Japan : Trip to Kansai, 奈良市 : 大仏殿

En français

In the afternoon we went to visit 大仏殿 the largest wooden building in the world, with inside the world's largest bronze statue of Buddha 大仏. The great Buddha is part of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", an UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with other temple in Nara. It is 14.98 m high and really impressive. We entered the temple and turned around the statue. There are also other smaller statue in the great hall.

We then continue our walk around in the temple complex before going back to the station for a well deserved dinner before taking the next train to 京都.

Travel table of content

About learning : Screw the method

En français
I guess the title says it all, I got a little tired about learning languages. Not that I don't want to learn, just that I want to learn so bad that I just don't. I think I lost myself trying to apply other people's methods that seemed to work for them and possibly other people around but kind of flop for me. Not because they are bad methods, I think more because I was just doing things wrong because that didn't really match with my personality.
I think instead of trying so hard to get something their ways without actually getting the full grasp of it because I'm obviously just myself and not them, I should have got back a little bit and reread (my own crap) the first few posts of the "About learning" section of this blog.
I did learn 3 languages to fluency without having to read about any method before starting-even though two of them are probably starting to fail me due to lack of use but let's overestimate myself like every one else seem to do- so what the hell is wrong with me right now and why the hell don't I speak Japanese after almost one year here.
I can already here people saying that it's ok and that I'm just being too hard on myself. Sorry but screw that too.

I think I just want to speak so perfectly that I got scared and don't speak at all. Fact number 1.
I'm just too much thinking about how people are looking at me. That's a hard one to admit but Fact number 2.
I'm underestimated myself quite a bit, and it's hard to stop. Fact number 3.
But let's face it no matter how bad things turns out for some reasons I don't understand I still have some people calling me a genius at least once a week, no matter how wrong it sounds to me.

Now let's be back to my own shoes or should I say use my super powers and see how it goes.
There is no right method to learn a language because the method should be adapted to the language itself and to the culture behind it and to the person learning it. That's how I learned English mostly reading and watching Hollyoaks. I learned German taking classes in the morning and watching anime in the afternoon with the kids. I learned Italian just for the love of art as my teacher said.



So I just have to figure out what fits with Japanese and Chinese and I think that's not going to be too difficult. I just have to stop trying and let it flow. Let's get to work!

Japan : Trip to Kansai, 奈良市, the deers

En français
The next day we went to visit 奈良市. 奈良市 is famous for its deers so that was the first thing we went to see but I wasn't really expecting something like that. We went to walk in the park in the Buddhist temple complex of 東大寺 to go visit the temples obviously and the deers were everywhere. We even bought food for them. They were all really friendly except for one of them that keep on giving hurting my leg with his head, hopefully it didn't have horns. I was told that deers are bad like pigeon but I think that are a lot cuter.
Travel table of content

Japan : 猪苗代スキー場

En français 
I went to 猪苗代スキー場 with some friends to ski. That was really awesome. We left Chofu at 9.30 pm to go take the bus for 猪苗代スキー場 from Shinjuku. We arrived at the station at 6.40 am as planed. The night in the bus wasn't really comfortable and we arrived all tired but still excited enough to dress up for our day of sky. We first started to practice a bit near the station to warm up and then some went to take a class and I went with the snowboarders take the chairlift to the submit of the first green piste. Then we went higher and higher, almost to the top and I tried my first red piste. I find it pretty amazing knowing that it was the second time I was skying in my life and that the first one was 17 years ago. I really enjoyed myself and had the pleasure to hear my ski partner said he was lucky to have teamed with me as I was able to go at the top of the mountain.
Travel table of content