Thursday, May 10, 2012

Roti Canai!

I have many favourite food. One of my favourite cuisines is Roti Canai. It is an Indian-influenced Malaysian (or Indonesian) crêpe-like food often served with curry. OMG! It looks so delicious in the picture! It contains quite a bit of ghee (butter) so it can be oily, but tastes soooo good. They way people make it is interesting as well. Check the youtube video! I like to have Roti Canai with beef curry and tea with milk called Teh Tarik.

I have tried hummus at some Turkish restaurants and I loved it! Hummus is pasted chickpeas mixed with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and oil, originated Egypt (according to Wikipedia). I usually eat hummus with lamb shish, pita bread, and apple tea.

I have never tried Greek food so I would love to try it someday.

Next assignment: FOOD

Since I brought money to explain about other countries' systems of currency, and since we're going to use menus to order food with the money, I thought we should talk on the blog about what kinds of food we like and what we would like to try. One cuisine I miss a lot in Japan is Greek. There are plenty of French, Italian, Chinese, Indian and of course Japanese restaurants in Japan, but I can't think when I have ever seen a Greek restaurant. Does anyone know of a Greek restaurant in Japan? Greek food is very popular in the US, to the extent that it's a stereotype of Greek Americans that they own restaurants. There are plenty of other stereotypes, of course, but the Greek American diner has even been satirized on "Saturday Night Live." According to the New York Times:
Estimates are that there are well over 1,000 coffee shops and diners operated by Greek immigrants in the New York metropolitan area alone, and countless others up and down the East Coast.
The most stereotypical Greek dish is probably Moussaka, but the word is derived from Arabic, and in fact the dish is found all over the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Greek is really just one variety of cuisine from that part of the world, and is similar to most of the others. There are many "falafel joints" in the United States that sell the same bean cakes in pita bread. Sometimes they are Greek, sometimes Lebanese or Egyptian, sometimes Israeli, but they all have basically the same food. I remember asking the waitress in a Greek restaurant one time what the "Greek Coffee" on the menu was. She leaned over and whispered "It's Turkish Coffee, but don't tell my boss I said that." Whenever I'm back in the States or passing through Europe I try to get to a Greek restaurant. I hope you try Greek food someday. They really know how to cook lamb deliciously. Here are some pictures of Greek food from the Internet:
 Hello!!

 I'm Kanae. I have been in Aomori since I was born. There are many good things in Aomori; the Nebuta Festival, beautiful cherry blossom and sea in the park, and stars in the sky.

 I belong to international society course and major in international politics. Now, I'm interested in relationships Taiwan and China. I believe in the improvement in their relations, but it's very difficult. I want to consider the solution some day!

 See you, next!

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

I am the Ryo!

Hi, everyone!
My name is Ryo. I'm in Humanities.
I take this class to improve my English. Especially, speaking skill.
My dream is to order a hamburger in the US like an American.
I've been dreaming about that since I was little.
For my cool dream, I'll do my best in this awesome class!!

One of my favorite hobbies is traveling.
Egypt was pretty fun because I did scuba diving.
When I dived in a sea at night, I felt as if I was in the space.

Also, I joined the Egyptian revolution in 2011.
I'll never forget what I experienced there.

Hello there!


I am Sasha, majoring in Natural Language Analysis in the Department of Occidental Culture at Hirosaki Univerisity. I was born and raised in Tsugaru area.


I love learning languages including programming languages, and looking at paradigms (inflection charts) and letters. I think they are neat and beautiful, however, I do not really like capital letters of the Latin alphabet.


Recently I am interested in Japanese language, and hoping to continue my study in that field and become a Japanese language geek.
I also like listening to music, singing, drawing, snowboarding etc.


In this class, I would love to practice English by discussing some topics or watching sitcoms, especially The Big Bang Theory. I am also interested in learning English idioms, sayings and proverbs. My recent favourite proverb is 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. It refers to someone who is a generalist but not a specialist. Probably, we can pick up several useful idioms, sayings or proverbs and introduce them to the others in the class.