Hello!
We had our MusicFesta in McDonald’s Nara today.
(14:00-17:00)

This time six musicians performed their music
in McDonald’s Nara which is just a few minutes walk
from Kintetsu Nara station.

Our six guests this time were
竹ちなみ/Take Chinami、ヤマダショウタ/Yamada Shouta
すみれ/Sumire、下ノ園清尊/Shimonosono Kiyotaka
ハス美/Hasumi、オガワマサト/Ogawa Masato

We all had a good time listening to their
wonderful songs and music.

Thank you very much to our guests today
for sharing your music.

We are holding MusicFesta in McDonald’s Nara
on the 3rd Sunday every month.

Everyone is welcome!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!!

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.

Hi there!

I'll inform you in details about this month's English club.

This month, we'll welcome Mr Vincent Prevot, who is studying Robotics in NAIST.

The reason why he came Japan is very unique.

One day, he watched a documentary about Japanese robot society. It attracted him enough to made him come to Japan impulsively.

As usual, we had English club this month.

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

This month, we welcomed the same guest as the last month, Ms Brigitte Ando.

Though guest was the same as the last month's English club, the topic she told us was different. This month, instead of telling us how she felt travelling the outside of the France, she introduced France to us from her original and unique perspective. She told us "What French people do" and "what are so unique about French people" compared to other countries with some quizes.

The first quiz was so difficult. She asked us "Where is France?". How the quetion can be so difficult to answer? Find out from the video below.

What!? It surprised me a lot. No explanation was made in the video, but she told us why it is after the video was cut. Saying it simply, France has oversea departments and territories(which is called DOM-TOM) in other parts of the world, and goes without saying, it belongs to France. See here for clearer explanations.

Another great momment. She asked us "Where is the center of the france?"

Her sense of humour is wonderful!! I really loved that.

She told us so many interesting things of France like how french people chose names (according to her, there are books of names and their former users, and people choose names of their children from it) or this one.

Generally speaking, I think we could spent a really good time thanks to the quizes she made. It made it easier for people to join the conversation.

Anyway, the next English club is on...

I'll tell you more later

Hi there!

This month, we'll welcome Ms.Brigitte Ando again as the guest

Last month, she entertained us a lot with her humor and interesting story tellings.

This month, she will tell us more about her experiences of travelling and French culture.

Let's have fun!!

Thank you so much for all who joined us!

Hi there!

This month, we have English club on February 12th.

Let's have a good time together

This time, we'll welcome  guests, Mr.Jorge Aigla and Ms.Brigitte Ando.

Mr.Jorge Aigla was born on 1954 in Mexico city. He got MD(Medical Doctor) at University of California. Since then, working as a medical examiner, teaching anatomy and physiology at City College and St. Mary's University, he practiced Karate-Do and got 8th degree black belt. He is now a member of ATMA (American Teachers Association of the Martial Arts). As a poet, he published "First Lie/Primera Mentira", "Subliminary", "The Cycle of Learning/EI Ciclo de Aprendizaje" etc.

Ms.Brigitte Ando is from Lyon in France. She learned English at University of Lyon. She is now working for institutions like Japan-France Association. Since last year, she lives in Nara with her husband and her 2 children. Also, she joined Soiree DE Nara last month.

The very first English club this year was held on January 14th.

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

This month, we welcomed the guest from UK. Her name is Hannah Bayley.

She is currently analysing Japanese supernatural Horror movie and its American remake in Keele University.

This time, we had a chance to hear her talks about her discoveries.

She told us a lot about her discoveries. What I was the most attracted in her presentation was an idea of "music translation". This idea means that when you remake a movie of abroad, you need to translate not only the script but also the background musics. Saying more precisely, the way of producing "fear" should be different between original and its remake.

Cultural difference seems to be leading to the different direction. Wow! She told us that Japanese way of producing fear has so much in common with the old Japanese culture. According to her, the one of the trends of Japanese way of producing is "blunks and pausings", and which is really similar to "Ma" in Kabuki. She showed us an example of a scene in Japanese movie, "Juon", and its Hollywood remake, "The Grudge". As she said, in Japanese version, there were a lot of blunks and pausings. However, in its Hollywood remake, score was much more dense and many of the blunks had been cut.

After that was a Q&A time.

She was so friendly and entertaining.

Anyway, the next English club is on...

I'll tell you in details later HERE.