New York [100th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda.
Today is the fifth day of the East Coast trip and is also an anniversary day. Just a hundred days have passed since I arrived in the U.S.! Almost one-third of the exchanging program was done. I'm willing to keep running until it ends. By the way, we got up before 7 am and drove back to N.Y. today. We arrived in N.Y. afternoon, took the rental car back to the garage, and walked around downtown. We took subways so many times to go anywhere. There is a very robust subway system in N.Y., like in Tokyo. You can travel conveniently with the subway. Although, I need to notify you that the subway is very dangerous for foreign people, especially those who look Asian. Many crimes related to racism happen inside stations like attacks, robbery, discrimination, or murders. I always was with three Turkish guys, so kind of safe. While I found lots of homeless people behaving crazy at stations, in particular at night. I need to keep cautious. We walked on Times Square and visited a church first.
Then, we ate N.Y. pizza at a famous shop named 99 cent pizza. As the name indicates, we could have slices of giant pizza for a reasonable price. We had two pieces of king-size pizza and a can of soda for only $2.75. It was pretty good. After that, we visited the central park and just walked around in the city.
The city, especially around Times Square, was very bright, crowded, and crazy. This was my first time visiting N.Y., but it was familiar to me somehow. That might be because it looked very similar to Shibuya. Skyscrapers, too many people, crazy noise, bad smell... everything has in common among them. Actually, I don't like such places. The city was a very exciting and hot place, but I got tired of their bad aspects, like garbage, noise, and over-population, lol.
こんばんは。人生初のタイムズスクエアを経験してきました。率直な感想を言うと、もうお腹いっぱいです。道の至る所でパフォーマンスが開かれてたり、コスプレをしている人がいたり、ただただ騒いでいる人が居たり、ドラッグを公然と売っている人が居たり、、、とにかく賑やかでした笑 静かで落ち着くところが好きな僕からすると完全に真反対の場所だったのでかなり疲れました。明日はここで行われるパレードを見に行くので、しっかり寝て戦いに備えようと思います。最後にとてもアメリカンな写真を貼って起きます。
ではまた明日。Have a wonderful night and Happy Thanksgiving!
Wagshinton D.C. [99th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda,
This is the fourth day of the trip. We traveled around in the capital of America. We got up in the late morning because we had a party on the roof of the house and stayed up late. We just start moving around noon and headed to a Turkish restaurant first. We had falafel that is popular traditional Turkish food made by ground chickpeas. It was good and tasted like Doritos to me.
After having small lunch, we went to the National Mall. It was the place where many museums, buildings, monuments gather. We saw the Washington Monument that is a tall silver monument, a big fountain, and the statue of Lincoln. In addition, we visited the White House, the Capitol, and the supreme court.
After that, a new Turkish friend studying at George Washington University joined us, And, we get to the Old Town which is a lovely place with fancy buildings, went to George Washington University, the coast, and downtown. It was so long and good night.
昨晩、旅行の疲れからかブログを書きながら寝落ちしてしまいました...。なので翌朝にニューヨークに移動中の車内で書いております笑 この旅行にはトルコ人の友達3人と来ているのですが、彼らとずっと一緒にいるとトルコのディープ事情を色々教えてくれました。例えば、彼らはよく"What the f***" や "F***ing shit" といったF Wordを、アメリカ人並みに頻繁に使うのですが、トルコ人青年はそういった言葉を日常的に友達間の会話で使っているらしく、むしろ英語よりも激しく使用しているらしいです。その証拠に"F*** you"に該当する表現がトルコ語には10個以上あるみたいです。これには驚きました。こういう言葉を日本語に翻訳するときは、決まって「くたばれ」という翻訳になりますが、くたばれ！なんて日常生活で一回もいったことないですよね。日本語ってストレートに人を侮辱する言葉ってあんまりないですよね。言語によって、同じ概念に対して割り当てらる言葉や表現の数が違うし、それが文化や一種の国民性を反映しているのって面白いですね。では今日はこの辺で。Have a lovely day!
Philadelphia2 [98th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda.
This is the 3rd day of the trip. We traveled around in Philadelphia and moved to Washington D.C. We went to see the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
This place is popular with Rocky Steps. Do you know the very popular scene in the Rocky movie series, where he runs up the stairs and shouts with arms up at the top? That stair is this. We could see good views as he has seen.
After imitating him, we went into the museum and looked around the exhibitions. It was huge and held tons of exhibitions from ancient to modern all over the world. It has ancient Chinese artworks, Indian Buddism statues, Turkish art carpets, Eastern European drawings, statues of Jesus, a Japanese house, and so on. We only had 3 hours to look at brilliant artworks, but it was so big that we couldn't observe all works. Anyway, I was so impressed by the works and the museum itself.
After visiting the museum, we went to a marketplace and had beef cheese pretzel and curry. Then, we drove to Washington D.C. and will stay for two nights.
こんばんは。ボストンとフィラデルフィアの宿泊は6人1部屋のシェアスペースでした。僕の泊まった部屋は幸運なことに皆静かに寝てくれたので僕もぐっすり寝れました。ワシントンD.C.での宿泊はAirbnbでさらに快適なので、残りの旅行に備えてぐっすり寝ようと思います。ではおやすみなさい。Have a good night!
Philadelphia [97th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda.
Day two of the East coast! I got up at 5:30 am and took a shuttle bus to N.Y. Just after arriving in N.Y. at 10:30 am, we rented a car and drove to Philadelphia. We took the subway in N.Y. to go to the rental shop. I thought N.Y. was similar to Shinjyuku. Both of them are highly populated, messy with shops or buildings, and quite noisy. And unfortunately, N.Y. was two or three times as dirty as Shinjyuku. I knew that the subway was very dangerous in terms of crime related to race discrimination. But, I didn't feel it was so dangerous, maybe because I was with two Turkish guys on both sides. My first impression of N.Y. was opposite to good. I hope it will be better when I'll go there again in a few days.
We arrived in Philadelphia around 3 pm and had late lunch at a popular fast-food restaurant called Jim's Steaks. We had cheesesteaks that are popular local food in Philadelphia. It was very oily but pretty good.
After having lunch, we went to a museum and looked at the fancy walls. This was the place a woman made by herself with glass, bins, tiles, or something like that. You can see a lot of attractive walls filled with twinkling resources. They were beautiful.
Tonight, we drove around the city and saw night views there for two hours. We went watching a river, a park, skyscrapers, and the University of Philadelphia. That was an excellent night driving.
こんばんは。今日は移動日ということで、ボストンからフィラデルフィアに来るまで9時間くらいを費やしました。でもドライブでいろんな景色を見れたので、充実してました。明日はより本腰を入れてフィラデルフィア観光をするので楽しみです。ではまた明日。 Have a great night!
Boston [96th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda.
Today was the first day of the trip to the East coast. I leave Chicago at 6 am and landed in Boston at 9 am. Considering the time gap between them, I flew for about four hours. I couldn't sleep very well at the airport so I fall asleep when the plane was,s in the air. After arriving in Boston, we headed to Trinity Church downtown. It is a very popular Catholic church located at the center of the city. We looked inside in a group tour, learning its history and how it was made. The windows and the ornaments inside were sophisticated and amazing.
Then, I had lunch and went to the public library. It is called Boston Public Library. It stores tons of historical books and many university students studied there very hard.
After visiting the library, we walked on the Freedom Trail. It's a sightseeing load through the cities and you can find the sightseeing spots if you walk along this trail. After finishing walking for a long time, we got to MIT and Harvard. As you know, these universities have been one of the top universities all over the world. I didn't know but they are close just 15 minutes by bus between them. Each of their campuses has its specialties and is attractive.
After visiting the universities, we had dinner downtown and went back to the hostel. I walked almost 40,000 steps today, and I'm pretty tired and sleepy. I need to get up at 5:30 am tomorrow, so I'll go to bed early.
こんばんは。昨日犯罪が怖くて空港で寝れないと言っていましたが、僕以外に人が見当たらなかったのと人間の睡魔があまりにも強かったせいで、3時間くらい寝てしまいました。ただ肘掛け付きの椅子に寝転んで寝たので身体中がバキバキになって起床しました...。さて日本語パートでは旅行の一番の醍醐味である、食事を紹介します。
まず、お昼ごはんは、ローストビーフバーガー。美味。こちらは特にボストン関係なし。
やt
おやつにボストン名物のCannoliです。中のマスカルポーネクリームみたいなのがすごく美味しかった。
晩御飯はロブスターバンズとクラムチャウダー。ボストンといえば海鮮が有名で、中でもロブスターとクラムチャウダーが超有名なので、とりあえずこのふたつを抑えておきました。焼肉食べ放題一食分くらいの値段したけれど、ロブスターものすごく美味しかったので大満足です。
こんな感じでしばらくは旅行記になります！ではまた明日。Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving Dinner [95th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda.
I'm writing this at the airport to depart for Boston in the morning tomorrow. I'm taking a trip to the East coast for Thanksgiving holiday week! I'll post blogs about the travel for these seven days from tomorrow. But, I'm gonna tell you about yesterday in today's blog because I'm hard-pushed by a pile of events I need to share with you. I went to a church to have Thanksgiving dinner.
For Thanksgiving meal, you often eat turkey for celebrating. I ate a dish plate with turkey and a piece of apple pie. I learned some Thanksgiving cultures. One is a popcorn game. First, you grab as many popcorns as you want. Then, you speak out as many people you wanna be thankful for as the amount of popcorn you grabbed. Another is a message card. There is a card illustrated as a falling leaf. And you write the name of a person you appreciate the most this year and the reason you're thankful for him/her. I thought it's similar to tanabata (七夕), which is a Japanese custom that you write down your wishes on a piece of paper on the 7th of July.
こんばんは。オヘア国際空港からお届けしております。午後９時くらいに空港に着いたのですが、フライトは明日の朝６時なので、これから人生初の空港泊します。日本だったら夜中ベンチで寝れるんだけど、アメリカは犯罪に遭いそうなのでうかつに寝れません。悲しい。
では皆さんはおやすみなさい。Have a good night!
First Time Jazz [94th day]
Hi. It's Illinois Panda.
Apologize for my laziness in not uploading blogs for almost a week. I wanted to share something with you, but I couldn't make myself feel like writing blogs. I don't excuse, lol. Today, I went to a Thanksgiving party and talked with my friends. They told me that they looked at my blogs and praised me. I was surprised by how many friends of mine read my blogs, and at the same time, I noticed that I should write blogs as often as I can, literally almost every day again. So, I will resume my almost daily blog from now on.
I don't talk about the Thanksgiving party today; I'm gonna share with you about last Sunday instead. I went to a jazz concert for the first time in my life on that day. I hadn't had much knowledge about jazz and even usually listened to jazz music. However, one of my friends who is a big fan of jazz invited me to the concert, and I thought it would be enjoyable so that I went there. The concert was held by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The orchestra was made by a very popular legendary composer named Glenn Miller. They have been playing his songs for almost a century, changing their members and styles. They, fortunately, came to Champaign and held a concert. The ticket only cost less than 50 bucks, and the place was 20 min by bus from my dorm. I've heard that if you go to a usual jazz concert, you need to pay at least 80 dollars, so I was very fortunate. Most of the songs they played were unfamiliar to me, but some of them are so popular that I knew them, such as "In The Mood" or "Little Brown Bin." I enjoyed the concert very much and liked their music, especially how to play the instruments. After the concert, I sometimes listen to jazz music on the phone. I might be getting into jazz thanks to them :)
お久しぶりです。明日から（ほぼ）毎日投稿再開します。 今日はジャズのお話をしたので、日本語パートではおすすめの歌手を紹介します。ご紹介するのは Saucy Dog です！ 声と音が心地良くずっと聴いてます。気になった人は聞いてみてください！
ではまた明日！Have a good day!
