Otto's blog

On Sunday I took* my kids into Nagoya to see the Nitten art exhibition. We took** the train & subway. Altogether it took*** about 40 minutes. First we had lunch, then we looked at the exhibition at The Aichi Prefectural Museum. After that we took a walk**** around the top of Oasis 21 shopping mall, I took***** a few photos, then we went home.

Vocabulary:
Take/took/taken have various meanings:
* 連れて行った
** 乗った
*** 掛かった
**** 散歩した
*****撮った
However, 'take lunch' is unusual. 'Have/eat lunch' is usual.

I have a lot of old fishing floats. I put the nicest ones in a display case in my classroom*, but I still had a lot left over (残り). So I made another display case. Actually, I didn`t find one of the floats in this case. I made it myself, from a champagne cork. Can you find it?

* https://en.bloguru.com/otto/361390/a-few-new-floats

Pronunciation:
- Champagne シャンパン is pronounced シャンぺーン in English (it sounds like campaign キャンペーン)

Merry Christmas! I didn`t get any presents from Santa, but I got a nice surprise on my way to work today - this is an 80s Toyota Landcruiser. What kind of car have you got? I`ve got a Honda Stepwagon. I wish I had this Landcruiser instead.

Thank you for supporting my blog in 2020. I hope you have a great day, and a fantastic 2021!

Vocabulary
- get = 貰う, 受ける (got: 過去形)
- have got = 有る, 持つ

This is a photo of a Common Grass Yellow butterfly that I found at Lake Biwa.

A couple of months ago I posted a podcast about butterfly collecting:
https://bohmeenglish.podbean.com/e/the-bohme-english-podcast-18-ottos-hobby/

This is a transcript (書き取り)of it. Please listen & read:

In Japan, a lot of kids – especially boys – are interested in catching & keeping rhinoceros beetles (カブトムシ) and stag beetles (くわがた虫). In Australia though, they`re not so popular and I never collected them when I was a kid. However I was into collecting butterfly for a while. I don`t remember exactly when or how I got into it, but my house had a big yard, with trees and bushes and flowers, so I guess I noticed the different types of butterflies which came through, and that got me interested.

What I do remember is my mum encouraging me, and helping me to research the best way to catch, kill and display them. Remember, this is before the internet, so we had to do this using library books, encyclopedias and of course trial and error. Oh, and my dad made me a big butterfly net, which I though was fantastic. Looking back now, I wonder if they were just desperate for me to stop collecting Kiss cards and fins a new, nicer hobby. Anyway, I really enjoyed keeping an eye out for butterflies that I didn`t have in my collection. Little by little I learnt which ones preferred which flowers, their flying habits, and even what time of day they were likely to be found.

I had special flat boxes with clear tops which I kept them in. Unfortunately, even though I put mothballs (防虫剤) in the boxes, like the books advised, my butterflies eventually became damaged & rotten, so I had to throw them away.

So that was the end of that hobby, although when I came to Japan as an adult, I noticed various butterflies that I had never seen growing up in Australia. And then I went to Okinawa, and wow – I saw some really impressive butterflies there. So that re-ignited my interest in butterflies. I also have a Japanese friend who collects butterflies, so whenever I go to Okinawa or somewhere & see an unusual or pretty butterfly, I paint a picture of it on a postcard and send it to him. Later, he replies to say thank you & tell me the name & some information about that butterfly.

So, yeh, although I don`t collect butterflies anymore, I definitely still get a kick out of spotting new or unusual ones. And who knows? Maybe one of my kids will want to start a butterfly collection one day. If so, I`ll definitely encourage them & give them a hand, just like my parents did with me.

I made two Christmas wreaths. Wanna buy one? The one on the left is ¥1500. The big one is ¥2000. I have another one at home, but it`s not for sale.

By the way, I used the seedpods that I found at Lake Biwa ( https://jp.bloguru.com/otto/387792/a-bagful-of-what ) in the big wreath. Can you see them?

Grammar
the + 形容詞 + one
the + one + 前置詞

A student gave this to me. Her friend in Kagoshima sent it to her. Do you know what it is? It`s about the size of a billiard ball, and it smells like passionfruit. My kids` guesses were: lemon, mango, pineapple, and lychee, but they were all wrong. The answer is below, in comments.

Vocabulary
- send = 送る (例えば郵便で)
- give = あげる, くれる, 渡す

Do you know Tim-Tams? Like me, they`re from Australia. Also like me, they`re pretty unhealthy... Check out that terrible health rating on the packet! If you`re like me & don`t mind that, you can buy these Manuka Honey ones at Kaldi.

Vocabulary:
- '(be) like me' = 私のように

On the way to work this morning I noticed this old VW Beetle parked near our school, so I whipped out my smartphone & quickly took a photo.

Vocabulary:
whip 名詞: 鞭
whip 動詞: 鞭打ち / 泡立てる
whip out 動詞: さっと取り出す

In this podcast, I talk about my hobby of gardening:

https://bohmeenglish.podbean.com/e/the-bohme-english-podcast-24-ottos-gardening-listening%e7%b7%b4%e7%bf%92%ef%bc%89/

This is a transcript:

Hello, everyone. In this podcast I`m going to tell you about another one of my hobbies – gardening. But not vegetables or flowers – a different kind of gardening. But before I tell you what it is, let me explain how it began.

So when I was growing up in Australia as a kid, I loved playing sports – tennis, swimming, cricket, and so on. Then when I was a teenager, I really got into football – or 'soccer' as it`s called in Australia, Japan & the US. I especially loved watching English Premier League football on TV – the teams` uniforms looked so colorful & cool, and the atmosphere in the stadiums, with all the chanting & singing, really impressed me. Another thing that caught my eye when I watched those games was the beautiful condition of the pitches – the grass was amazing. The pitches looked like big green carpets; completely different from the sort of football fields I was used to playing on in Australia, which were usually dry, hard & dusty - really terrible, not to mention painful if you enjoyed slide-tackles, which I did.

So anyway, inspired by that, I decided to try turning my house`s front yard into an English-style football pitch. It was in pretty poor condition when I started, but I watered it every day, pulled out weeds, and cut it whenever the grass grew an inch or so. And little by little it started to turn from brown to green, and the naked dirt patches became covered in nice, healthy grass. Finally, after a couple of years, it ended up looking pretty good.

So there you are – I like grass gardening! And in fact, even though I now live in Japan, I still do this hobby, but not in my house`s yard, which is pretty small. Instead, a few years ago, I decided to become a volunteer groundskeeper for a small park near my house. I go there about once a week to cut the grass, pull weeds & pick up trash. I`m sure some of the neighbors think it`s strange, but I don`t care – I enjoy it, and my kids play there, so it benefits them too. Also, little by little, I`m getting closer to achieving my ultimate goal & dream – to create a beautiful, grassy, English Premier League-style football field in my own neighborhood!

The limes on my lime tree were turning yellow, so before I left* for work today, I harvested them. As you can see in the photo on the left**, I got a trayful. I didn`t pick all of them, though. I left*** a few small ones on the tree - maybe they will grow a little more. I took the photo on the right a few weeks ago - fortunately this guy wasn`t in the tree today.

Vocabulary:
- * leave (= 出る) --> left [過去形]
- **left = 左
- *** leave (残す) --> left [過去形]