Kyoto-Nara EU Association

Hello everyone!!

This month's English club is on 16th Sep.

Guest for this time is Mr.Sebastien Gion from North France.

He is working for the American company, and good at English. He also loves electric rock.

This time, he'll come to Japan with Mr. Laurent.

Maybe we should ask him "How did you learn English?". He must be a very good respondent.

Hi there!!

We had a great time in this month's English club.

Thank you so much for all who joined and supported us.

OK. This month, we welcomed Ms Anita Rgucka-Kwasnik and Mr Jude Fleming from Ireland.

As usual, I'm going to tell you some funny and interesting momments.

First, take a look at this.

Seriously!? You two had been planning to marry on Mt. Fuji?

I thought it really unique. Though weather wasn't perfect, it must be a beautiful memory.

Later, Ms Anita told us about Ireland.

Topic of Gaelic was interesting.

Gaelic is a official language in Ireland.

Though English is used in most of the places, Irish government is giving high priority to protect Gaelic.

But why is that language still there?

According to them, it is because when English came to colonize Ireland from its east part, thanks to the harsh envirnment of its west part, people came to the west part turned back to the east part. It means, if the west part of Ireland were idal place to live, they may have chosen to colonize there and Gaelic had been dissappeared in today.

Besides, all pictures on the white board were written by themselves.

Seeing them talking, I was wondering that if I were in their place, can I explain my country this much.

Sadly, for now, my answer is 'no'. I should try harder.

Anyway, next English club is on...

I'll tell you later.

Hi there!

How are you guys doing?

We have a English club this month.

This month, we'll welcome Ms Anita Rgucka-Kwasnik and Mr Jude Fleming from Ireland.

Ms Anita Rgucka-Kwasnik is an IT Consultant in Poland. One of her hobby is to travel and to scout. She visited a lot of country without travel agency. According to her, she had already visited all continents!! She likes talking to local people. And this time, she'll come to Japan to attend International Scout Jamboree 2015 and planing to stay about 2-3 weeks. 

Mr Jude Fleming is currently working as a painter decorator and general builder. He also likes travelling and scouting. This time, he'll come to Japan with her not only for scouting but also for travelling.

Hi there!

In this month's English club, Ms Antje Töpfer joined us as a guest.

We had a good time together. Thank you so much for all who joined and supported us

The guest, Ms Antje Töpfer, is a puppet show artist. What do you expect when you heard someone says "puppet"? I imagine sonething like "Sesami Street" or "Bunraku". So I was expecting her puppets, not exactly the same, but more or less, similar to those.

What? Is this the puppet? Goes without saying, this was not what I expected to see.

She told us she does a lot of things with the puppets.

Things like this,

or this.

I think these days, most of the puppet shows are childrens' or traditional arts. However, this one doesn't looks like childrens' nor traditionals'. It looks more like a modern arts than those. Well, it sounds so art 

Anyway, next English club is on...

I'll tell you later.

This time, we'll welcome German artist in Villa Kamogawa, Ms Antje Töpfer.

Please come and join us. You won't regret!

Hi there!

We had an English club this month.

Thank you so much for all who joined us.

This month's guest was Mr. Antoine Michel who graduated École Polytechnique, one of Grandes Écoles.

I had never heard of "Grandes Écoles", but accourding to him, it is a special school for growing elites, and École Polytechnique is the oldest.

Even now, I know why is it, I wonder "Why soething like this happens in the school for growing elites of Science and Technology?"

The school was built by Napoleon for making an officer of technology and therefore, it is still ran by Ministry of Defence. And therefore,

their uniform is something like this. Guessing from this uniform and military exercise, the scool's old traditions are still there without vanishing.

And I felt it so interesting♪

After the presentation was, as usual, introducing and Q&A time.

Since his speciality was clean energy, there were so many questions related to the subject. I think these days, many Japanese people are really interested in this subject because of the accident. There are a lot of problems in this region and we cannot solve it easily however, I believe by letting everyone know these problem and made them think about it, solution can be found.

Anyway, next English club is...

I'll tell you more about it later.

Hi there!

We have English club this month. Come and join us!

This month, we'll welcome Mr Antoine Michel. He is a researcher of environmental energy from École polytechnique(Institution of higher education for traning elite of science and technology. The oldest Grandes Écoles).

This time, he'll tell us about the institution called Grandes Écoles, and Paris. Sounds interesting!!

Hi there!

We had a great English club this month. Thank you for all who had joined us.

Well, this month, Mr.Vincent Prevot, who is studying Robotics in NAIST, told us about robots in today and robots in the future.

This time, our meeting format was Q&A structure. Questions was from various topics: nuclear plant, car producing etc. People had so many things to ask and the time passed like a wind. I wished we had a little more time.

First of all, there are a plenty of region in robotics. Which region he's studying?

Right.

Next, about car with automatic driving function.

Some of the airplanes or trains with this function have already existed. However, the car with such function is not yet existed in today's world. So, what if the dream of making such car came true? Well, without doubt, it will no longer be prohibited to drink alcoholic drink before driving. Haha Moreover, we can read books and take asleep while driving the car. Sounds interesting!!

Last one. When one of the participants asked him, "If you could have anything you like, what kind of robot would you like to have?".

He answered...

He don't need the robot itself!?

It was so funny.

Anyway, next month, we have English club is on...

I'll tell you more later.