COOL VOLUNTEER BOYS

Nowadays, many young boys began to volunteer works that picking up litter, and cleaning around the JR Ogaki station.
The young boys are students of Gifu Keizai University, and they are member of baseball team in this university. In fact, this volunteer work is for their training. Their university is three kilometers away from the JR Ogaki station. After that they run to the station, they pick up litter like cigarette butts, and cleaning around the station. Surprisingly, the volunteer work starts at 6:45 in the morning before the peak of the rush hours. After they clean the station, they run back to their university. Their baseball manager said the volunteer work is a good community service for Ogaki City. Therefore they want to volunteer work at the minimum once a week.

NAKAMURAYA

I’m going to report about the best Chinese noodle restaurant in Ogaki! The restaurant is named ‘Nakamura-Ya’. Have you ever heard about the name? It’s the most famous Chinese noodle restaurant for ‘tsukemen’ in Ogaki.
Tsukemen is a kind of Chinese noodles. They separate noodles and soup like this. (First picture) You can eat it a same way as ‘soba’. Just dip the noodles in a soup, and taste is really good. Especially the soup is a rich taste, and the original noodles are delicious and chewy.

In addition, when you visit there at lunch time, you can eat original rice balls for free. At last, when you visit there, you should be surprised at that you have to line up to eat “tsukemen” at lunch time particularly, even if it’s on usual days, because the word on the street that Nakamura-Ya has really great ‘tsukemen’ was running through other prefectures such as Osaka and Aichi prefectures.
When you visit Ogaki, it’s a chance to eat ‘tsukemen’ at NAKAMURAYA!








Nakamura-Ya is in front of the Ogaki Hospital and next to a convenience store.
2-58-1, Terauchi-cho, Oogaki-city, Gifu

FREE JAPANESE LESSONS

We started teaching Japanese for FREE in Ogaki. Many Brazilian people live in Seinou area in Gifu. However, some of them lost their jobs due to the worsening economy these days. Therefore, an international association of Ogaki gave the lessons for Brazilian at “HIRO Gakuen”, and the lessons are intended for the unemployed. “HIRO Gakuen” is a name of school in Ogaki, and the school opens for Brazilian children on usual days.

They took the lessons twice a week, and each 3 hours. They learned about basic Japanese like the way of filling in resumes. In addition, while they were taking the lessons, they could leave their children in the school. I think it’s a great system of education, and it’s convenient for women who have children.

The article appeared on February, 10th 2009, so the lessons are already closed now. This is a Japanese lessons in Ogaki, but we have other volunteer works that teaching Japanese to foreigners. I hope that it will be increasing more like the volunteer works.