Penguins in the antarctic.

I found an interesting story when I was surfing the internet. The story was like following. The bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands flew out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overflew it. Then, the penguins were fascinated by airplanes and their heads went up, and ten thousand penguins fell over backwards. The color of penguin's top is black and belly is white. I guess that color of the huge penguin colony turned from black to white, like waves. The scene must have been magnificent. Regrettably, the pilots didn't have cameras and video cameras then.

As you know, penguins have long body and short feet. So, it's difficult to balance themselves on the legs. The story attracted a lot of pilots and researchers of study groups. Maybe, TV program creators might want to shoot the scene and make a documentary program about the penguin.

After that, One man of the British Antarctic Survey tried to lead a research project. But there were a lot of problems. Penguins might have their eggs at their feet. He was worried about the possibility that the research would break their eggs and would hurt themselves by falling over. After that, the research project went to the penguin colony to shoot the scene of thousands of penguin's falling over.

But the researcher couldn't shoot the scene of thousands penguin's falling over. In actual fact, even one penguin didn't fall over. They would suspect that the story was a make-up story, or they thought the penguin became clever than the previous falling over. After that, other many researchers tried to observe the falling over, but they couldn't do that neither, after all.

The story gave me interests in penguins and other animals in the Antarctic Circle. As far as the first Century, penguins used to live in warmer area like equatorial. But there were a lot of natural enemies at warmer area. Then penguins decided to move to colder area, because they didn't think that there were natural enemies. That's why, there are a lot of penguins in the Antarctic Circl. But, you can see rare penguins who live in equatorial even now.

Trip to New York V

On the last day of this trip, we went to Times Square for shopping. There were a lot of famous shops there. I heard that vast number of people came there in end of year. They come there to celebrate a new year from all over the world every years. I thought that Times Square was exciting city. There were a lot of signs there. Each signs were bigger and brighter than Japanese ones. We bought a lot of souvenirs such as t-shirts and post cards there.

After that, we went to south area of Manhattan. We went to there before, but there were a lot of unique clothes shops that we didn't go before. My friend bought a lot of clothes which had particular New York's styles. I seemed that they had many larger size clothes than Japanese ones.

And then, we went to movie theater. Even though we had had no confidence to understand the words, we saw a movie called Lord of war. We just had a curious about American movie theaters. The movie was about a man who was a weapon seller. First, he just used to sell weapons illegal and made a lot of money. One day, he saw a lot of victims who killed by weapons he sold. And he felt guilty about selling weapons. The rough story was like that. If I saw it in Japanese, I would feel a little bit different.

After that, we had a dinner with Mike. It was our last dinner on this trip. We went to sea food restaurant. We talked a lot about this trip and next trip. We enjoyed eating and drinking. I thought this trip was the most exciting trip that I had ever done. There were no Japanese tour guide. We had to go anywhere by ourselves. I usually had Japanese tour guides on oversea trips, but this trip didn't. I enjoyed conversation with local people and a friend in New York. I thought that conversation was very important for trips. You might get good information and make your trips enrich. I felt very lucky because I had a nice opportunity to come to New York.

Now, I am watching pictures that I took in New York. They remind me of the nice trip. By the way, I am going to go to Shanghai in November with Akio. This trip is my third trip to Shanghai this year in 2005. Next year, I probably won't go abroad. I would like to study English and another language such as Spanish or Chinese in next year. To tell you the truth, I have to save a lot of money for my next trip. I think that studying other languages makes your horizon wider.

Trip to New York IV

The day before on 22th September, we went to ticket office in the station to get advanced tickets to Washington DC. We would leave New York early in the morning. So, we had to get advanced tickets by the day before, because the ticket office doesn't open early in the morning. I thought that taking the train was the easiest way to go to Washington DC from New York. There are the Smithsonian Museum, the White House, Washington Monument and famous sightseeing spots near Union station in Washington DC.

On 22th September, I and my friend went to Washington DC by train to go to Smithsonian Museum. We left New York early in the morning. It took us about three and a half hours to Washington DC. I enjoyed the view from the window seat. We got on the train called Amtrak. I heard that the train is a kind of Shinkansen in Japan. There were dining cars at the train. I was surprised that there were AC outlets on each seats. I saw some businessmen useing the outlets for their computers.

After three and a half hours, We arrived to Uniton station in Washington DC. The platform was like warehouse of trains. But, I saw a beautiful and huge atrium lobby beyond the ticket gate. The weather was clear sky. I thought Washington DC was quiet and beautiful city. There were large parks in the city. We went through the parks to the museums on foot. You can see small animals like squirrels under the trees. And you can also enjoy the artistic monuments, fountains and beautiful flower gardens in the parks. After that, we got to the first museum called National Air and Space Museum.

There were a lot of historical aircraft and space shuttles. I think that science and technology in America have been improving with aircraft and space technology. The Apollo 11 and the Wright Brothers Flyer in front of me made me feel dreams and efforts of people. Now, you can use planes and go abroad easily, but it was extremely hard to fly a plane about a hundred years ago. Ironically, the improving of aircraft technology made war technology improve. There were a lot of combat planes which were used in the World War II. I was surprised that there were not only American combat planes but also Japanese and German ones. Now people is into space technology. You can still hard to go to space, but people can use artificial satellites for broadcasting, communications systems and car navigation systems. The museum taught me how wonderful the American history of technology was.

When we left the museum, we realized that we had to leave Washington DC in a couple of hours. So, we went to Washington Monument, National museum of American History and U.S. Capitol in a hurry. We wished we had had more time. There were too many museums and sightseeing spots to visit all of them in a day. But I took a lot of pictures of them. I would enjoy continuance of this trip with the pictures in Japan.

After we came back to New York, we went to a jazz club called Village Vanguard. I heard that the club was the most historical one in Manhattan. When we got to the club, the performance was already started. The performer of the day was a trio consisted of a piano, drams and a double bass. Inside of the club had nice and historical mood. Historical jazz clubs like that go well with jazz music. I enjoyed the performance with American beer.

Trip to New York III

After the Niagara tour, I and my friend got back to our hotel in the evening. We had a couple of hour till sleeping time. So, we went to The Empire State Building to see night view of Manhattan. Even though we woke up early in the morning that day, we weren't sleepy. The building was near our hotel, it was just two blocks east. It took us about ten minutes on foot. But the observatory was crowded. So, we had to wait long time for our turn after a security check. I heard that public buildings like that have a heavy security check for safety in New York. I felt something weird because there aren't any security checks at public buildings in Japan. After a long wait, we finally got in the observatory. It was a kind of open-air observatory. The sky was clear and quiet breeze was blowing. I was excited about the beautiful night view in the moonlight. The scene was like a bright jewelry box. You can see whole Manhattan and adjacent islands such as Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx. That was the best night view that I had ever seen. I took a lot of picture of the night view. I'll never forget the beauty of night view.

The following the day, I went to a photo shop to develop my photos. And I walked around the Central Park. The park was located to the center of Manhattan. I heard that there were many kinds of facilities such as museum, concert hall, athletic field, pond, castle and so on. Inside of the park was quiet and good for relaxing. I thought it was very nice that there was a quiet park in the lively city.

The night, we went to see a Off Broadway Musical called Stomp. It was a kind of dance and sound performance. My friend said that was the most popular and easy musical because there were no words but only instrument's sound. I enjoyed the energetic performance. Especially, I was impressed by the amazing sense of rhythm. Seven or eight actors and actress made the complex rhythm sound by cans, plastic tubes, lighters, and other items. We had gotten the tickets at our hotel. It was very expensive.

After that, we went to a bar near our hotel and met Mike. I told him about the price of the ticket. He was surprised and said that the service charge at the hotel might be expensive. Actually, the service charge was almost half of the whole price. We made up our mind to buy tickets at the counter of the theater next time. Drinking at bars in New York was a lot of fun. Customers, waiter and waitress were friendly. A man who sat next to me was talking to me for a while. He came from Morocco. I thought that New York was exactly international city. Meeting people in foreign countries is exciting.

Trip to New York II

The fourth day on Monday, I and my friend went to Canada to see Niagara Falls. When we were thinking about it in Japan, we were actually supposed to go to Niagara Falls by ourselves, but we realized that it's really difficult to go there without tour guides. After all, we decided to join in a sightseeing tour of Niagara Falls. It was an one day tour to Canada, but we were expecting a magnificent view of the falls. On the day, we had to wake up early at 3:30 in the morning. At 4:30, a Japanese tour guide picked us up and took us to J.F.Kennedy airport. On the way to the airport, I saw beautiful sunrise glow. When I saw the sunrise glow, I felt that it would be a fine weather all day.

After the two hour flight, we got to Buffalo airport in western part of New York. When we went out from the airport to change to the bus, I saw a tranquil and beautiful landscape of countryside. Air was much clearer than New York. The tour guide on the bus was very good at talking. She introduced the falls and that town to us. I enjoyed her talk very much. And then, we crossed the border to Canada. Near the border, we could hear the sound of the falls and see the mass of the mist from the falls. And we got to in front of the falls. I was deeply moved by the sight of the falls. I took a lot of pictures. And I took on the boat called Maiden of the Mist. The boat took me right up to the waterfalls. The view of the falls from the boat was great. But, visibility at the waterfall was near zero, because of the strong wind and mist of water.

We had a lunch at a restaurant which was on the top floor in a hotel with a nice view of the falls. Especially, it was great experience that I had a lunch with the view of the falls. And I exchanged information about sightseeing places and oher things with the tour members there. There were beautifu park around the falls. After the lunch, I walked around the park. The park had beautiful, well maintaind flowerbeds. I enjoyed the one day trip to Niagara Falls in Canada.