Takoyaki party

The monthly event for February was 'Takoyaki party'.
Takoyaki is a kind of dumplings with octopus in it.
We only prepared some special flour for Takoyaki, octopus and cabage,
and each student brought something they wanted to put in it.
 We competed which one tasted the best.
 Only Jonathan is looking at the camera.

 She brought Kimuchi,                     and this one,she's making Tuna cone takoyaki.

 Someone brought pork, sausage and cheese.
A girl from Thailand tried adding Tomyamgoon powder and sauce made by her.
 Pop's work^^
 Yuria brought some cheese and sweets from Russia.
The cheese was very rich and the cherry sweets made us happy.
 Takoyaki with kimuchi.
 They thought over to make it round^^;
They shouldn't be used to making Takoyaki,but they were like professionals
with bamboo skewer in their hands twirling it.

 He looks like Japanese from Osaka. * Takoyaki is Osaka's specialty.

Inseon from South Korea and Pop from Thailand got the same points for their Takoyaki and
did rock paper scissors.
 The winner was Inseon^^

I almost burnt my tongue with sausage, but it was nice after all.
 After that, we played a game' S.H.J Karuta'.
S.H.J staff made it.
It was about our teachers and students or some questions from a textbook 'Genki'.
I guess they didn't really have difficulty in finding answers.

                               I was the one who slapped it first! 

                                                                                                  ,saying Inseon.

They were so excited.
We made some rules to make it difficult and fair, turning around to take it or putting their hands on the head.
Pop was surprisingly quick to take the cards and won the game.
 She got 16 cards out of 46!


It was such a fun to cook Takoyaki together, but it would be difficult to do it at home;;;
I hope we can have the party again^^
The ones who lost should think hard about the ingredients to win next time.
But please don't bring something which doesn't match with Takoyaki, like chocolate..

Cultural experience-Tea ceremony and flower arrangement-

It's getting warmer here, but still a little chilly in the morning and at night.
Now, we have some students for 2 week winter proglam in Feb.
It's smaller group than the one in Janurary,but multinational and seems they are having fun.

We tried flower arrangement and tea ceremony today.
First, we studied flower arrangement from the basics.
They all could arrange flowers very well.

Kazaru 'decorate' ⇒ Add(or do) something a little so that the flowers look beautiful.
Ikeru 'arrange'⇒ Put the flowers and weeds in a vessel or something with water to enjoy them.

It seemed they were having difficulty with the arrangement,but still somehow they could manage to
make them look nice.

 Songa's work^^
Jonathan's work^^
Yuria's work^^
Cookie's work^^

We had tulips, sweet peas, carnations and russet willows to use.
They made us feel the spring.

I put them at the reception desk and feel even the enviroment of our office got better.

They said thank you to us, but I'm the one who should say thank you^^

Next, we tried tea ceremony.
We learned how to sit and use the items together.
There are several ways to sit, and today we chose 'Seiza',sitting with one's legs bent beneath one.
 They drank the green tea and
 ate some Japanese sweets and
 tried making tea.

Ireru⇒Make tea, coffee and green tea.

Tateru⇒Make tea with green tea powder.

It seemed to be a little difficult for them to make it.

They kept looking at the teacher as if they don't know when to stop.

You need to stir until a lot of bubbles appear.

I guess their hands will be stiff after making it.

A party with Japanese students

The winter proglam for January has finished and the students went back to their own country.
We spent great time together for a month.
I guess there were some little problems since they are away from their hometown and their parents,
but hope there were a lot more fun things while staying in Japan.
It was snowy on the last day of the proglam and so cold to go out for sight-seeing.
We don't have much snow in Tokyo.They were lucky.. or unlucky. I don't know.

We had a party with Japanese students on 10th of Feb.

First of all, of course we need to introduce ourselves.
But they are shy , so we made it a little easy for them.
It was like a game.
They wrote their own specialty or feature on a sheet and
later our teacher asked questions like.. ' Who do you think bla bla is?'

'Who do you think a good cook is?'
'Who do you think watches baseball everyday?'
'Who do you think has a big dog?'
They just needed to guess just from their impression.


There was someone who could speak Chinese,
so we asked all of the students to say 'Ni Hao'.
We couldn't judge who it was from just a single simple word,though.

Who likes Miss Erika?
Everyone likes the teacher ,but who loves her?
The answer is.....Miss Koan.
All of the Japanese students who joined the party thought it would be a male student,
but actually it was a girl. Girl students also can be in love with female teachers!
I mean, as a teacher and a student^^

And after that, we had some time for asking questions which our students had prepared for this day.


They asked how they think of food,dramas and other things from their own countries.

Not only about their countries, but also something about Japan,

like.. 'Do you like Akihabara?'

  After that, they could introduce the others very well.
 We also played a game with Hiragana and Katakana.
The Japanese students read the words and the foreign students listened to them.
Only Jeesun from South Korea tried the reading part.
It seemed very difficult since there were 2 teams speaking loud at the same time.
 We could hear the students saying ' What did you say!?' from here and there.
 Jiwoo looks fun seeing the others being confused.
We also played Fruit Basket Turnover.
They were very excited.
It was such a relief that there was noone taking a class downstairs.
The loser had to hug Miss. Suzuki.
Well, you can't really call it 'a penalty',though^^;


Instead of fruit names, we played with the feature of the students, like ' someone who is~~'
There was only one male studnet and one teacher,but girls called 'someone who is a guy!' or
'Teacher!'...there was no choice for them.
When someone say 'Fruit Basket!', all of them have to move around and take other seats,
but everyone took the seat next to them..;; They should be sorry for the player in the center;;
 Fortunately noone got hurt, but there were a few accidents.
 Some bumped into each other and others sat on their friend's lap.
Shokin was in a hurry to find a seat,though it was only Japanese who had to move.
We all had a good time.
Jeesun and Teikun won the game.
 Congraturations!

And the one who lost the game was.......
 Shokin^^
They seemed to have fun interviewing Japanese students and playing games with them.