Road Block

There is a road near my place that has been under construction ever since I moved into the neighborhood more than a year ago. It was supposed to be a road that connects a main arterial road to the train station, and would have made it a lot easier for many commuters. However, there is a house that simply refuses to budge (beige house with black roof tiles & red lanterns), and construction has been put on hold since.

This is quite a common phenomenon all over the country. Construction projects would be completed (with roads paved and lines drawn) up till the house in question. Sometimes while on the road, you could also see part of property sticking out and covering a portion across the width of the road.

So until the situation is resolved, the road blocks are here to stay. Nobody really knows why they refuse to move away. It's been said that the residents regard their homes are a family legacies or heirlooms, or it could be that they're just holding out for more money...

Adventures at McDonald's

Each visit to a fast-food chain or restaurant is a window of opportunity to practice your Japanese listening comprehension skills, while making a spectacle of yourself in the process. You not only have to figure out what they are saying in Japanese, but in English as well. There's actually tons of English words in the Japanese vocabulary (a bit of imports from French & German as well) but they sound anything but English. Because of the Japanese language system, every word must end with a vowel (with the exception of -n) so McDonald's would end up sounding like 'Makadonarudo', and a big mac is 'biggu maku'. All our silly impersonations of Japanese speakers as kids are not too far from the truth.