This is FANTASTIC!!

When we went to London in March we were walking around in east London one day and we came across a young woman painting a mural onto a wall. We stopped to watch her work for a few minutes and asked her if it was ok to take some pictures. Then we left and I never thought any more about it...

Yesterday I was surfing the net and I suddenly came across this video of a stop frame animation, and it is the same piece we stopped to look at !
It is fantastic ! Apparently the whole animation took 3 weeks to finish and the resulting video footage was edited down to this 3 minute video.
Please check it out...

LONDON #2 - Street Art

Sorry I have been away for so long...life has been hectic for the last month.

Any way back to business!

I am a big fan of 'street art', which used to be graffiti until it branched out into other areas of publicly displayed 'art works'.
London is covered in 'street art' and while I was there I took many photos of the best pieces I saw, and here they are for you...I hope you like them :)

LONDON #1

So last week I went on a quick trip home to London...and I am in love!!
Since I came to Japan 8 years ago I have been back to London 4 times now, and every time before this time I have had mixed emotions about my home city. Sometimes I love it, others I hate things about it, but this time I am in love again.
For probably the first time in my life we had a whole week of sunshine!!

It didn't rain once in a week, which is almost unheard of in March, and the sun brings out the best in Londoners. People walk around with a smile on their face and everyone comes out to stroll the streets and eat lunch in the sun in the park...and it made me remember all of my best times in my London life.

London is such a beautiful city and I enjoyed just walking the streets, soaking up the atmosphere and going to all my favourite places...I can't wait to go back!!

I am exciting???

I was just talking to my son and he reminded me of a very common mistake students of English make.He said to me...

"We are going to Hiroshima tomorrow. I am exciting!"

..when he really wanted to say "I am excited"

Adjectives like exciting/excited come from verbs, in this case to excite but the -ed and -ing endings are different

-ed is used for your/others' own feeling.

I was frightened
I am excited
He was worried about the test
She was really bored at the event

-ing is used for situations

The film was frightening
His story was really exciting
That news is worrying
That book was so boring

Hope this helps

...the idea of...

I was teaching last week and one of my students said something like...

"I have never been climbing, but I like climbing"

Because he has never been it is impossible for him to know whether he likes it or not.
What he wanted to say was...

"I have never been climbing, but I like the idea of climbing"

'to like the idea of...' is the phrasal verb we use to talk about things we would probably like if we tried them eg.

"I like the idea of working for Mazda"
"I like the idea of moving to Tokyo"
"I don't like the idea of having children"

Ta

Useful English #1 - lend/borrow

the verbs 'lend' and 'borrow' are part of one process, but seen from different points of view.

'I lent my friend 10 pounds' = 'My friend borrowed 10 pounds (from me)'

It is very useful for making requests eg.

'Please lend me a pen'
'Can I borrow a pen please?'

When money or a fee is involved we use 'rent' or 'hire' eg.

'We hired a car for the weekend'
'I want to rent an apartment in London'

Beer

Now. I don't drink very much. Maybe 1 can of beer a week, and often not at all, but when I do I really don't like drinking famous brand lager. In England there are so many small, independent breweries which produce some fantastic tasting, locally produced 'real ale'. Every time I go to London I try as many different ones as I can, as in the UK you can buy a large selection of ales in your local supermarket.
However in Japan it is very difficult to find 'real' beer. Once before I have been to Kure-ru in Kure which has it's own brewery on site, and it was pretty good (especially their black beer).

Then last night we went to an inn in Kure and they had a locally brewed, 'navy' beer, and it was great! It was very cloudy and tasted almost like home-brewed beer. It is a little expensive but I will be drinking it again soon...