We went to a Kathy and Gourove’s wedding yesterday. Kathy is from Iran and Gourove is from Kuwait. The reception was held in English and another language. Both of us didnt have any clue what language they were speaking. It sounded like French. The reception was very beautiful and joyful. Lot of people were dancing and drinking. We had a lot of fun. “Omedeto” or Congratulations, Gourove and Kathy!

We moved into a new apartment on april 1st. It is a high rise condo and we live on 29th floor. View from our place is just stanning. Now we can enjoy the beautiful daytime view and romantic night view every day!

Today, we went to an ice hockey game. It was my first time to watch a game at an arena. The game was held at the GM place which is an arena close to our apartment. At the arena, we cheered for our team, which were Canucks, they are the home team of the city of Vancouver.

In our last apartment, I would always become frustrated with loud cars honking in celebration after the Canucks won a game. After attending my first ice hockey game, I can forgive their loud noises and I can appreciate their enthusiasm.

I had never watched a game at an arena in Japan and I had no idea how Japanese people cheered for their teams, but here in Vancouver, people say “boo! boo!” in a very low intonation just like a pig (For non-Japanese people, you should understand in our culture it is common for pigs vocalization to sound like boo-boo instead of oink-oink). The crowd would boo especially when the opponent team (St. Louis) shot at the Canucks goal. I really enjoyed hearing that sound (because it made me think of pigs).

Vancouver Canucks have their own brand of cheering: “Go Canucks Go!” and “We are all Canucks!” I heard both these cheers during this game.

The game started with American anthem and then Canadian,”OH! CANADA”. I was familiar with the American anthem but not the Canadian. It was a great experience to hear people sing the Canadian anthem.

The game has 3 periods of 20 minutes. The score was 2:2 at the end of the game. The game went into Over Time for 5 minutes then they had a Shoot Out. During the Shoot Out, the third player of the Canucks, Sedin took one shot and scored. The St. Louis team didn’t score. Canacks won!!!!!! Congratulations, Canucks!!!

We had a guest, Mark and his girlfriend, Jenny. We had a nice chat together. After we had some beer, we went up to the roof top of our apartment. It is very beautiful place especially in summer. We had a couple of beer there enjoying the sunset.

Yumi has some special Japanese rules for all our friends and family who join us for dinner.

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