アメリカで朝ご飯 (Breakfast in America)

先週はベトナムのコーヒーを買いにいきました。それから、家に伝統的なアメリカの朝御飯を食べに帰りました。私たちはシイリアルをあまり食べませんが、アメリカで本当普通です。

ほとんど毎日フィルさんは朝ご飯を料理します。ふつうは卵とトーストとトルコのベーコンを食べて、オレンジジュースとコーヒーを飲みます。でも、私はコーヒーを飲みません。カフェインを飲んだら、寝られないんです。それは健康な朝ご飯ですが、アメリカで朝ご飯はよく不健康です。ふつう朝ご飯はシリアルです。健康なシリアル少しがありますが、大抵子供のシリアルは甘くて、めっちゃ不健康です。レストランで朝ご飯を食べたら、よくパンケーキやワッフルやドーナツなどを食べます。甘すぎて、アイスクリームを食べたら、同じですね？大きい卵焼き（オムレツ）も人気があります。たぶん大きすぎです。日本の休みの時あまり朝ご飯のレストランを見ませんでした。時々駅でパティシエかカフェを見ましたが、パンは小さかったです。

ふつうに朝ご飯は何を食べますか？アメリカの朝ご飯が好きですか？

Last week we went to buy Vietnamese coffee. Then we went back home for traditional American breakfast. We don't eat cereal often but it is really common in America.

Phil makes breakfast almost every day. Normally, we eat eggs, toast, and turkey bacon and drink orange juice and coffee. But I don't drink coffee. If I have caffeine I won't be able to sleep. Ours is a healthy breakfast but in America, breakfast is usually unhealthy. Normal breakfast here is cold cereal. There a some healthy cereals but children's cereal is very sweet and unhealthy. If we go to a restaurant for breakfast, we often eat pancakes, donuts, etc. It's so sweet, we might as well eat ice cream. Big omelettes are also popular here. Maybe too big. When we vacationed in Japan, we hardly saw any breakfast restaurants. Sometimes in train stations there would be a pastry shop or cafe, but the pastry was so small.

What do you normally eat for breakfast in your country? Do you like American breakfast?

アメリカの夏休み

アメリカの夏休みは楽しいです。ふつうは六月から九月まで学校が休みなので、旅行をするいい時です。時々子供はキャンプにいきますが、ちょっと高いです。旅行やキャンプに行けないたら、家にいたり、テレビを見たり、テレビゲームをしたり、外で友だちとあそんだりします。ふつうはお母さんとお父さんは仕事をしていますので、高校生は一人で家にいますが、若い子供はベビーシッターと家にいます。大抵大学生は家に帰って、アルバイトをします。夏休みはめっちゃ楽しくて、暇ですね。 

来週私の夏休みが始まりますので、めっちゃ嬉しい！たくさん日本語を勉強したり、水彩画を描いたり、ブログを書いたり、韓国のドラマを見たりするでしょう。そして、一週間15時間アルバイトをします。来学期は福岡に留学しますので、勉強して、荷物を詰めておきます。

日本人の友だちは私は「アメリカのデートにつてのブログを書きたい」と言っていました。ブログとYouTube、どちらのほうがいいと思いますか？

日本語の紹介 （Introduction in Japanese)

初めまして。ベサニーとフィルと猫のマシーうさぎです。８年間で３つの州と４つの町と８つのマンションで住んでいました。ひとつの場所にずっと住んでいるのは好きではないんです。去年日本に行きました。札幌と大阪と東京で友だちに会いました。めっちゃ楽しかったですね！2016年が2017年に移住したいと思っています。


このブログは日本に興味があるアメリカ人とアメリカに興味がある日本人に書いています。おもしろくて、楽しいといいんですが。何か特によみたいことがあったら、Facebookで教えてください。

ベサニー:

大学三年生です。専攻は国際関係とアジア関係です。大学卒業後に日本で働いて、住みたいです。英語の先生になりたくはありません。アメリカの会社で働きたいです。今年福岡に留学します。ブログで旅行やアメリカの文化や日本語の勉強や実践的なアドバイスについてかくつもりです。よろしくお願いします。

フィル:

車がめっちゃ好きなので, 子供の時、車の写真家になりたいと思っていましたがお金も好きなので自動車整備士です。５年間自動車整備士です。小学校の時日本語で科学授業と数学授業を取りました。でも、めっちゃ忘れてしまいました。趣味はアメリカのクラフトビルを飲んでみることです。ブログで車や男らしい物やスラングについて書くつもりです。よろしくお願いします。

猫マシー:

にゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃんにゃん。よろしくお願いします。



Written by Bethany, Phil, Massey & 鈴木美和子さんは翻訳を手伝ってくれてありがとう。

冬休みと新しい学期 (My Winter Vacation)

冬休みはよかったです。カリフォルニア州のサンディエゴに友だちの結婚しきに行きました。 サンディエゴで６年かん住んでいましたので、大好きです。サンディエゴのほうが私の町より大きですので、サンディエゴのほうが私の町よりたくさんの国の文化を見ることができます。私の町にはいい日本食や韓国料理のレストランがあまりありません。だから、サンディエゴに行った時には、めっちゃ外国の食べ物を食べます。今回の旅行韓国のバーベキューややきそばやかつどんを食べました。おいしくて、うれしかったよ！　

私の町に帰えった後もおもしろかったです。私は日本人の友だちに運転すのるを教えてあげたり、すいさいが（水彩画）をかいたり、クリスマス休みに家族に会ったりしました。

先週大学がはじまりました。新しい授業はおもしろいと思います。中国の文学授業と東アジアの地理授業と日本語授業と世界の音楽の文化を学ぶ授業と日本のじじもんだい授業とります。　

Winter break was great. I went to San Diego, California for a friends weddings. I lived in San Diego for 6 years so I love it there. San Diego is bigger than my city, so San Diego has more types of nationalities. My city does not have many good Japanese and Korean restaurants for example. Therefore, when we visit San Diego, we eat lots of foreign food. On this trip we had Korean barbeque, yakisoba, and katsudon.

After we returned to my city, it was interesting. I taught my Japanese friend how to drive, painted some watercolor paintings, and visited family on Christmas, for example.

Tomorrow, school begins again. I think my new classes will interesting. I am taking Chinese literature class, East Asian geography, Japanese language, world culture music, and current topics in Japan.
Written by Bethany & 鈴木美和子さんは翻訳を手伝ってくれてありがとう。

My Very American Christmas

Christmas just passed so, as promised, I thought I'd write about some traditions and experiences of Christmas in America. But first, the meaning of Christmas.

Christians believe in a trinitarian God, that God is all at once three entities; God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth. The actual date of Jesus's birth is still debated and many educated people believe he was more likely born in spring because of when other events in the story of His birth probably took place. Nevertheless, Christmas has traditionally been observed on December 25th. Not all Americans are Christians but a great many still celebrate Christmas as a time to visit family and reflect on the year as New Year's Eve approaches.

This year, we are in North Carolina. When we lived in California we couldn't always fly home to visit family for Christ mas but now we live 45 minutes away from Phil's sister and her husband and six year old son, 10 minutes away from his mom and dad, and five hours away from my mom and sister.

We went to a Christmas Eve church service with Phil's mom and dad. While singing Silent Night we were all holding lit candlesticks with little round papers on them to prevent the wax from spilling over. However, the paper failed and we burned ourselves many times. We were all trying to suppress our laughter while everyone around us continued to sing, oblivious of our pain.

On Christmas, we drove to his parent's home and Phil's sister and her family joined us. First we took a new family photo. This took a while since we took a few inside and outside and getting a six year old to look at the camera and smile every time was not easy. He wanted to play with the cat.

We all sat and talked for a while while dinner finished cooking. Around 1:00pm we had the big meal. It was very traditional: Turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet-potatoes (yams) with marshmallows on top, green beans with bacon, bread, and "dressing."

A note on "dressing": Phil's mom is from the south and calls it dressing. My mom is from the north and calls it stuffing. Some say the difference is that stuffing is cooked in the turkey and dressing is cooked outside of the turkey. Either way. It's a delicious mix of dried bread crumbs, butter, and herbs.

Finally it was time for presents. Phil's nephew passed out presents to everyone and we took turns opening them. Some presents are cheap and just for fun. Some are expensive and thoughtful. Clothes, specialty food and drinks, small kitchen appliances, toys, books, etc.

After the presents were finished we watched some movies and then went on our separate ways.

The day after Christmas we drove 5 hours to see my mom and sister in Virginia. We slept at my mom's house Friday night and on Saturday we opened presents and had big dinner all over again.

Having multiple Christmas gatherings is very common. Sometimes we will go to one or more Christmas parties with friends in the week before Christmas and if we have parents in multiple places we might travel to many homes to eat and exchange gifts with them. Sometimes these gatherings are all in one week or all in one day! Christmas is one of two holidays we usually travel very far to visit our families for (the other is Thanksgiving).

Christmas Slang
"Trim the tree" means to decorate the Christmas tree.
"Happy Holidays" is sometimes safer to say if you are not sure a person is a Christian.
Xmas is short for Christmas.
"Charlie Brown tree" means that the Christmas tree is very small and has few branches.

Written by Bethany

Who Are We & Why Should You Care?

My name is Bethany and I am pretty normal, at least, I like to think so. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life when I was younger so I'm a little older than most of the other juniors at my university. I've been married 8 years and in that time have lived in 8 apartments in 4 cities in 3 states.

My husband and I are average Americans who....do average American things...? We teach Sunday school at church; we scour our city for anything remotely close to authentic Asian cuisine; we snub our noses at non-craft beers; we refuse to learn what good wine is because that would defeat its purpose; and we binge on Netflix and play video games all weekend. I like to watercolor and (attempt) to do the nail art on Pinterest. I'm getting my bachelor's in International Relations and Asian Studies in Spring 2016. My husband, Phil, knew what he wanted to do from age 14 - cars. So he is a high-end auto mechanic and loves it.

To be honest, I have a gross distaste for social media so I'm writing this blog with one reader in mind; my fellow Japanophiles. As a Japanophile, I search the web for blogs of expats living in Japan, talking about grand festivals and mundane shopping experiences. But many are not being kept up regularly so I thought, why don't I make one.

Problem, of course, is that I don't live in Japan....not yet. I will study abroad there next fall for 5 wonderful months. My husband, in case you're wondering, will support me from our home base in North Carolina, where he will grow a full beard and play video games with his bachelor friends. He'll be just fine, is what I'm saying.

So what should I write about in the meantime? I thought I'd write about the grand festivals and mundane shopping experiences here for one thing. If there are Japanese or other foreigners thinking of moving to America, maybe they want to know these things I take for granted. Also, I'll write about the preparation to study abroad, random things I will learn in Japanese language and Asian Studies classes I'm taking in school until then, and about our vacation to Japan earlier this year. When my study abroad program starts next year I'll write all the details here (or forget for weeks or months at a time like a lot of the bloggers I follow, though I love them all <3). 

After graduation, it is our greatest wish to move to Japan to work and live there. Forever? Maybe. I'll get into the details in a later post, but we are up for anything God wants to throw at us. We'd be most excited if He wants us in South East Asia but we try to be open to anything. It's worked for us so far. 

Written by Bethany