The Best Cup Noodle Taste Is Miso

From now, I’d like to write about anything for 10 minutes. I don’t know but this is a kind of writing practice. Just writing my thoughts one after another for 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes. Japanese sometimes refer 3 minutes as a time of cooking cup noodles. So, I can make nearly 3 cup noodles in 10 minutes. Cup Noodles reminds me of different tastes of Cup Noodles. There are a lot of different versions of Cup Noodles. Tom-Yum-Kun Cup Noodles, or like that. The very basic, traditional taste of it is definetly “Soy-Sause” taste. It is as foundamental as tuna for sushi. However, the taste what I love is not Soy-Sause, It’s “Miso” taste.

Please enjoy the taste when you visit Japan

“Miso” taste seems no that familiar like “Soy-Sause” or “Sea-Food” here in Japan. I don’t know why though, people recalls Cup Noodles’ taste as “Soy-Sause”, “Sea-Food”, “Curry” or “Tomato”. In my opinion, Cup Noodles looks American thing (which was actually invented in Japan), Miso seems to Japanese to us, and there are tons of different such kind of Instant Cup Noodles on the shelf in Japanese convenience stores. However, let me speak with a loud voice, I do love the taste of Miso Cup Noodles. It’s so good that I’m always eating it with rice balls (Onigiri: Japanese Original Fastfood in my dictionary). You just cannot believe how do they get along with so well. That’s the real beauty of Cup Noodles, and I come to feel like, Oh, however I try to pretend me as a global person, I’m Japanese after all. I really do love the Miso flavor. Miso, what a lovely taste you are.

Oh, I just have 3 minutes left to finish my article. By the way, I have once watched a documentary TV program of the Cup Noodle. After they invented and tried to sell it, they couldn’t sell it well because no one tries to eat ramen with such way. So, the sales people went to Fire Department or Hospitals where people can’t sleep becuae of their emergent work, then they really loved it’s quickness or fast-food, convenience, and gradually Cup Noodle has accepted in Japan and now it is loved around the world.

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Japanese Trendy Songs That Japanese High School Students Love Right Now

Since I’m a high school English teacher, I am able to know what kinds of songs current Japanese high school students like. And in a class, I took a poll and had them an assignment to write a paragraph for their favorite songs. If you’re interested in their current into music, here is what they are. *Students agreed to publish this article on this site without their name.

MAD HEAD LOVE

My favorite song is “MAD HEAD LOVE”. It’s sung by “Yonezu Kenshi”. I’ve liked it since I was fifteen. But, I’ve never been to one of his concerts. I want to go to his concert someday. (Student A)

ダリア（Dahlia）

My favorite song is “ダリア”. A Japanese woman rapper ちゃんみな(CHANMINA) sings the song. I have been a fan of the song since I was 12 years old. I like her because her music is beautiful and her face is very cute. I want to go to one of her concerts someday. I think her performance is very good. (Student B)

Ordinary days

My favorite song is “Ordinary days”. A Japanese singer, Milet, sings the song. I have been a fan of the song for a year. I like her song because I like her voice. I have never been to her concerts, but I want to go to her concerts someday. (Student C)

あなた (Anata)

My favorite song is “Anata”. A Japanese singer, Utada Hikaru, sings the song. I have come to like this song recently. I like this singer’s voice. (Student D)

明日も (Ashitamo)

My favorite song is “Ashitamo”. A Japanese band “SHISHAMO”, sings the song. I have been a big fan of their songs for one years. I like them because they are girls band and it’s very cool and their songs just cheer me up. I haven’t been to one of their concerts, but I want to see it one day. I’m sure you will like this song. (Student E)

Angel

My favorite song is “Angel”. A Japanese rapper “Chanmina” sings the song. I have been a fan of the song for a year so far. I like her because I like the lyrics, voice and atmosphere. I want to go to her concerts someday. (Student F)

Once in a life time

My favorite song is “Once in a life time”. An American artist, Flo Rida, sings the song. I have been a big fan of his song for 5 years. I like him because his music is so cool and the lead vocal ‘s voice is very amazing. I haven’t been to his concerts. But I want to go to his concerts someday. I’m sure you will like this song, and that’s why people listen to this song! (Student G)

Kawaisoudayone

My favorite song is “Kawaisoudayone”. A Japanese singer, JUJU sings the song. I have been a fan of the song for 2 years. I like this song because I like the melody after modulation and lyrics. I have never been to her concerts.

少女レイ

And another my favorite song is “Shoujo Rei”. A VOCALOID singer Miku Hatsune sings the song. I have been a fan of her for 5 years. I like the song because I like a sad atmosphere. (Student H)

TOMBOY

My favorite song is “TOMBOY”. A Korean group (G)i-ble, sings the song and dance. I have been a big fan of them for 2 years. I like the song because I like the lyrics and the melody. (Student I)

UP!

My favorite song is “UP!”. A Korean group Kep1er, sings the song. I have been a big fan of theirs for one year. I like them because it is happy for me to listen to their music. I have never been to one of their concerts but I want to go to their concerts someday in the future.

Make Me Better

And my another favorite song is “Make Me Better”. A Japanese group, GENERATIONS, sings the song. I have been a big fan of theirs for 6 years. I like them because their music and dance are very cool. I have never been to one of their concerts. But I want to go to their concerts someday in the future. (Student J)

Have a nice day

My favorite song is “Have a nice day”. A Japanese singer Nishino Kana sings the song. When I listen to this song, my feeling get so healthy and feel better. Also the line “I’ll do my best today!” makes me really cheered up. This was a theme song of “Mezamashi TV”, a popular Japanese morning TV show. I love this song. (Student K)

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We Should Spend More Time for the Real Experience, Not For Social Media’s Virtual, Free and Cheesy Experience

These days, I really feel something wrong on my usage of social media, or you could say, the relationship between me and my smartphone. Coming back from my workplace with exhausted feeling and lying on the bed without having supper, start watching a video clip whose thumbnail says “You Must Watch This Otherwise…”. Actually these videos are not boring in a way, but you can easily forget the content because you don’t even pay for it, and you are lying on the bed. Since YouTube might recommend you the next video like forever, YouTube videos hack your dream and you realize you fell asleep during watching and the sound of a video still go next to your pillow. Then I think, how awful, meaningless life I have lead these days.

Since it’s almost free to access any contents which seems worthy at the time, at one glance, smartphone is definitely a magic tool human has ever invented. It can be a TV, movie theater, book, newspaper, game, phone of course, radio, calendar, reminder, mail, dictionary, …you name it. So, you can fulfill your satisfaction with 5G speed. However, on another level, can’t we say these are “virtual” experience? We used to enjoy a kind of real experience. We needed to turn on the TV and watched one program with family members, we needed to rent a video from a video shop, we needed to look up a dictionary and found interesting words. However, these experiences has almost gone now. We can’t make a failure, which would be the best part of our experiences and learning.

If you are happy with today’s 5G, IoT kind of environment, that’s just great, so go for it. However, there must be people like me who feels rather uncomfortable for today’s too convenient, less experience situation. We can learn most from stupid and shameful mistakes. When you find yourself checking customer or viewer’s review, it can be said that you lose the opportunity of the real experience because you would never make a big mistake as long as you check the review. I do love review things, but you know, basically our life can be evaluated by any Amazon customer’s reviewers. So why do we always try to avoid making mistakes which is actually the only way for us to make our life really meaningful?

Then, here is my solution. I deleted almost all Social Media apps from my iPhone.

I felt I really need to do something for me to lead a meaningful life with real precious experiences. So, My decision is like this. I will spend more time with the real experiences which can be troublesome or a huge mistake. But then, I realize I can get much more healthy and great information for my life. I would not watch Spain’s sightseeing videos, but I would rather try to go to Spain. Instead of watching boring video clips, I would rather read books, travel with my car, and have lunch with my friends and family. That must be the best solution to have a good relation ship with social media or smartphone in this era I think. If you feel the same way, why don’t you try it together? Let’s face our life experiences more that is much much cooler and more interesting than virtual experiences.

Thank you very much for reading the article. I would prefer your comments or some other topic requests for me to write. Please write a comment or give me an email through contact page.

When was the moment you knew you were “grown up”?

Summer’s cloud is sometime shown as a metaphor of growing here in Japan. It expands quickly and the summer is the best season for students shine in each fields. Today’s question is “When was the moment you knew you were ‘grown up’?” Actually, I cannot say anything about this question. I’m still so childish in a way, and so old in a way.

There was a time everything seems new to me. There was a time everything was unknown. I couldn’t imagine how do I feel when I travel in New York, be in a relation ship with a cute girl and walking with drinking a cheap beer can in a foreign country through the night. But, by accumulating these kinds of experiences in my life, I found myself feeling a bit bored against my life. Or, maybe this is because I live in a country side which is totally unlike to Tokyo kinds of place.

I’m afraid of becoming a boring person by growing up. Becoming matured sometimes can work in a negative way. Grown up can mean stopping growing. There are words “developed country” and “developing country”. Perhaps I live in the latter country now, but I sometimes dream if I could live in the atmosphere in a developing country where everyones think tomorrow is the better day like I felt in Vietnam 10 years ago. I want to be grown up someday, but I never want to be grown up in the future.

Thank you very much for reading the article. I would prefer your comments or some other topic requests for me to write. Please write a comment or give me an email through contact page.

Have you ever wished you’d made a different choice?

Hello and I’m 29 years old now, and becoming 30 in this December 23rd. Becoming 30 sounds like becoming a new creature or “evolving” thing in the Pokémon world. However, I still don’t know what kind of person do I want to be or what is my life goal. That’s 30 to me. You are nobody but want to somebody. That’s what 30ish me thinking these days.

A professor whom I really respect once told me that the most students would have realized their calling or ideal life style around 30 years old, then that became a kind of curse to my life. I need to find out what I want to aim by 30 or like that. But, please laugh at me. This is so funny but I still don’t see anything in the coming future.

Have you ever wished you’d made a different choice? My answer is yes and no. I can say that I’m happy living this life. But sometimes, I dream of myself being a totally different kind of protagonist of my life. What if I couldn’t have met my precious friends? What if I was brave enough to go New York and live as a standup comedian. What if I didn’t have a steady job like I have today? What if I became a cafe owner? What if I got married with ex girlfriend? What if I haven’t followed what my parents said to me? What if…

Actually, the process dreaming of my imaginary choices is such a fun thing. I’m feeling so good dreaming of different types of me in the same age to me, and wonder, do I have any kinds of regrets? No I don’t. I can’t say it with 100% of my confidence though. I can say with 75%.

Our life is created by countless choices or decision makings of my or somebody. We maybe are affecting each other everyday. We have no idea when we would die. So, maybe we need to try to change our life during we live, not after dead.

Let’s celebrate every choices more. Our life is full of choices and that makes the life much more interesting or fun to live. As long as not a crime, we can do anything that we want to choose. And for that, thinking about today’s question would be a meaningful one. Please try with your version.

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I’m Finally Back!

About three months of being absent, I could finally come back to this site. What happened in these months? Who cares. I was just spending so lazy time that I couldn’t even remember how to log in this site and have many troubled time due to my laziness. However and fortunately, I could come back now. The theme is “REBORN” now. I’d like to write about anything that I think worth to write and what I want to write!

https://www.instagram.com/official_upsidedown/

by the way, this is my new instagram account with my sweetheart living in Tokyo. We live in the total opposite sites in Japan. So, you know, upsidedown. This account is our challenge to make our dreams come true. If you could follow us, you would glimpse interesting and humorous way of our living in this era. Thank you for reading!

Thank you very much for reading the article. I would prefer your comments or some other topic requests for me to write. Please write a comment or give me an email through contact page.

Rocket Start Type vs. Last Spurt Type

End of the fiscal year makes us really busy and stressed out. There are so many things left to be done. Murderous March is literally killing us in Japan. March is also known for the season of hay fever, so the creativity of Japanese really drop seriously in this season.

We all tend to think like “why should I do this with crying… I should’ve done this much more earlier” in this time. So, how can we change this kind of regrets? There is a “Parkinson’s law”. Let me quote from Wikipedia.

Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”^[1] It is sometimes applied to the growth of bureaucracy in an organization, but can be applicable to all forms of work.

In other words, we tend to put off our works as much as we can. When you asked a work and it’s deadline is April 1st, you would try to check if it’s 16:45 or 23:59. Then, you suddenly realize it’s Thursday, you would offer him/her alternative deadline of Friday 23:59. Moreover you could think like he/she cannot check the work on Friday night, so how about April 4th? Or like that.

The most of us, sadly, are such kind of type of people. We don’t want to work hard naturally. A book author once called this kind of people “las spurt type person”. Hmm… maybe so. And he also says, if you really want to be a person who will do things as soon as possible, you should become a “rocket start person”. This is the person who will do a 80% of work immediately and try to do 20% in the rest of time until the real deadline.

Do you want to change? No pain, no gain.

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Spring is a Cruel Season in Japan

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Such a beautiful Sakura in this season

Long time no see folks. I can’t even remember when was the last time I posted an article. Somehow, I couldn’t write anything because of my laziness. But, my life was somehow good these days. The season of Spring has finally arrived even in this Hokkaido prefecture. We can feel the warmth of the spring breeze, and bugs look re-enjoying playing outside.

Anyway, Spring is a farewell and welcome season for the Japanese. Maybe because our fiscal and school year begins in April and ends in March. And March is often symbolized by “Sakura (the cherry blossoms)”. So when we see sakura, we have a mainly great possibility of a new start, and slightly a hint of farewell and sadness to say goodbye in this season.

I said goodbye to a very precious colleague today. He was such a great co-worker. He has almost three times as much working experience as I have. His back looked very huge to me. There have been many troubles or problems in my workplace, but thanks to him, I could somehow overcome them.

I shouldn’t write this, but there is certain kind of people I don’t work with due to their ass-hole attitude or character. I really hope I don’t want to be such people who are longed to be relocated as soon as possible by colleagues. But on the other hand, there are people who I don’t want to say goodbye to.

This is Spring, and this is where I am right now. Spring is sometimes cruel to our lives.

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How To Be A Real Writer (Novelist) In Japan?

Unlike to the other states, it is winning prizes with authority that you need to to be a real writer in Japan. Of course you can be an essay writer if you are famous in some territories or genres. However, it seems necessary for you to win an important literature prize in Japan if you really want to be a fictional writer.

There are several important literature prizes. The most famous ones are “Akutagawa Prize” and “Naoki Prize”. Former prize is thought to be the most important literature prize for pure literature, and the latter is for entertainment literature in Japan. These are the most important prizes so that you could be immediately become famous when you win the prize.

As for the Akutagawa Prize, you can receive a special watch and 1,000,000 yen as an option. Once you win the prize, everyone would call you as Akutagawa Prize winning author or like that. I’m fond of reading the prize laureate fictions, but I have no idea how can you get the prize. The winners are people from very young to very old. When you really get the literature and describe with a solid fictional world, maybe you would receive the prize.

It’s one of my foolish dream though. I hope someday I can win it.

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Tips for a Very Cold Day- How to Enjoy in the Real Frozen World

Good evening dear readers. To be honest, it’s very cold right now here in Hokkaido. The outside temperature is around -10 to -15 degrees Celsius. But of course, it doesn’t mean the temperature inside my house. It was 13 degrees Celsius when I came back home 30 minutes ago. I turned off my stove at 10 o’clock and then it was 20 degrees Celsius. Anyway, I turned on it again so it’s 17 for now. Much better. But my hands typing this is freezing and a bit shaking.

Today is a Japan’s National Founding Day. Compared to the United States, we don’t have the exact founding date, so it is set as the enthronement day of the Meiji Emperor in 1872. Anyway, it’s a holiday for most average Japanese people like me. But, it’s just so cold here. However, anything has Brightside, right? So, let me list up the bright things to do in this very cold winter season.

Enjoy Winter Sports
I don’t own TV, but the real important information just flow into me in the right timing. I’m talking about the winter Olyimpic in Beijing. There, many athletes representing each nations shows great battles which I am not that interested in. People seems to be very happy when some athletes get gold medals, and seems to be unhappy when they get 9 places. But they often argure like “We are not pursuing the number of medals but the athletes moving great performances.” How dare you. Anyway, absolutely those athlets arouse our motivation for winter sports. In terms of that, I’m highy motivated, so I’m enjoying snowboarding (it really hurts when you are teh very begginer and fall down many times though). Since I started snowboarding, I began to hope more snowy days.
Drinking Hot Drink in Cold Place
How about drinking a Hot Milk or Hot Chocolate or Cocoa. The air of winter is very sevear, but at the same time, it is ultimately sophisticated air, and never be more pure in all seasons. You would definetly love the taste, and you can only enjoy the ritual only in this several months.

Sorry but this is all I hit upon with. You can add your own tips in this comment section. Thank you very much for reading this and I hope your winter would be the great one. My hands are still cold but I’m excited to go snowboarding from now♪

Thank you very much for reading the article. I would prefer your comments or some other topic requests for me to write. Please write a comment or give me an email through contact page.