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

Blog#5 Baby panda was born in Ueno Zoo

Hello, this is Yuma Yamada. I would like to talk about a news that a panda in Ueno Zoo called "Shin Shin" had her new panda baby in Ueno Zoo in July 5th. It is a first time in the Zoo that born naturally, not artificial born. Here is the article.

 Also here is the movie of the baby was born in cage.

I saw the news in morning and I was amazed, because I never experienced of panda's born during my life! I have one concerned about if Shin Shin neglect her baby, she's baby would grow by people in the zoo. I hope Shin Shin would take care of her baby.

From this article, Shin Shin's baby can be seen in a year half later. So I would like to go the zoo if I have a chance after the baby can see in the zoo!

Blog#5: Jetstar's first flight from Narita

Good evening. This is Tomohiko Ebashi, and I would like to talk about a big news in the airline industry. We have been hearing a lot of news about LCCs (Low-Cost Carriers) lately, but there are not so many companies in operation as yet. Today, there was a news that one of the Japanese LCC companies, Jetstar, has succeeded in making its first flight from Narita International Airport (Tokyo) to New Chitose Airport (Hokkaido). This company's operation was a second one in the LCC industry, following the Peach Aviations Ltd. Another rival airline, AirAsia Japan.co, is now planning to start its operation from August.
All of the LCC companies are doing their best in keeping the cost affordable to many people, but since they are hiring many new pilots in such a short period of time, there are still some safety issues left. Toward this issue, the Jetstar President comments, "We will go all out to let customers enjoy pleasant flights while placing top priority on safety".
In my opinion, keeping the airfare low would be a  great news for all of those who want to spend their pastime away from home, but I am sure that this system would become a massive pressure for the airline staff who will be working under a harsh environment. I can only hope that the tragedy similar to the highway bus accident will not occur under such a stressful atmosphere.

The article and the pictures are from here.

Blog #4: Olympic in Japan?

Hi, this is Naoko. Today, I found an interesting article about importance of Japan standing as a candidate of host country for the Olympic which will be held in 2020. Here is the article. I'm sorry that I couldn't find as English version.

The author is demanding that we have to become a host country once more to win the competition between developed countries. However, I do not want our country to become a host country. The point I'd like to point out is that if the Olympic was held in Japan, a huge number of people will visit here to watch games. It sounds like a great thing. However, problems will be caused by those visitors.

First, I'm concerned about transportation. In Japan, many people use transportation, especially in highly populated cities like Tokyo. If many visitors come to Japan, transportation in Japan won't be able to handle such a huge number of passengers. If they demand that we should be the host country in 2020, they should come up with a ideal to solve this problem.

Second, if the Olympic was going to be held in Japan, electricity will be needed. Japan is now facing a time to save electricity and there is no spare of it. In addition, Japanese people are curious about danger of using nuclear power plant. We first need to come up with an alternative way to produce electricity.

These are my opinions. How about you? What do you think about Japan standing as a candidate of a host country?

Blog #4: Liver sashimi

Hello! This is Yuki Shirai.

Do you like going to "yakiniku" restaurant? I love "yakiniku", and I often go with my friends. We usually order ox tongue, roast, rib, liver sashimi, etc. However, the Japanese government banned selling raw liver from this month! It is because of food poisoning. More than 100 people came down with symptoms of food poisoning after eating liver sashimi.

After the government has made an announcement of prohibitting liver sashimi, number of people went to "yakiniku" restaurant to enjoy the last taste of liver sashimi. Many of them said it is sad they cannot eat liver sashimi at "yakiniku" anymore.

You can read news article about this topic here. I'm sorry it's in Japanese! ：/

I cannot eat raw liver anyways, so it doesn't really make me sad, but my friends say they were so shocked when they saw the news of prohibitting liver sashimi.