Keita Comes to My Home

My friend Michel, his wife Yoshiko and their five-month-old son Keita came home today. We had wonderful afternoon together with my wife and two daughters. They’ve visited Japan since two weeks ago. They traveled several places from Fukushima to Himeji and they are going to leave Japan for Canada the day after tomorrow.
We talked about a lot of things. One of amazing things to me is the difference of maternity and parental leave term between Japan and Canada. They have longer and more flexible term sharing system of the leave among the couples in Canada.
Recently, birth rate is decreasing year by year in Japan. I’m wondering, sometimes, what kind of measures the Japanese government takes to cope with that.
Anyway, talking with people from another country always gives me fresh idea. Thanks Michel for sharing nice time with us.

Tokyo Disneyland

We went to Tokyo Disneyland yesterday. Tokyo Disneyland celebrates 25th anniversary this year. I don’t remember exactly when I went to TDL last time. I guess it was almost 20 years ago. We went to Disney Resort in Anaheim last year. Comparing TDL to its Anaheim counterpart, it was far more crowded in TDL. I enjoyed watching parades and musical shows there but I was not cut out for waiting attractions in looooong lines.

I took a few hundreds pictures yesterday. I’m planning to make videos using pictures I took there in near future.

Rina's First Tennis Match

Rina, my younger daughter, debuted as a tennis player today for the first time in her life. She attended the beginner’s class of the local tennis tournament together with me, Mr. Yuzuki’s wife and his two sons. Mr. Yuzuki is my tennis coach for almost ten years.

It was unfortunately raining in the morning but later it stopped raining. We had three tennis matches in the club tournament of the preliminary league today.

Rina won one match and lost two matches. She seemed very happy when she won. It was a memorial first win. lol.

It’s a little bit bitter though, I believe, it might be an unforgettable experience for her.

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I Met Mr. Matsuno in Tokyo

I met Mr. Matsuno in Tokyo the day before yesterday for the first time in 16 years. He is my former English teacher. He is a great teacher for me. I had not been able to communicate in English before I met him. But, after learning with him for a few years, everything was changed.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration that thanks to his help I can now write in English, not perfect though, and speak in English.

When I was working in Tokyo abut 20 years ago, I decided to learn English at an English conversation school. I asked some of my friends about schools, “Which school is good?” and “Which school is reasonable tuition?” One of friends recommended ECC English Conversation School in Shibuya, Tokyo. So, I went to the school, about 30 minutes from my office by train, and asked the school staff about their educational system, price, classes and teachers. While listening the staff’s explanation, I gradually liked the atmosphere at the school. Then, I decided to study there in the night class after work two days a week. Mr. Matsuno is one of the teachers at ECC Shibuya school.

At first, Mr. Matsuno’s class was very tough for me. He used live radio English news programs as teaching materials in his class. He sometimes translated English news simultaneously into Japanese and asked students to do the same way. We should carefully prepare the class beforehand otherwise we could not catch up with the class.
He is a rare perfect bilingual teacher at that time. He sometimes explained subtle differences of the meaning of English sentences in Japanese to make the beginners easily understand between the lines.

After talking for three and half hours in Nishinippori with him, I felt he was as young as he was 20 years ago and was still very ambitious for everything. I was impressed by his energy even we are in the different walks of life: he publishes books and teaches English, on the other hand I’m an engineer working for CANON. When I was leaving Nishinippori for Tabata where my parents-in-law live , he was standing outside of the wicket and kept shaking his hand till I was out of his sight. We promised to see each other soon. I had a really wonderful time with him in the middle of Golden Week.

Golden Week: Golden week refers to the period from April 29th to May 5th when there are four national holidays.