CROSSROADSCROSSROA DS Language StudioÊs Newsletter OctoberOct ober,ober , 201
20 1 7

Pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV
news. It’s depressing, isn’t it? Terrorist
attacks, natural disasters, wars, politicalturmoil and threats of more wars, failing
economies, etc, etc. We might even conclude
that the world is about to end in the worst
possible way if we believe that the media’s
accounts of events are the full story. But isbad news the only news out there? Surely
there’s something else going on that’s worth
reporting, something positive...
Well there is! In fact, good news is far
more prevalent than bad. Here are just afew examples of how positive andproductive the real world is:
JUNO: The NASA Juno spacecraft madeits 5th flyby ofJupiter this year.
All of its scientificinstruments Ella andcameras were working
and we can expect many more new photosof Janis
Jupiter to be posted soon.
TREE PLANTING: In July 2016, 800,000
peopleinIndiaplanted 50 million
trees in only 24hours. This year,
1.5 million people
broke that record byplanting 66 million trees in just 12 hours,
again in India.
OCEAN GARBAGE: There are currently
over 5 trillion pieces
ofaccumulated
plastic trash floatingaround in 5 garbage
patches in our oceans. The good news isthat 40% of all this plastic will be cleaned
up in the next 5 years.

CHINA TO END IVORY TRADE: By theend of this year,
China intends tocompletely end thetrade in ivory within
its borders.
MEASLES: In 2016, it was announced
that measles had been eradicated in all ofNorth and South America.
US CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS:
Energy-related CO2 emissions in 2016 inthe U.S.A. dropped drastically to thelowest levels since 1991.
ENDANGERED SPECIES: After 100 years
on the endangered
species lists, tigers
are finally making acomeback. Conservation
efforts
inIndia,
Russia and Nepal havehelped their numbers in the wild increaseby 690 since 2010. Other success stories
include the manatee and giant pandas
being taken off the endangered species
lists.
WORLD HUNGER: The number ofmalnourished people in the world has
dropped by 26 million in the last 25 years.
There are many other great andencouraging stories out there, so why don’t
we hear more about them?

NET LESSONS: Too busy to come to CROSSROADS?
…. Try our lessons on the net!
Here’s an interesting site with lots of good news toread about: http://www.globalgoodnews.com/

Joshua Says: According to Professor Charles Yang, “children learn (theirmother tongue) by unlearning other languages.” The implication is that theability to speak all other languages is there, hard-wired into our brains, atbirth. As we grow older and the process of “unlearning” continues, it becomes
harder to access the tools necessary to speak another language. But the ability
to do so does not go away, it just “goes to sleep.” Let’s wake it up!
Junko Says: Somebody once said, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always
get what you always got.” Learning to speak a foreign language means you are going to
get something you didn’t have before; something completely new. So, don’t judge whether
or not you can learn a new language by your past knowledge or experience and justpractice with a fresh mind. Then I’m sure you’ll find it quite easy as all you need to do is topractice everyday. If you do, in time you’ll feel quite different about yourself.
Perry Says: My name is Perry and I just started working at Crossroads. I’mfrom Chicago in America, but I lived in Kagoshima for nine years. After abrief return to America, I’m excited to be back in Japan and am just starting
to settle into Matsuyama. I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you
over the coming weeks and months.
Darrin Says: It’s been 6 months since I arrived back in Matsuyama withmy family and hasn’t that time flown by. It’s been a very busy time,finding a place to live, a job as well as a kindergarten for my daughter.
This was probably the toughest as many kindergartens have waiting
lists, but we have managed it. I’m now looking forward to getting settled
properly and to enjoying living in Matsuyama again.
Mandcy dit: C’est bientôt la Toussaint !! La fête de tous les saints !
Habituellement, les français se rendent à l’église et dans les cimetières pourfleurir les tombes de leurs ancêtres. C’est un peu la fête des morts. D’ailleurs,la coutume de nos voisins brittaniques est très appréciée en France et on
adore de se déguiser en monstre pour faire fuir les fantômes. Toutefois, il esttrès important de chérir les vivants !! à bientôt, mes petites citrouilles !!!
1ACROSS
1 helping confidence, giving hope
4 completely destroyed
5 causing sad feelings
8 released, caused to flow forth
10 a highly contagious viral disease
11 careful management of the environment
13 worthless material
14 great losses or misfortunes
15 decide by reason
16 extremely
DOWN
2 at this time, of now
3 gathered together, collected
6 most frequent, very common
7 a water dwelling mammal
9 insufficient quality or quantity of food
12 violent disturbance23456789101112131415(print version here)
www.CrosswordWeaver.com

16

TRAVEL WORLD
Exploring Kinosaki-Onsen

by SP5’s Noriko Ikeda
That’s me!
continued from last month).... Tourist Friendly
Kinosaki is a very tourist-friendly area. There is a lot of information available in more than onelanguage. In public areas, many notices carefully explain things for foreigners. Not only the ryokan staff,
but also souvenir shop clerks, taxi drivers and public hot-spring guides were talking in a friendly way
with tourists from many countries, in English. Many restaurants have picture menus or displays to show
their customers what they offer. All of the foreigners looked like they were enjoying themselves without
any confusion.
Half of the tourists, including the foreigners, were in yukatas. Kinosaki-onsen has 7 public baths. People in yukatas were trying someof them. Surprisingly, most of the foreigners wore yukatas properly and beautifully. Perhaps the ryokan staff helped them put yukatas
on at first, but even after taking a bath outside of the ryokan, they put them on properly. Each public onsen instructs how to take aJapanese bath and how to wear a yukata with pictures. That’s how foreigners can easily understand Japanese customs and culture.
Delicious Food
Kinosaki is famous for fresh seafood like Matsuba crab, abalone and Tajima-beef, the origin of Kobe beef or Matsusaka beef. In
the onsen town there is a great variety of restaurants, especially seafood restaurants, sushi bars and Korean BBQ restaurants. Each
restaurant displays its menu at the entrance and they serve their dishes at reasonable prices. We can enjoy eating specialties outsideof the ryokans without paying much money. Of course it’s so nice to have a traditional Japanese-style dinner served in courses in ourroom at the ryokan - gorgeous and exclusive. Which do you prefer, casual or luxurious?
And there is a wide variety of sweets or snacks for souvenirs. There was a long queue at one sweet shop. It was a “karinto”(Japanese traditional sweet) specialty shop. The shop is famous for “onsen-pudding” and most people in yukatas bought it to eat
after taking a bath. We didn’t buy any, but we bought some “karinto” for souvenirs.
There is another local food specialty I really want to tell you about. It is “Izushi sarasoba.” Izushi is the name of the town. It’s located 40 minutes south of Kinosaki-onsen bycar. If you have a chance to visit Kinosaki-onsen, I definitely recommend this local food.
It’s traditional noodles made from buckwheat. It is served on lots of small ceramic plates
and we can eat as many plates as we want. Visitors enjoy trying to beat the record of how
many plates they can eat. The way of eating is also unique. We eat the soba with natural
salt at first. Next, after enjoying the original flavor of the buckwheat, we eat a couple ofplates of soba with Japanese soup stock, “soba-dashi.” And then we add some spices orcondiments to the soup. The soba restaurant we visited served spring onions, wasabi,grated yam and raw eggs. At the end of the meal, “sobaya” (the hot water inwhich the noodles were boiled) is served and we add it to the remaining soup and drink it like tea. The freshly made noodles were sodelicious. I ate 5 plates! I thought I could have eaten more, and wanted to, but I needed to keep some space for dinner. I was
satisfied with the soba and I loved it so much........ (catch the final installment of Noriko’s trip next month)CO
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Last Month’s Puzzle Solution
ACROSS
DOWN
3 placed at intervals
1 forced to do something
4 determine, show or outline
2 the growth of cities and societies
6 keep and protect
5 people who enter a place or country by
11 uncivilized personforce
13 people who move to a foreign
7 a very old period in history
country to live
8 what something is used for
14 appearing to be so
9 attacking plundering in search of booty
15 constructed, built to stand (up)10 final, concluding
16 an interest followed by exaggerated 12 ordinary, usual

Don’t forget… Our SPECIAL 1+1 Campaign offer! Up to 50% off!!
See our notice board, or ask Junko in our office, for the details.