SF in fog

I just visited San Francisco. Finally, I bought Clipper Card, which is transportation card used in San Francisco.

I found a nice cookie named German Shepard in the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero.

For lunch (but 3:30 pm), I stopped by Ziggy's Burgers. It was okay, especially fries were nice.

I wandered the bay area for a while at, and worked the downtown through the Italian town. It was foggy. I really felt the fog on my skin.


I ate a Thai curry for dinner at Metreon Center.




When I was going home, I used BART as usual. Yet, I overslept on the train and fortunately I was on a wrong train!! When I noticed it, I had come at far north of Oakland... I changed the direction and got a couple of transfer, and then finally I came back my parking area. It was 2 pm when I arrived at home.

Cheese 'n Dairy

I went to the cheese factory located in the south of my city. In the visitor center of the factory, there were so many cheeses and related products. My friends and I made a small bag of the ice cream.

And then, we went to the real dairy introduced by a member. The smell of the dairy was actually awful but I was impressed by so many cows. It was interesting experience.

Boomers

There is a small go-cart and laser tag game arcade. I went to there and met some friends. We played the go-cart. It was a little childish but fun.

Just Google it

1.2+(sqrt(1-(sqrt(x^2+y^2))^2) + 1 - x^2-y^2) * (sin (10000 * (x*3+y/5+7))+1/4) from -1.6 to 1.6


100-3/(sqrt(x^2+y^2))+sin(sqrt(x^2+y^2))+sqrt(200-(x^2+y^2)+10*sin(x)+10sin(y))/1000, x is from -15 to 15, y is from -15 to 15, z is from 90 to 101


5 + (-sqrt(1-x^2-(y-abs(x))^2))*cos(30*((1-x^2-(y-abs(x))^2))), x is from -1 to 1, y is from -1 to 1.5, z is from 1 to 6


*You might need a browser which supports WebGL.

Local Concert

There was the local concert at the park located in the next city from the evening. We, the international club, went there with a picnic set such as boiled eggs, cookies, snacks, and drinks. In my culture, we usually use a vinyl sheet but American culture seems use a blanket. It was interesting.

The concert was really nice. The was so many people as the audience. It was getting chilly at night. We got back at 10 pm. I like such a local night as well.

How English is difficult for Japanese people

"Why it is difficult for Japanese people to acquire English as a second language." I want to translate this idea written by a Japanese who traveled all around the world.

1. Japanese people live the circumstance where they don't have to use English.

2. The Japanese education system of English weight on grammar with textbooks too much.

3. Many students laugh students who speak English with correct pronunciation.

4. It is difficult for "Japanese speakers" to acquire "English" to begin with.

5. There are less vowels and consonants than English.

6. "Kata-kana" reading of English is too proliferated in Japan to correct it.

7. The level of English teachers are way too low.

Because I agree with his idea, I decided to write this. I think #2, 4, and 5 is literally critical problems for Japanese students.

About #2, #Globish, which is a sort of English used as a second language among international business people, requires 1,500 words to communicate each other. It is the level of the high school English in Japan. Even if students know those words with the correct grammar, they don't have enough practical opportunities to use it. The author of this article said that it is like people who are familiar with the mechanical knowledge of a car but cannot drive.

In addition, according to the Foreign Service Institute under the Department of State, Japanese is categorized as the level-four-language group, which takes longest time to acquire. The elite people who are from the top schools need 2,700 hours to acquire just a general conversation, not business level. It means that Japanese is neither easy to learn as a second language nor vice versa.


Also, I totally agree that the number of vowels is critical problem because English has at least 13 vowels, even though native speakers don't notice this fact, while Japanese has only five vowels. 


If I can afford to establish English school in the future, I want to hire teachers who really understand such problems and want them to lift up the bottom  line of English beginners. 

B&N in Stockton

I went to Stockton to finish procedure of the official document. And then, I went to Barnes & Noble for study for a while. That Barnes & Noble was best B&N ever because there was a big Starbucks space and electric outlets.

I came back my city at 3:00 pm, but the main street was blocked by a construction, so I needed to use the detour, which was really longer than I had thought.

I had a class at night, but it was just a half time of usual classes' hours.
Lucky :)

Pick up a friend at a hospital

My friend asked me to pick her up at the emergency center of our city. According to her story, she passed out at the bank and a ambulance took her to the emergency center. She seemed to stay home without eating anything before going to the bank.

San Francisco on weekday

I rarely go to San Francisco on weekday. But on this week, there are some conferences and events in San Francisco. A famous one is WWDC 2012 hold by Apple. Actually there are many people who were wearing a blue shirts like Apple store's staff around Moscone Center, the building of the event. What I did was just doing my homework at a Wifi area though.


For lunch, I went to the food court of Westfield shopping mall. I found a Japanese store named Kichi Grill and ate the salmon salad.

After taking a rest at Peet's coffee shop, I ate a Japanese ramen for the early dinner at Ramen Underground at downtown. At night after coming back home, I Skyped with my friend who are on the job hunting, and we practice a group discussion for him.

Local Pizzeria and online Accounting class

For lunch, I joined a lunch event of the international club I'm belonging. The place for this time was Vito's Ristrante and Pizzeria. I ate a lasagna. That was all club event on this week.

By the way, I'm taking an online course of Accounting. There are some deadline for each assignment. I did one of them at late night because deadline is on Friday but I planed to go to San Francisco on Friday, I would like to finish as much as possible on Thursday. I was so sleepy but done most of them.

Stockton again

This was the third time I visited there. I finally found a Japanese store in this city. Sakura is located in the Japanese grocery and gift store. The shop staff looked Japanese. I bought rice, nameko (a sort of Japanese mushrooms), curry source, and some seasonings.

I stopped by two shopping mall, Weberstown Shopping Center and Sherwood Mall, where there is a Japanese food shop inside. I ate Tepanyaki Bento (It should be "Teppanyaki" though) for early dinner.

I felt there were more race in this city than where I live.

Farmer's market

It was day off on Friday. My American friend introduced me a new international students from China and Saudi Arabia. We went to the farmer's market in our city. Even though it was at downtown, it was quite smaller than expected. Anyway, it was a nice opportunity to meet new friends.

I felt the jetlag againg, so I took a nap a lot in the afternoon...

5th biggest city in CA

On a day off, I visited to the fifth biggest city in California. It took one hour and half from my city. First, I went to a Japanese restaurant "S21 sushi & sake bar" located in center of the city. I ordered Chicken Teriyaki Bento Box (てりやきチキン弁当), including Tenpura, salad, edamame, California roll, and Teriyaki Chicken. It was nice enough.



And then, I went to another campus of the California State University. It was big and clean. There are many nice building and facilities.

After the campus visiting, I went to Starbucks and did my homework until night...

The first day of the Summer session

Contrary to my expectation, I woke up almost noon. I went to the food court on campus to have branch(?). The food court was closed but a cafeteria(?) was opened so I ate a cheese-burger.

After studying for a couple of hours in the library, I went to a Mexican restaurant to eat Burrito for the very early dinner at 4 pm because my class was at night on this day.

The class was International Management, and the professor was African who got BA in a country in Africa and got his MA and Ph. D in the U.S.

The topic was Globalization, Trading, and International Investment. When he described a short term business in other country, he use a movie of Sumo-wrestling, a Japanese traditional sport, and emphasize how short it is decided whether it wins or loses, compared to other long term business because   usually a Sumo-wrestler wins the game within a few second while other sports take for a longer time. It was interesting. Also, I felt he used several example of Japanese business as well as the professor of another Marketing class I took in the previous semester. But, nowadays, I heard that other business schools, such as Harvard, Stanford, and Pennsylvania, use a lot of cases of Chinese business rather than Japanese because, as you know, Chinese economy is remarkable and important for the U.S. economy recently.

Anyway, I'm happy to hear some examples of Japanese business in the U.S. :)

Back to the U.S.

A flight from Japan on Sunday evening brought me back to the U.S. on Sunday morning. I had to wait at LAX for the next flight for six hours.

My Taiwanese friend picked me up at the San Jose International airport with a new international student from China. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Dublin. I was just sleeping on my way to home.

Crazy friends' reunion and college frineds

My friends and I played the Monopoly all night. After a couple of hours nap, we went to a ramen restaurant which is located near my apartment.

At night, I meet my friends again at Shinbashi station.

And right after the drinking meeting, I moved to the next building because another group was waiting for me. The place was Torishige, a famous grilled chicken restaurant. After eating, we moved to an Irish bar where I saw a picture of my friend who married last November. Those were so nice. We said good-bye at almost midnight.

An osaka friend with other Tucson friends

One of my friend who had just graduated from university and now lives in Osaka visited to Tokyo. I invited him to my home. And then we went to Shinjuku to meet up other friends who also had studied in the Arizona. We went to Oiran-Komachi and Shinjuku-Lion for drinking

After that, we met other friends and started playing the Monopoly at my home. We had not done since last year. It was so exciting!