Who wants to brush up your Japanese?

Hi, I am Junko. I'm teaching Japanese in Hong Kong.

I know many people learned Japanese in universities, or language schools several years ago.
Some of them passed JLPT higher level but it seems very difficult to keep their Japanese in HK.

So I will open a Japanese conversation evening somewhere around Central or Wanchai in Happy Hour!
I will prepare some interesting topics about Japan and we can enjoy talking about them.

Things have been hectic. I will arrange the first meeting on Friday in middle of October.
If you are interested in this idea, please kindly send me an e-mail,


Apart from above event, if you are interested in learning Japanese, please kindly send me an e-mail.
I am still available in the evening. Just send me e-mail, I will inform you my teaching style and tuition.

My e-mail address is juniper_dr24@hotmail.com


TO HIRAGANA LEARNERS!!!!
Go to this link. You can enjoy learning Hiragana!!!

This link will help you remember Hiragana!!!

ではまた会いましょう。

"Learning Japanese in Hong Kong" Facebook Fanpage

I finally made my fanpage on Facebook today.
I usually teach Japanese to people who work in Central. 
And I teach it to teenagers at a language school in Central.
I'd like to expand this business so I decided to make my own fanpage.


I will write about:
Japanese textbooks
Useful links to learn Japanese
Grammatical explanations
How to remember Hiragana?
and etc.


If you want to learn Japanese, just send me e-mail or text me, please.
You can get my contacts on the information page.


WHO WANTS TO LEARN JAPANESE IN HONG KONG?
JUST HAVE A LOOK AT "LEARNING JAPANESE IN HONG KONG".
IF YOU LIKE ME, PLEASE SEND ME MESSAGE, I WILL HAPPILY REPLY YOU AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Soul and Disco music "Hinabeya"

"Hinabeya" is one of my favorite Japanese bands in Hong Kong.

Some bands in HK play 80's and 70's cover (Pop and Rock) somewhere in HK, even today.

But it is a bit difficult to enjoy Disco and Soul music of old days unless you go to some hotels with live bands and good singers.

I introduce "Hinabeya" today.

Hinabeya means Hot Pot Restaurant in Japanese.

Their music is always grooving so that many audiences enjoy dancing!

They usually play Earth Wind & Fire, Michael Jackson, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Sister Sledge and more R&B and Disco hit music. I'm sure you will know all of them.

I am not sure when they will play in the Wanch.

Just go to the Wanch's website and check the live schedule.

Fusion? Japanese style pasta

Soooo hungry~~~~.

I've been on a diet for some reason since end of June.

What did I eat today?

Cereal with dried fruits + Milk, Coffee for breakfast

One small apple for snack

Japanese style congee with Narazuke (one kind of Japanese pickles) for lunch

And I did some exercise with dumbbells.

What should I eat for dinner?

I decided to have a proper food not to starve.

And I cooked this.

Garlic, Shiitake, Bunashimeji, Bacon and Green Onion

Japanese style bonito soup, soy sauce, salt, black pepper

Oil: Olive oil, butter

Topping: Korean seaweed flake, some shichimi

Very easy to cook, not so heavy like Tomato sauce or Cream sauce

Hope I won't get high calories.

Usually I prefer to cream pasta like carbonara.

But it has a lot of calories.

Japanese dishes are always less calories with simple ingredients.

I can find many recipes of JP style pasta on COOKPAD that is the most famous recipe website.

I have my own page on COOKPAD. Whenever I find a good recipe, I just link it on my page. Of course I can show my own recipe with some photos. But i am not good at cooking that I can show them on this site. So embarrassing!

Anyway, this pasta was a bit spicy with shichimi (Japanese chili spice) but it was yummy.

One Point Japanese: When we eat meal, we say "Itadakimasu" and say "Gochisosama" at the end.

Experience Live Presents #3 Logo & The Sleeves

Joined the live event in Experience on Saturday 17th of July.

Experience is one of live bars in Wanchai, Hong Kong.

Chris B sometimes arrange this kind of event at Experience and we can enjoy live music played by local bands.

I moved to Experience after enjoying Japanese soul band "Hina

beya" in the Wanch.

I will write about them later.

When I moved there, Logo just started playing. I saw them one year ago in the Wanch.

Logo is the band that is formed by one Hong Kong Chinese girl (Bass) and two Western guys (Guitar and Drum).

Their music was like 60's rock'n'roll + light punk. It made me think of Tarantino's films.

It's formed by dull guitar sound and heavy bass sound. This band vocalist is playing the drum.

The last band was my favorite band "The Sleeves".

I first watched their gig in the Wanch several years ago and they were very impressive.

I liked the former vocal Stewart very much. He used to sing with no shirt and barefoot.

He looked so sexy! And of course, I liked his voice very much.

When he left this band, I was so shocked.

But one guitarist Keith handed over his position and he is soooo good. Very powerful and cute!

They are one of great independent bands who usually play their original music.

Their music is called "Arcade Rock" but I really don't know what style of music it is.

This song is very catchy!!!

The Sleeves will play in Macau on 29th of July.

DATE: Friday 29th July 2011, 10:30pm
VENUE: Blue Frog Bar & Grill
TICKET PRICE: Free

I had a great time with two good friends Mika and Mart.

Thanx a lot, Sleeves!!!

I'm a free bird this week

My husband has been to China since yesterday.

So i'm totally free in this week. Yay!

Nowadays some of students are out of town for holiday so that i don't need to work harder as usual. It makes me a bit worried so I have to think something new to expand teaching business forward. What shall I do?

I recently started playing the bass guitar and prepared everything for it.

Playing it is very fun but i am screwed up reading music notes.

Wow, I once joined school brass band for 6 years when i was young.

It won't take a long time to remember it but no doubt admitting my ability to memorize everything is getting worse due to age. Tears...

I'm on a diet again because of some reasons and I wanna do it for a short period.

It's a good chance to work hard because my husband is not here.

So I will do some exercises with weights after writing this.

It's good weather here in Hong Kong. I might head to the beach tomorrow afternoon to get sunburn.

It will be a super relaxation lying on the beach reading paperback, listening to nice music and drinking beer.

This is what i really want to do in this week. Hope weather will be good tomorrow.

I heard about a silly story of Minister Matsumoto yesterday.

He is just a piece of shit from Minshuto.

He showed how stupid they were to all of nation showing such an arrogant act to the governor of Miyagi prefecture.

What did he say to the governor?

"I won't help you unless you show your wisdom and intelligence."

And he shouted it must be OFUREKO "make it on off record". Finally it's on air though. I'm proud of the broadcasting company.

This news was expanded to whole world through Twitter quickly. It's very embarrassing to show how Japan is screwed up by such a stupid politician.

Even children know what they should say or not in front of other people.

He was angry because the governor was not there when he arrived at his office.

Matsumoto didn't seem to understand why he went to that place. He didn't understand the meaning of his duty.

His position has been temporarily made to support recovering of affected areas.

I don't know how I should write it in English.

Minister is the one of servants for nation. He is moron and asshole.

And he announced his resignation with apology this morning.

These incidents always happen in Japan. So you will know how stupid Japanese politicians are.

They will never ever learn anything from the past.

It always makes me headache.

Will we have a bright future in Japan?

I'm sorry for being too deep.

To change the atmosphere here I will introduce one nice music as usual.

Today's selection is one of my fave, "Free bird" by Lynyard Skynyrd

Have fun!

I really don't have a deep meaning to write my blog in English.

I have decided to do so because it might help to stimulate my brain so called 老化現象防止-slow down the symptoms of aging-

I'm very sorry for many grammatical mistakes.

Around 40!!!

Have you ever heard of アラフォー　(pronunced Alafor)?
I see this new Japanese on many Japanese websites every day.

At first I didn't get its meaning and just ignored it.
However there were many articles related to アラフォー on the website.
I could no longer ignore it. So I googled アラフォー for the first time.

And I finally got the meaning of it.
It is a curtailed word of "Around forty" and indicates women whose age are around forty years old.
I quickly learned that I was one of them.

What happens among "Around forty" in Japan?
Japanese people really like making a phenomenon according to age.

For example, once we called women who could not tie the knot even though passing a marigiable age(25 years old?) "Christmas cake". Cake shop cannot sell Christmas cakes after Dec.25. That's why they are called so.

I think "Around forty" is same sort of word. Especially women who belong to "Around forty" experienced most rich period in bubble time. Besides the working enviroment of women was widely improved due to the Basic Law for a Gender-equal. Actually many of around 40 women in Japan get a high salary and work in higher position same as men. It leads many unmariage women. And now in 2008, many women around forty years old worry about their life and their future even though they are rich. However they can no longer compromise to get marry men who earn less than their salary. That's why it is said that many Japanese women around 40 years old have love affair with elder person like their sperior. It is called "Furin" in Japanese.

On the other hand, many women got marry in their young age and have kids. But it costs expensive to educate children in private schools. Now sending children to good private schools are status among Japanese. But we experienced long term recession and many husbands lost their job or their salary were decreased. Of course, mother must do part time job to earn money for education.

Unmarried women around 40 look down on married women who have to do work for their family.
But they are also jealous to them because they are married with kids.
Women around 40 have a lot of dramas in their life.

Marriage, divorce, around 40 pregnant, infertility, love affair, raising children.... There are many storys. Therefore medias try to stimulate women around 40 years old and finally it produced a new word アラフォー "Around forty". They made a new drama "Around 40" and it is getting popular in Japan. Married normal women and unmarried rich women are compared in the drama.

I am one of アラフォー. My life is not so easy. I work very hard every day for my daughter's education.
She is studying at university in Canada.
I cannot stop running for another two years. But who cares it? That's my life and I always try to find a lot of fun in my life. I hope all the "around forty" love their life and themselves and live happily!!!