Blog #8 Trip dunring the summer

Hello, this is Yuma. Today, I would like to talk about summer vacation's memory in this year. On September 5th, I went to Kanagawa prefecture with my friends looking for Japanese traditional castle and hot springs.I departed at Mejiro station at 12:00. I used Shonan Shinjuku to go in Odawara, which is famous for Odawara castle. We didn't get in the castle because it needs ticket for pay. However, outside of the castle was beautiful of white wall, and the castle's gate was great.

The above picture is Odawara castle's dungeon(本丸）. The left side of picture is frontside of the castle and right side is backside of the castle.

This is a waterfall nearby a hot spring. The right side of the picture has same water of the waterfall. This water gives the power of longer life who drinks the water. I had this water and I felt the taste is totally diffetrent than general other waters!





Also I got to Hakone nearby Odawara. There is a lot of hot springs and delicious foods. My friends planned that we would like to walk at the place of the hot springs because we had likely to walk to find any famous places. However, We took the place of hot springs at two hours long, so we have tired that the hot spring was great and comfortable. After that, we we took a bus to back to the Hakone station and we had some ice creams. We get back Shinjuku station at 19:00. The daytrip was a bit of tired, but it makes me lot of fun and greatest memory in the summer!

Blog #7 Fireworks festival in summer

Hello, this is Yuma Yamada. I would like to talk about a fireworks festival in August 10th at Jingu Stadium, Shinjuku. This festival purpose for charity event of the earthquake in March 11, 2011. This event started at 19:30 and end at 20:30. I went this event with friends. Actually, this festival's fireworks need Jingu stadium tickets to watch fireworks clearly, but I watched without ticket and watched at Meiji Park because the ticket price is much higher.

Here is the picture of the fireworks, but this park has a bit covered a tree leaves and not see clearly.
However, I haven't watched a fireworks long time, so I really enjoyed this festival and the fireworks!

Blog #6: My favorite brand

Hello, this is Yuki Shirai!

It's finally summer, and now that we are starting to enjoy our long break, I would like to introduce a brand which is perfect for hot season. That is Tapioca Express.

Tapioca Express first opened in 1999 in Los Angeles. The company was loved by many people, and it expanded to Northern America and also to Canada. The main product of this store is drinks. It has more than one hundred kinds of original drinks, such as milk tea, coffee, and yogurt frost. My favorite is honeydew milk tea with boba :) Tapioca Express not only sells drinks but also lunch food and snacks. There are variety of them that taste very good but I recommend crispy chickens. It tastes a bit hot and spicy, but I don't hear any person who hates this ;)

However, Tapioca Express is only in America and Canada so you cannot taste them in Japan. Since we have a long summer break, if anyone have chance to visit America or Canada, I strongly recommend to visit here!

Blog #6: My favorite brand

Hi, this is Naoko Iwanaga.

It's been really hot these days, hasn't it? I love summer because we can enjoy eating many kinds of ice cream! I'd like to introduce you all my favorite ice cream brand, Baskin-Robbins, which often called 31 (thirty-one) in Japan.

Here are the links to their HP in English and Japanese.

Baskin and Robbins are the founder of this brand. They met each other during the Second World War on a tropical island. They made ice cream using different kinds of fruits they could get on the island and this was the beginning of its history.

In 1945, they opened their first store in California and they succeeded managing their buisiness. Their ice cream made many people happy and they felt great happiness too. Then they established the brand, Baskin-Robbins, hoping that they can share happiness with more other people.

They principle "We make people happy" as their policy.

I love their ice creams because they've got many flavors of ice creams and they are all very yummy! :P I'd recommend you to try them. I'm sure you'll love it! <3

Blog#6: My favorite brand

Hello, I'm Tomohiko Ebashi. Today, I would like to introduce the brand that I personally like: Nintendo. This company is perhaps one of the most famous brand in the video-game industry, but only a portion of people knows its history.

Nintendo Corporation was founded in 1889 by a businessman, Fusajiro Yamauchi, as a maker of hana-fuda (a traditional Japanese card game). Three years later, the company started producing the first playing cards in Japan, which led to their success of producing the plastic type in 1953. After all the success, the company was renamed "Nintendo co." from the original "Maru-fuku co."
The world-famous "Family-Computer" and "Gameboy" both came out in the 80's, which created huge excitement among people. Nintendo's gaming system still attracts many people with recent consoles that are sophisticated and fresh.

The reason why I like this company is mainly because they are doing a very strategic management. If I take Wii for example, it is concentrated on the simplicity of the softwares in order to attract the customers of any age groups. On the other hand, there is one company which failed in competing with the console, due to concentrating on high quality softwares with a sharp graphic. Therefore, Nintendo runs its business with a wide point of view, which attracts customers of any age groups who purchase the product as leisure, not as a serious hobby.

By the way, I was so surprised when Nintendo announced about a new console coming out in end of the year! Have you ever heard of Wii-U??

For more informations, you can go to this site (Nintendo official web-site)
If you are interested in Wii-U, check out this link. It's very futuristic!

Blog#6 About my favorite brand

Hello, this is Yuma Yamada. I would like to introduce my favorite brand, “CONVERSE.”  This company mainly sells shoes. aAso it sells clothes, bags, and watches. 

The company was founded by Marquis Mills Converse at Massachusetts in 1908. He manufactured rubber shoes for people working in rainy and snowy conditions.  After 1917, the company provides sports shoes and become popular. I like this company because shoe design is cool and well designed; also it is not much higher price than other brands. I usually use this company’s clothes, shoes, and bags.

Here is the link of this company.

English: http://www.converse.com/

Japanese: http://www.converse.co.jp/

Blog #5

Today I read an article about the crisis in Greece. The new coalition government in the Greece won the approval of all MPs of the three parties that want to keep Euro. However, it will be difficult to keep this situation because the crisis is serious.

This is the URL of the site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18765108

                                                                                                                                         Yusuke