Strawberry Curry

The strawberry season has come in Japan.

Can you imagine the taste?

It’s like a tropical curry taste. Try it if you have a chance to come to Tokyo.

The café is located in Asakusa. Please check the homepage if you’re interested.

CAFE LATINO TOKYO

http://www.cafelatino.co.jp

* Sorry, this is in Japanese only

* Business Days: Saturday and Sunday.

* The strawberry curry is by reservation only. 

   Please email and make a reservation before visiting.

   info@cafelatino.co.jp

3 years have gone by since the Great East Japan Earthquake

Three years has already passed since the great earthquake occurred in Japan. At the time, I was in Tokyo and was doing desk work in an office, which was located on the 7th floor. The big shakes hit twice. At first, I thought that this was a normal earthquake which I had already experienced in daily life. We have many earthquakes on a daily basis and they don't create a serious concern for us, so, I felt that an earthquake had just occurred. However, this time, the earthquake had been shaking for a long time. I felt that this was not a normal earthquake. My co-worker checked the news on the website about what was happening and we knew that the great earthquake had occurred. As the transportation network was paralyzed because of the earthquake, I came back home taking almost 7 hours on foot. After getting home, I knew that the earthquake had caused a serious disaster in the northeast region of Japan.

The number of casualties has been reported as about 18,500 people as of March 2014 according to the report of the Metropolitan Police Department and many people are still staying in temporary housing. This earthquake caused radioactive contamination, therefore, it's brought a huge problem. I don't know the real sadness of people who have lost their family and house even if the media has been reporting biased information. I hope that the people affected by this earthquake will soon regain their vitality.

Attitude toward Education - Difference between Australia and Japan

I’ve been to Australia for 2 years and studied at university. Before entering the Uni, I joined the pre-enrollment course at the affiliated language school. At the school, I learned the differences between Australia and Japan in attitudes toward education.

I noticed that the attitude toward sharing information or ideas was different between Australia and Japan. At a class in Australia, when teachers gave us some topics, they encouraged us to share ideas. They always said, “ Don’t think by yourself. Share ideas with someone.” Even when we write the essay, teachers said, “ Write the essay after sharing ideas.” On the other hand, in Japan, teachers always said, “ Think by yourself without talking with someone.” I was taught based on this idea from elementary school. I started to think that this attitude might be made the outstanding difference between western countries and Japan. At work, even if in Japan, we are encouraged to share ideas with co-workers to build up business solutions. However, Japanese tend to adopt the idea of the person who gave a good opinion. I've thought that Japanese people are not good at building up ideas with some people as we've not had such an education from a younger age.

The education methods in Japan might be changing these days as many western ways of thinking have been adopted. However, it seems that there are no easy ways to change the attitude and it will take time to change it.

CONGA

Every Saturday, I’m taking a Conga lesson and it has been almost 8 months since I started learning it. You may wonder what the “Conga” is.

The conga is a musical instrument which has an African origin. It is a tall, narrow and single-headed drum and the sound is produced by hands. The conga is one of the musical instruments for composing SALSA or SON music, which originally comes from Cuba in Latin America. The reason I know this musical instrument is because I’ve been doing salsa dancing for a long time. I was interested and wanted to play some musical instruments to make more fun of the dancing. At this time, I found the Conga lesson near my house and I started taking lessons.

I feel that playing the conga is more difficult than dancing Salsa. As for dancing, the body can be moved without working my brain harder, but as for playing the conga, we sound out rhythms by using the right and left hand separately while standing and stomping the feet. It seems that I’m training my brain as well. I always feel exhausted after the lesson. Normally, Conga players perform while sitting, but we perform standing up. This is more fun than a sitting style, because we can feel the sound through the whole body.

My dream is to make an amateur band with my friends in the future. I’m not sure whether my dream will come true or not, but now I’m practicing with keeping the dream.