Japanese Archery

When I arrived in Manchester two years ago, I tried to find a place for practicing 弓道, Japanese Archery. I searched web site with key words “Manchester, Japanese Archery” however I couldn’t find any place where I could join.
Recently one of my friends told me that he practices Japanese Archery in Manchester and the organization shows their information on web site. I wondered whether the facility was built in two years however he told me it’s not a new one and it’s been there at least more than five years. Why didn’t I find them on web site two years ago? He told me if I would use key words “Manchester, Kyudo” I would find it. Oh dear, I didn’t have to translate “Kyudo” to “Japanese Archery”. I found it without problem and I saw some photos; only one difference from Japan I noticed is there are no girls. My friend told me only two girls join Kyudo practice in Manchester at moment. My problem is that their practice starts from 8:30am on Saturdays. It would take one hour to go there so I just hesitate to join them. I know it would be worth to get up early in the morning and practice Kyudo in Manchester but I’m a lazy.

A Japanese language teacher

I’ve been thinking about becoming a Japanese language teacher since I came to Manchester two years ago. There is an international organization and they always welcome volunteer language teachers. Each one term has 10 lessons and one lesson is 90 minutes. In every term, I felt that I wasn’t ready for teaching Japanese. Finally I notice I would never be ready for teaching Japanese in future so I decide to start this term.
I thought it would be the most difficult to teach beginners class because Japanese is different from any other languages in characters and grammars. I had no idea which I should start to teach so I asked possibility to teach intermediate class. However the Society told me there were no intermediate Japanese speakers in Manchester. I had no choice but to teach beginners class.
In my first lesson, I was planning to teach Japanese pronunciation with Hiragana letters, how to introduce ourselves, some standard greetings and counting numbers. I thought it would take 90minutes.
My students are from China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Germany. They evaluated their Japanese levels were almost zero however all of them pronounce Japanese without problem. I noticed Japanese pronunciation is quite easy for them. In addition their quick answeres and understanding amazed me. If I teach them how to count numbers in Japanese, they immediately understand the rules and remember them and use them without problem. So I finished everything within 90minutes so I prepared more curriculums from the second lesson. I’ve already finished seven lessons.
The other day, my Japanese friend bumped into my Korean student. He spoke to my Japanese friend in Japanese and she thought he was Japanese! This is a big progress and it made me happy. Just three more lessons are remaining and I’d like to form some particular vocabularies and useful phrases in their mind.

Hospital

I felt strong pain in my body. I waited to be cured naturally but the pain became stronger day by day. I finally decided to call GP which is like a home doctor. My doctor recomended me to go to hospital and wrote a letter for me. After I went to the hospital, my doctor explained about my treatment. She asked me, "Do you admit......?" I thought I had no choice to say "No" to a doctor so I kept saying "yes". Then a nurse asked me "Do you understand what's happening to you?" I said nothing then she said "you can't go home for two days." It was a big surprise to me. Anyway I stayed in the hospital:


This is my lunch. This looks like a meal in the airplane rather than at hospital.


I also got travel kit like this:


All doctors and nurses are very kind and my stay at hospital wasn't bad. Still staying at home is much better.

Lake District

I travelled Lake District one month ago. I've not updated my blog for a while. Since last month, I started to study Spanish and Arabic. Of course I keep studying English. In addition, I started to teach Japanese! It's very interesting so far. I'll write about it in my next posting.

Lyme Park

It was a lovely day to stay outside.

Shakespeare's Globe theatre

I went to London and watched "Romeo and Juliet" at Shakespeare's Globe theatre. It's an outside theatre and very good atmosphere. Finally I watched a Shakespeare's play in UK!

Where's Eriko?

I performed in this concert!
My friends came to listen to the performance and took this photo for me. Approximately 1,800 people visited there and it was a huge success. I was very lucky being on the stage as one of 280-member chorus.