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Last week, my good friend Aqui told me about this Podcast. In the train on my way home, she told me about her trip to Spain. I think it was really big step trip for her, alone in the country where almost back side of Japan, switching hotels, taking transportation she’s not familiar with… These could be all danger, but this time it became good excitement and refreshment for her. I’m really glad that. She seemed very clear mind and more freshen up than before. I could tell that from her voice and face. Anyway she told me that being in the country where there is no Japanese makes her misses Japanese. So she listened the radio show called “JUNK” which 爆笑問題　hosts. I, myself, love this show. It is just hard to imagine that Japanese girl listens this show in the middle of nowhere in Spain, alone, no idea where she go or do. How strange, but it’s truly kind of my type picture. While we were talking stuff like this she introduced me this たびたびニュース。 Aqui is a very strong minded person who likes travel and exotic culture. Her passion to travel is beyond above what I can imagine. I have to respect and admire her passion.

Today, for first time I listened this show on my way to work in the bus. At first it seemed just non-professional 3 young members are having chat based on travel. But as I listen further, there were more cultural news, many episodes of their real experience, opinions, idea and so on. Soon I became very big fan of this talk. Trust me it’s very attractive show. Makes you want to travel, makes you want to go out this country meet new culture. I felt how tiny experience I have, and realized there are so many thing to see for me for now, not later, but now. The episode I listen first was about Islam punishment, some of the incidents and news were very shocking, but as they said, it matter of time to mingle these cultures. There would be a world of half of population is Islam, and potion amount of atheist.

There is one more key thought came up today. It’s about writing skills. My next book is about expressing Japanese culture with beginner level English, which will lead us to the world of paraphrase. One big point about this book is that there is no author. So reality is that I have to write what will be in the book, I need to research, write, re-write, make them in paraphrase, and have to think about page layout and illustration… oh, NO! And as usual, there are only a short time of schedule, no time for rest. So I started to write the English of paraphrasing talking about Japanese. Then I see the wall between me and native speaker. I have so many thing and knowledge to talk about, but I can’t make it simple talkative English. I have to look up a dictionary once or twice a minute. I thought I could do better, but when you talk about Japan, there are too many special words and expressions. It’s very different from the word I know in English. But native can translate them into English so easily, and that is normal. But I want to be able to do that. So I realized I need to do more writing and need more study for deeper understanding. I kind of knew this in somewhere in my mind, but I was afraid to find that out. I’m glad I did it now. Therefore I could make more time for what I want to know next.
Writing this in English is great practice for me!