My favorite food

I love eating food. The reason why I want to visit to a lot of countries are meeting all sorts of people and watching a lot of unique things such as ruins. However, I also want to try all sorts of food all over the world. The thing I like the United States is that we can eat a lot of countries' food. I tried some countries' food which I had never tried in Japan.

One of my favorite food is Thai food. I have been to some Thai restaurants in Thai Town in here with friends. It is very tasty! I have never been to Thai. But I would like to go there someday to eat Thai food.

And I also like Chinese food. I have been to China a few times. In China, we can eat tasty Chinese food cheap. Every time I went to China, I ate too much and resulted putting on weight. But I think that it is all right not to care about weight during travelling because they are the food which I can eat only now.

But, after all my most favorite food is Japanese food. When I was in Japan, I did not like Japanese food so much. However, since I came to the United State, I was getting to like it more and more. I think that is because I was eating it almost everyday in Japan. In the same way as people usually would not realize the importance of the person if he/she always stays by them, they would not realize that Japaneses food is great if they eat it everyday. I just might miss it, though. Japanese food is getting popular all over the world. I did not know that it is so popular since I came to the United State. I think it is healthy and tasty. I heard that most of people do not know Japanese food about ten years ago. In the last ten years, the number of Japanese restaurants, especially sushi restaurants are increasing. I think it is a good thing for everyone to know Japan and I am very happy. However, maybe because they became too popular, I sometimes can find imitated Japanese food. They sell them as Japaneses food, but they are not real Japanese food. Of course it happens for all countries' food.

I have a lot of kinds of food which I want to try to eat. I have a favorite phrase. "You live to eat? Or you eat to live?" I, myself, might live to eat.

Japan we see from abroad

I came to the United States from Japan the end of March two years ago. Since I came here, I became to like Japan more. I became interested in Japan more. Of course, I found the parts I do not like in Japan. Including that, I think Japan is a good country.

When foreigners, I mean people who are not Japanese, think of Japan, what do they imagine first? I guess, it is sushi. I was very surprised that there are many sushi restaurants. Even in Japan, I do not think I can find so many sushi restaurants. It might be because the place where I live is kind of countryside. However, every sushi restaurants have the same qualities as sushi restaurants in Japan. It might be difficult to find really good sushi restaurants. I found sushi restaurants whose owner is Korean or Chinese. That happens because it is much easier to become a sushi chef than becoming a sushi chef in Japan. I have a friend who is a sushi chef. He train himself to become a sushi chef in Japan. He said that his master never let him touch fishes for the first five years. He just had to clean in a restaurant, prepare for cooking and odd jobs. And after his master allowed him to touch them, finally he could begin to learn sushi.

And I was also surprised that teriyaki is very popular here. Actually teriyaki is not so popular in Japan. But here, if they think of Japanese food, they imagine teriyaki such as teriyaki chiken, teriyaki beef and so on. It is very funny and interesting for me. I do not know how teriyaki was introduced to the United States. But I think that teriyaki is going to get more popular.

Japan is an island country. That is why, it was hard to convey foreign information from abroad. They used to close the country. I think Japan is still an isolate country. Of course, nowadays it is said that we live in an international age. Even so, I feel that Japanese people's thinking is isolate a little bit. Therefore, we should go abroad at least once and learn how big the world is.

Every countries have both good and bad points. We should build on the strengths and remedy the defects by comparing with other countries.

My favorite event in Japan

We have a lot of events in Japan. My favorite event is the Festival of the Vega and Altair on July seventh. It is not the national holiday. Originally, it was a Chinese event and introduced into Japan in the Nara era.

There is a legend in China. In ancient China, there were the emperors of Gods and the Lord of Heaven. A Lord of Heaven has a daughter named "Orihime". She was making cloth which decorate clothes for Gods and houses very hard from morning till night everyday. Her father looked for her groom. He found a guy named "Hikoboshi". He was a very hard worker and taking care of cows on the shore of the Milky Way from morning till night. Orihime and Hikoboshi fell in love together. And they had forgotten their jobs and were doing nothing but play together everyday. Her father gave them a warning to work. However, they did not have no mind to work and after a while the Gods' clothes were worn to tatters and cows became dying. Her father got angry so much and had divided the Milky Way into the west and east. Because she could not meet him, she spent in tears everyday. Her father said to her,"if you work hard, I can allow you to meet together only once a year." Both of them worked hard everyday. And then, on July seventh, a magpie appeared and built a bridge over the Milky Way. Finally, they two could meet together. Since then, they can meet together only once a year on July seventh.

We can see the Milky Way in the sky on July seventh. Actually, the Milky Way is the crowd of stars and the day which we can see the Milky Way is not only July seventh. But I do not care about the truth. I like this romantic story. In Japan, people write their wishes on a strip of paper called "tanzaku" and bind them on bamboo grass. The number of people who do that is decreasing, I think. But when I was in Japan, I liked to write my wish on tanzaku and bind it to tree or something. I did not care about bamboo. If it is rainy or cloudy and we can not see the Milky Way on July seventh, I feel sad a little bit.

Traveling in the world

I love traveling. One of my dreams is traveling all over the world. I have traveled to some countries such as The Philippines, England, China, and Korea. I have very good memories for each country.

The Philippines is the first country which I traveled abroad first. My mother's friend held a wedding there and all my family members went there. At that time I was six years old. So actually I do not remember that very well. However I remember that I had great time there and felt the world is very big.

The second country which I traveled abroad is China. For this trip, all my family members and my grandfather, grandmother, and aunt traveled there together. I was surprised that everything is cheap in China. I bought some stuffs and ate a lot of delicious food. We went down a river on the ship. It was very fun. And actually my oldest sister used to study abroad in China. During she was there, I went to China several times. Every time I visited there, I had eaten too much. I love Chinese food and everything is very cheap.

I went to England with my schoolmates. In my high school, every year they invite people who want to travel abroad. I joined it and stay with host family for two weeks. We went to school on weekday. We studied English in the class and joined activities we want to join in the afternoon. On weekend we traveled to the cities such as London and Oxford. I stayed with my host mother, her ex-husband, her son, daughter, and Italian students as my roommate. Actually I did not know that my host mother was divorced from her husband until before the last day I stayed there. It surprised me very much. It is also kind of a culture shock because it hardly happens that the couple stay together after their divorce in Japan. She said that she has her boyfriend and her ex-husband also has his girlfriend. I thought it is very cool to enjoy themselves no matter how old they get.

And I went to Korea with my mother, sister, and grandmother. My mother loves Korean drama. She wanted to go to Korea. We used a tour to travel there. It was very fun. But actually it was very cold even so it was already March. But we had good Korean food and bought some Korean foods and goods.

I have many countries I want to visit. I want to visit to historical places such as ruins, eat all sorts of food and meet all sorts of people all over the world. It is very fun and interesting to learn new things and meet new people.

Manma mia

I love musicals. I like performing musicals, and also watching them. My favorite musical in musicals I have ever seen is "Mamma Mia". I watched this show in Las Vegas. This musical used with hit songs for ABBA. They are pop group which were active from 1973 to 1982. It was wonderful. I was very impressed and somehow I cried at the end.

The story is set in a small island on the Aegean. The leading character, Sophie is just twenty years old. Her mother, Donna runs a small hotel. Sophi is going to marry soon. Her only concern is that because she was brought up by just her mother, she can not walk with her father at her wedding ceremony. One day, she read her mother's diary in secret and found out about her mother's old boy friends, Sam, Bill and Harry. And she got to know that her father is one of them. She sent them letters of invitation in secret to her mother.

Her wedding ceremony is drawing near, and Donna invites her old friends to her daughter's wedding. The night before the wedding, they arrived at Donna's hotel. Because they met together after a long interval, they got very excited. On the other hand, three guys who were invited by Sophie in secret also arrived at Donna's hotel. They was under the impression that they got invitations from Donna. Sophie told them that she actually sent letters of invitation and Donna does not know they come to the wedding. Donna met three guys after an interval of twenty one years. She went into a panic and run into her friends. And their story starts.

The reason why I was moved so much might be that I watched it in Las Vegas. Of course, I was impressed by the story. But more than anything else, I was impressed by wonderfulness of the musicals. The songs they sang, the dance and their acting in the musical, everything is great. They sang the songs and danced many times as an encore. I watched some musicals in Los Angeles. They do not call for an encore there. In Los Angeles when they finish their performance, the musical is over. Las Vegas is the world of entertainment. I could get the intention that they wanted to entertain us.

I have many musicals that I have never watched. I want to watch those musicals.

Worst day of my life

I think that the worst days of my life is days in the spring two years ago. It was when I came to the United State first from Japan. When I got to the United State, I had a bad cold. I could not stop coughing. In addition to being in bad health, I suffered from jet lag. The time difference between Japan and Los Angeles is seventeen hours. I also got tired with the mental side. I did not have any friends at first. I also could not speak English very well. Because of those stress, I had a poor appetite. At the first day when I came to the United State, I could have just an apple.

Until I decided the room I can live in, I stayed at hostel for two weeks. And yet, I could not go out from there. I was very scared to go out and talk to people. I had three days until the school started. I did not have anything to do and did not know what to do.

I did not think that it was home sickness at that time. When I came to think of it now, I think that I perfectly got homesick. However, I did not think that I wanted to go back to Japan. I told myself many times " I have to do my best. My parents sent me here. I must not let them down."

Those days were the worst days for me. Even though, I learned a lot of things from that. I was realized the importance of family and friends again. When I told myself that I have to do my best and strained my mind, my family and a lot of friends in Japan sent a lot of mails and letters to me to cheer me up. I read them and the strain I had been under was relieved. And always tears almost spilled my eyes.

I have learned a lot of things since I came to the United State. I was also helped by a lot of people many times. When I got depressed, they stayed by me and listened to me. I appreciate them a lot. They are important existences for me. Even so I have a lot of bad experiences, I got a lot of good and important things. I really think it was good that I came to the United State.

Favorite famous person

My favorite famous person is Audrey Hepburn. She was active in the movies.

She was born in Brussels which is the capital of Belgium.When she was five years old, she entered in a boarding school in London. And when she was ten years old, she emigrated to Holland. During the Second World War, she engaged in the Resistance for anti-Nazis. She was the same age as Anne Frank. After the war, she got to know Anne Frank and she was very pained by that. Afterward, she got an offer of a part of Anne for a movie of "the Diary of Anne Frank". However, she declined it because she was afraid that she might remember her bitter past. She learned ballet in London and lived some countries in Europe. For that, she has a wide knowledge of English, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian.

Before her Hollywood debut, she played supporting roles in movies and on the stage in Europe. And she played the sister of the leading part in the movie of "First Love". When she visited to France for shooting movies, she was picked out by Collette who is a writer and visited to the same place as her for the Broadway stage play of "Gigi". She was picked out for the leading role of Gigi. And she got the role of Ann princess for movies of "Roman Holiday". She made her debut in the screen in America. For that movie, she became famous at a bound. And she also won an Academy Best Actress Award. After that, she appeared in some movies. She retired as an actress after she appeared in the movie of "Always" in 1989.

In her last years, she was active as a goodwill ambassador to UNICEF and went to India, Somalia and so on to work for poor people. She passed away because of colon cancer on January 20th, 1993. Even so more than ten years have passed since she passed away, she was loved by a lot of people all over the world. The reason why I like her is, of course, she is a good actress who has very attractive aura. And one more reason is that I like her way of living. She had very strong convictions and lived on the way what she wanted. I want to be a strong and beautiful lady like her.