realising. On Thursday I also noticed I couldn’t recognize any of the players who play for Gamba Osaka. All of the players whom I used to know have moved to other teams or retired. Now I know more players in the English Premier league than J-leaguers. Time flies. Anyway it was an interesting match; all of my family watched the game on TV in Japan and sent me messages individually. I watched the same live match on TV in Manchester and I felt like I was watching it with my family. This fact made me feel closer to Japan.

I’m planning to go on the stadium tour of Manchester United when my family visit me for the New Year holidays. I also plan to get on the Manchester wheel. I don’t go out to sightsee here and I’ve never tried these so it’s exciting.
I’m thinking about good restaurants, I’ve been to pubs, Italians, Indian and Chinese restaurants and they were all nice. The other day, I asked my Italian friend about recommending Italian restaurant in Manchester; however she told me she hasn’t tried any of them. Whenever she has tried to go to Italian restaurants she has found spelling mistakes on the menu and it stopped her from entering the restaurants. Her attitude doesn’t surprise me because I found the advertisement “Award Winning Japanese Cuisine” “for a Truly Authentic Japanese Eating Experience.” in a local news paper, but in my opinion the restaurant is horrible. They don’t say what kind of “Award” they won and the ad finished with “No eat-no charge guarantee”; but is this something special?

I'll also cook for them; I learnt some new recipes from my friends after coming to Manchester. Not all of the recipes are British but I’ll definitely cook borscht, chilli con carne, Italian pasta and scones. During my daily life I cook food without a name like “cooked chicken with vegetable”. My family are interested in what I cook in England so for a while I took photos of my dinners but they didn’t look tasty so I never sent them. My family will evaluate my cooking very soon.

Season’s Greetings

A big Christmas tree stands in Piccadilly gardens, a huge Santa Clause sits on the town hall and the Christmas markets open; Christmas is just around the corner in Manchester. Some of my friends have already gone back to their home countries so I have been thinking of Japan a lot recently. Since I came here, I haven’t been back to Japan even once because I decided not to go back to Japan for two years unless something exceptional occurs. There are two main reasons; the first one is that I am supposed to be back in Japan in the future so I would prefer to visit other European countries during my stay in England and the second reason is if I went back to Japan, I would miss it even more. After one and a half years, I am more comfortable living here than before, I’m more flexible now, for instance:
Last Tuesday without any notice water stopped coming out of taps, I was shocked because this kind of problem has never occurred in Japan however this is the second time at my place in Manchester. The first time, I panicked and I didn’t know what to do but this time I already knew the place I could ring to ask for help. I also knew I could use the toilet at the nearby station and I had bottles of water to drink so after making a phone call I calmly waited and water came back to the taps in about two hours. Many unavoidable troubles have happened here but I’ve learnt they can be solved if I would complain then wait.
When I came I didn’t have any friends here, I could speak with my friends at home on Skype but after hanging up the line, I felt very lonely. I had no friends for coffee, lunch or shopping, I sat in front of my PC for many hours each day and I didn’t feel like I was living in Manchester, but now I have friends to go out and speak to in person and I’m feeling alive. These facts made it a lot easier to live here, however still miss my family and friends in Japan. Luckily, my family are coming to see me from Osaka for the New Year holidays. I look forward to talking and catching up on all the stories, every day I listen to NHK radio news and read articles about Japan on line, the Internet brings me lots of general information however I know my family will bring many other interesting or local stories.
I’ll stay here another three years from now on, because I’m getting used to living in Manchester, it is much easier to stay here than moving to a new place to start from the beginning again. I have places I would like to visit in Europe so staying three years would give me more opportunity to travel and of course I’ll also try to visit Japan sometimes. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure whether I could come back to Manchester if I went back to Japan before, but now I’m ready for it.
I wish all my friends Merry Christmas!

V for Vendetta

I started to read the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” on 5th November and finished reading it on 28th November. As I’m a very slow reader, a month was reasonably quick for me and I’m happy that I could understand most of it. I skipped some parts because two characters spoke with strong dialects for instance:
“EH, BOAB, Y’ GETUM EN, EH?”
“EH, YIZZA TIGHT BASTUD, YU’RE...”
Unfortunately for me these are accents from the Northern part of England including Manchester. Now I understand why I don’t catch people’s words in daily life. Of course I’m not saying everybody speaks this way, but I overhear these words many times and I still can’t translate them well. When I came to Manchester I got a shock because I couldn’t understand people’ speak, but if I went home and watched TV, I could understand TV or News. Every time I speak with Japanese friends in Manchester I asked “Do people in Manchester speak English? Can you understand them? ”. All of my friends are struggling with the strong accent.
Let’s try to translate a phrase with my friend’s help.
“NAW, THAS JEM’S BERD, WHASSANAME, DIYAAN...”
The above phrase is translated to:
“No, that’s Jim’s bird, what’s her name, Dyane...”
I also should have known “bird” means “girlfriend” which my Japanese English teachers didn’t teach me at school. I still have to learn so many words to fully understand daily conversation. This graphic novel gave me some opportunities to think about that.

To better understand the story, I also watched the movie “V for Vendetta” which was produced by Warner Brother’s. The story is based on the graphic novel but adapted with extra romance and a dramatic ending for the cinema. After watching the movie, I was thinking about these differences, in the original story the girl, Evey was weak and small but after her ordeals with V, she changed into someone much stronger, however, in the movie, the same girl was played by Natalie Portman and she was already strong enough from the first scene. In the book, Evey was attracted by V, but it wasn’t romance as was portrayed in the movie. I read the book using a dictionary, but it doesn’t help explain everything I don’t fully understand. The movie revealed me different aspects and gave me “food for thought” regarding the story; it helped me to understand it better.