My English Diary

This week I finally finished watching the DVDs, 24. It took almost 3 years to watch only the first season!! LOL  It was good and I like the idea of 24. But I don't think it's a good idea to watch suspence shows by myself (maybe just for me) and don't like the shows killing people with no reason. I don't feel good about that. 

I still have Season 2 to watch. (I have borrowed them from my friend for 3 years.) Now I'm wondering if I should watch it or not. I am afraid it would take another 3 years. :P

I started thinking about money from last weekend. Probably this is because of Shell. Recently she told me about financial things a lot. Then the stock price fell down, the yen became stronger. I was interested in investments, so I thought it was time to do something!

Wednesday was our company's holiday (because of Nada festival), so I went to Kobe to open a new bank account. I already applied for an account at another bank, but it was a net-bank, it would take time to send me a bank card. And I didn't know about investment well, so I needed to talk face-to-face with a specialist first. I told an bank staff that I was intrested in investments, then she took me upstairs. The second floor was so wide. There were some booths to talk with bankers and some comfy chairs for waiting. A yong banker called my name and took me to his booth. There were stylish desktop on a wide desk. As I sat down a chair, he gave me a bottled tea and a cup. I hadn't bought any their financial product, just I asked them about that. They treated me well. He taught me about some economic stuff. I already read some book, but he told me extra usefull knowledge and information. And it was free. I left there without buying anything (coz I can buy online at home), but I felt good. I liked it.

After the bank, I went shopping, of course!! I know I can save my money if I don't buy anything, but I can't!! I got lovely boots and a nice top. I was so happy! (I sound like Rebecca in Confessions of a Shopaholic. hahaha)

Now I'm checking financial news and exchange rates all the time. I feel like I'm stepping into a new world.

♪Po～nyo Po～nyo Ponyo, I watched Ponyo (Ponyo on the cliff by the sea). It is the cutest movie ever!!!

I thought the movie was for children because I heard Hayao Miyazaki, the directer of Ponyo, said he made this for children expecting it would be the first movie for them because there were too many scary and violence films recently. But it is also enjoyable for adults. The screen is so colorful, it's always cheerful and sometimes bright. And the animation is just amazing. The movement of jelly fishes and waves is so big, quickly and unique. I couldn't believe they didn't use any CG and it was all hand written!!

The story is also cute and simple. 5-year-old boy met a cute golden fish girl and he named her Ponyo. Their expressions are so cute and straight. They repeat their words each other, run and jump around and suddenly fall asleep. I like that they are saying 'すき！' each other :) Other characters are also attractive. I like Sosuke's, 5-year-old boy's, mum and her way to drive a car. She is so cool.

I laughed and smiled a lot. I looked around the people in the theater right after the ending roll finished, all of them were smiling. The movie makes us happy. I went to see it by myself because I thought my gaijin friends were not interested in Japanese movie without subtitles. But I should have brought them. The story is easy to understand, I was seeing it trying to translate into English and I could do 90% of them. (Childish words might be difficult to understand, but it's not a big problem, I think.) So I recommend seeing Ponyo in a theater, it's worth it. :)

I was on TV and a magazine last weekend. It was so unusual!

It was a local TV news, they showed about the Moon viewing festival last weekend, and I was on TV just for 3 seconds!! haahaa It was strange to see me on TV. I laughed at me at the first time. Then I felt guilty. There were only I and a womam sitteng next to me who were zoomed in, we are neither a concert master nor a part leader. We were just sitting in the middle of the front row. Sorry!!! The TV news repeated 3 times a day and it lasted for 1 week. So I watched it 3 times, then I thought it was enough. hahaha

On Sunday I got a message from Steff and she told me our magazine was out! I didn't write about my trip to Singapore here, but acctually I got a photo shoot in Singapore with Steff during GW.  Steff's friend Pam is a stylist and has her pages on a local magazine. She needed models who had different body shapes for jeans, then I became a model for small size (No wonder. I'm small even in Singapore.) and Steff was for medium size.  We had hair and make-up done and were taken pictures by a proffessional cameraman. I got tense there, so I didn't think I did well. I am not used to hold a pose and smile in front of a camera. So when Steff sent me a picture of our page this week, I saw it nervousely. Then I was surprised that I was on the one third of the page. So big!!! The picture of me is... OK! Pam chose the best one. Thanks! Steff was next to me. The size of her picture is same as me. We look totally different because of the make-up. She will send the magazine to me, can't wait to see us in a real magazine next :)

I had heard about the moon viewing festival in front of the castle, but I didn't know it was so big and fun! I played the mandolin on the stage at the festival last weekend.

We played at the festival after 2 days practice in Yamasaki. That practice was for our next concert in November, not for the festival. I don't usually practice so much, so I got tired and my fingers hurt. We also practiced the songs for the festival, then I realized our part had only 2 people to play for the festival. And we heard there would be two microphones for each parts, that meant I was gonna have a microphone! I was getting nerves.

At the festival a microphone was set close to the sound hole of my mandolin. I was thinking 'Oh, I can't make mistakes. It's gonna be announced to the whole festival!' Luckly I coudn't hear the sound from speakers because they faced to the audience. That made me feel better. There were thousands of people in front of us. That was big! I was excited to play for a lot of people outside and it was so good. One of our songs was Ponyo. It's popular among children, so some children were singing there. And after we finished playing it, one kid said to us 'もういっかい！(one more!)'. That was so cute!

After that I joined a big gaijin group for drinking. There were more than 10 different kinds of sake, I got a sake cup for 500 yen, then 'all you can drink!'. I had 3 cups of sake, that was a lot for me, especially after 2 days practice and a small (but big) concert. So I got really drunk and couldn't walk properly. hahaha (Shell had 6. さすが) Sake was good, the moon was round and beautiful and there were many funny drunk people. (It was like Hanami!) I regret that I missed this fun festival over the past 25 years. (I couldn't drink sake 25 yeas ago tho. haha)