Monthly Archive for October, 2005

A weekend

Published
by
tomoko
on October 23, 2005
in General
. 0 Comments

土 曜日は久しぶりにSnow（名前がユキさんだから）と梅田で会い、ご飯を食べに行った。本当ならクリスＦとジャナも来るはずが、クリスは誰かのお誕生日で （多分女）、ジャナは神戸でクラブにいるからという事で来れなかった。ジャナは今週木曜日にアメリカへ帰ってしまうので、今回が最後に会えるチャンスだっ たので、会えなくてとっても残念だった。

Met up with Snow (Her real name is Yuki which means snow in Japanese) in Umeda and went to eat dinner on Saturday.
Chris F and Janna were supposed to come too but Chris was busy for someone’s ( perhaps girl) birthday and Janna was clubbing in Kobe so we couldn’t meet both of them. Janna was going back to states this Thursday so this was the last chance to meet her. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t meet her.
ＥＣＣ のネイティブは何年も日本にいる先生もいるけれど、大抵の先生は１、２年で国へ帰ってしま う。「日本に家庭を持ったりして長年住んでいるネイティブの先生は、同僚と仲良くなってもすぐに離れ離れになってしまうから変な気分だろうねー」って昔タ リクが言っていたのをふと思い出した。別れは帰る人よりも残される人の方が断然悲しいと思う。 でも去った人はいつか忘れられるから、帰った人の方が結局は悲しい気もする。

There are some native ( non-Japanese) teachers at ECC who have been living in Japan for long time as they married Japanese or they have other reasons. However, most of them go back to their countries after they stayed for a few years. Tariq once said to me, “The teachers who are living in Japan for long time might feel awkward when they get to know their co-workers. Because no matter how they had a good relationship with the friends(co-workers), they would leave Japan so soon and won’t be able to get together often anymore.” 　This came up to my mind when I was thinking of Janna today. Long distance friendship will work but once you started live apart in different countries, you can forget about them easily. We say people who were left behind are sad. But people who are leaving may be more sad because they will fade away from people’s minds and memories.

レストランを見つけるために梅田をぶらぶらしていると、最近できたＮＵを見に行く事になった。
感想：「人が多すぎて何も見れなかった。」
今 日はお昼もコリアンを食べたというのに、晩御飯もSeoul to Seoul という韓国料理のお店へ行く事になった。１週間ずっと韓国料理でも飽きないかもしれない。店員のお兄さんが、私の友達の彼のＫ君にそっくりでびっくりし た。双子がいるのかと思うくらい似ていた。それからＳｎｏｗのダーリン登場。ラブラブぶりを見せ付けられてタリクがちょっとだけ恋しくなった。

Hung around in Umeda to look for a restaurant and we decided to go to a new department store called NU (which stands for North Umeda and I think its pretty boring) but in Chayamachi near LOFT.
My first impression: Too many people.

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We went to a Korean restaurant called ‘Seoul to Seoul’ event hough I had korean for my lunch today. I think I can eat Korean food for every meal for a whole week. Then maybe I don’t want to go to Korea anymore. One of the shop clerks at the restaurant looked a lot like K, a boyfriend of my friend,and I thought the guy was his twin brother.
After we left the restaurant, went to drink some coffee. Snow’s boyfriend, Vincent, joined us and we had a little chat. They were kind of lovey-dovey couple and I was missing Tariq a bit on the way home.

日曜日はお昼起床。親戚に送る写真と手紙を用意して、断食明けには加奈子と真理さんと一緒に樟葉モールにあるイタリアンを食べに行って、いつものようにぺちゃくちゃ喋った。
真 理さんは心理学専攻で、カウンセラーの仕事をしているので、真理さんの意見は自分のと違っていつも面白い。一方加奈子も、曽根崎町まで実家（枚方公園）か ら原チャで毎日小一時間かけて通勤するような少し変わった子なので、全く性格の違う３人がどうして仲良くできるのか今でも不思議に思う。

On Sunday, woke up at noon, wrote some letters for the wedding pictures I was going to send to my relatives. got ready and went to Kuzuha mall for dinner with Mari and Kanako. I was very hungry from fasting and maybe that’s why but the Italian we had there was really good. At the night we chatted for nothing as same as usual.
Mari was majored in Psychology at university and she works as a counsellor for kids refuse to go to school. So she sometimes has extremely different ideas from mine and it’s interesting I think. On the other hand, Kanako is a strange one who commutes for an hour each way in her motor cycle to the office in West Umeda.
I wonder why we can get along so well even though we have very different personalities from each other.

今 回は「もし自分の子供が障害者として産まれてくるとわかっていたら、中絶するかしないか」みたいなシリアスな話題から、「みのもんたのいい加減なトークに ついて」みたいなしょうもない話なんかで時間はあっという間に過ぎた。女の人は喋ってストレスを発散できると思う。 毎日が週末だったらいいのになー。

Our topics were varied from serious one like ‘ If you knew you’d have your baby with physical or mental disabilities, would you think of abortion? ‘ and to gossip talks about Mino-monta. He’s a pretty famous as a TV actor (hot liner kind of) and is well known among middle-aged homemakers who stay home and watch TV everyday.What we talked about him? You should see him and you’ll see. He’s full of crap.

I think women TALK to let the stress out. I wish everyday was weekend….

Shirahama hotspring

Published
by
tomoko
on October 10, 2005
in General
. 0 Comments

１０ 月１０日（月）は体育の日だったので３連休だった。土曜日と日曜日はタリクと長時間ダラダラとチャットしたり、部屋の掃除をしたり、衣替えをしたり、なかな読み終わらない本を読んだりして家で一人でのんびり過ごした。
October 10 th was national holiday, called Sports day in Japan so we had　3 days-long weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday by chatting with　Tariq for quite a long time, cleaning my room, putting summer clothes away and taking out winter clothes and reading a book which I’m trying to finish. It was prettying relaxing days.

月曜日は 美加がお休みなので当然出かけることになり、和歌山まで温泉に行く事になった。美加はかたっぱしからいつものメンバー（香織、優ちゃん、由美ちゃん、路 花、ツッチｰ）に声をかけたらしいが、結局つかまったのは香織だけだった。まぁこれはいつものことだから驚かなかったけ。みんなそれぞれ忙しいので全員で 行ける旅行は年々少なくなって行って当たり前だと思う。悲しいことだけど。
Monday is my best friend Mika’s day off so she always calls me on Sunday night to ask me out.
We decided to go to Wakayama prefecture to go to hotprings with our common friends. She called Kaori, Yuko, Yumi, Ruka and Tsucchi but she was able to get only Kaori.　Now that eveyone is busy for their work or boyfriends, it’s pretty natural things that we can’t all go out together any more. It’s sad but we might just have to get used to it.

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月曜日の朝。９時に出発するつもりが当然３人が枚方を出たのは１時間後の１０時だった。美加の車を走らせる事約３時間、やっとのことで白浜到着。さっそく温泉に向かうことになった。香織が持ってきた温泉ガイドブックを頼りに近くの良さげな温泉「崎の湯」に決定。
Monday morning, we were going to leave hirakata at 9 but of corse we left an hour later, at 10 o’clock. Mika drove her car for 3 hours and we finally got to Shirahama in Wakayama. Headed staright to Onsen(hotspring), called “SAKI NO YU”. It was the place we found out from a guitd book for hot springs which Kaori brought with her.

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そこは露天風呂で海が間近にあるとっても素敵な温泉だった!!
・・・ とか言いたい はずが外は雨。３人で頭にタオルをのせて、おじさんみたいにしてお風呂に入った。しかもそこはまさに露天風呂！という感じで、外で真っ裸になっいるみ たいで少し抵抗感もあった。近くにあるホテルの窓からは丸見え確実、海上をジェットスキーで走っているお兄さん達にも見えていたような・・・。
それでも温泉はかなり良かったので、３人とも大満足だったけど。
The hotspring we went was an open-air spa and we could see the great ocean view from the bath!! It was ausome!
This is what I was hoping to write here. However, it was raining. We had to take a bath with small towels on our heads. Besides, the place was really OUTDOOR hotspring so we kind of hesitated to be naked because we felt like we were completely naked outside.We are pretty sure we could be seen from the guys who were doing jet ski and the people who was staying at a hotel behind the hotspring. We liked the hotspring. That’s true.

その後白浜ビーチへ。外は引き続き雨。
綺麗なはずのビーチも曇り空でいまいちだし人もポツポツ。
Went to Shirahama beach afterwards. It was still raining and the beach didn’t look as good as when you see it in sunny day.

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海 に沈んでいる帽子をとろうとしている美加子。明らかに何もすることがなかったことがわかると思う。
Mika is trying to get a swimming cap in the ocean.　You can see we had nothing to do there.

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次 に行った所はレストラン。まぁまぁってところで可も非もないという感じ。それから帰るのももったいないという事でもう一つ温泉に行った。名前は忘れたけど なかなか良い温泉だった。お風呂から出てすぐ香織のジーンズの中にカメムシが入っている騒動が起きて、くさくて大変だったけど私じゃなくて良かったぁ～。
Next place we went was a restaurant. We were very hungry after taking a bath and playing at the beach. It was pretty normal restarurant. After we ate lunch, we still didn’t want to go home so went to different hotspring. The place was neither good nor bad, we enjoyed it. At the resting room after the bath, we found out there was a cabbage bug in Kaori’s jeans. It smelled terrible and we were in panic but I’m glad it was’t in my pants!

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晩 御飯は牧野の駅前の小汚い定食屋さんに行った。お店を見た時は「なんて店だこりゃ」と思ったけど、味もボリュームも最高！作ってくれるお母さんもフレンド リーで、食後にアイスやお菓子をタダでくれる。あまりにも素敵なお店だからタリクが日本にいる間に連れて行ってあげたかったな～なんて思った。
We came back to Hirakata and went to a small restarurant named HOROYOI for dinner in Makino. At a first sight of the restaurant, I thought in my mind ‘ What a crappy restarurant!’
However, once you ate the food there, you’ll be satisfied with the tasty and hearty dishes.
The cook was pretty friendly and she even gave us some free icecream and snack for desserts.
I really liked the restaurant and I was thinking if only Tariq was still in Japan, I could take him there. I’m sure he’d like it.

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RAMADAN

Published
by
tomoko
on October 8, 2005
in General
. 1 Comment

10月5日からイスラム教のラマダン（断食月）が始まった。私は理由あって5日にスター トすることができなかったが、今日 からはじめた。といってもお祈りをするわけでもなく、ただお日様が出ている間（朝の5時50分頃から夕方の5時半頃まで）は食べ物飲み物を一切口にしない だけ。このラマダンは私がイスラム教の中で一番素敵な事だと思う。

ラマダンはキリスト教徒のクリスマスのような「行事」だと思っている人が多くいると思う。確かに「行事」であるが「行事」だけでは言い切れないなにかがラマダンにはあると思う。

＊第一にラマダンを行う本当の理由は、餓えを自分で体感することで、日々食べたいものが何でも食べられる環境に自分があるということの感謝と、食べ物のありがたさを実感できるということ。

＊世界には餓えで苦しむ人が沢山いるということを認識して、寄付を行う重要さを感じる事。（経済的に可能なイスラム教徒は年収の2.5％を、貧しい人達やそれを必要とする人達に毎年寄付する義務がある。）

＊そしてこのラマダン月には食欲だけでなく、タバコや性欲などの欲を自分でセルフコントロールしなければいけない、訓練の月でもある。

気 に入らないからいじめた。子供が言う事を聞かないから虐待した。保険金目当てで旦那を殺した。万引き、強盗、レイプ、戦争だって誰かの「欲」が大きくな りすぎた結果だし、この世の中にはありとあらゆる「欲」が原因の一つで起こる事件であふれていると思う。こういった悲しい事件を起こしてしまう人は、自分 の食欲さえも当然コントロールできない気がする。

当然体には負担がくるので、お年よりや子供、妊婦さんや月経中の女性、病気中の人などは断食をしてはいけないルールがある。誰にでも奨めるわけではないけど、世界中の人がラマダン月に断食を行うと、世界は平和に近づくような気がするのは私だけ？

Ramadan has started on 5th of October this year. I was not be able to start on the day from some reason but started from yesterday. I’m supposed to neither eat nor drink during the daylight hours.(Now it’s from 5:50 until 17:30)
I like this ramadan the best among many practices of Islam.

There might be lots of people who think Ramadan is like a festival such as Christmas or Halloween for Christians.
Ramadan is a ritual event for Muslims indeed but there’s more something deep than saying that we fast just for Ramadan month.

＊First of all, the true idea of fasting during Ramadan is that by fasting and feeling the hunger by yourself, you will be able to be open-minded and be grateful for your enviroment where you can eat whatever you want to eat, as much as you want to eat, at anytime you want to eat.

＊At the same time, you’ll be able to recognize the strong need for making donations to people who suffer from starvation. (Muslims are expected to give 2.5 percentages of their possessions every year as a constant reminder that there are others in the world who are worse off than they are).

＊Also during the Ramadan Muslims do not only drink or eat but also smoking and sexual contact are forbidden. I think it’s the month for training self control.

Bullying classmates, Child abuse, Insurance killing, Sexual assault, Shoplifting, Robbery,WAR. In this world, I think there are too many tragic incidents which are caused by someone’s exploded desire. I am sure eople who create these incidents must not be able to contol even their appetite.

There are people who are not obliged to fast: Elderly, children, pregnant women, women who are unwell, sick people. Therefore I don’t recommend to fast to anyone but I do think that if many people try to cut themselves off from worldly comforts even only for short period of time like Ramadan, world might be closer to its peace!?