Yeah.

My first name is Hanako, which means flower child or something like that. My family name is Hayashi, which is "woods" in English.

I live in the UK, in Canterbury. It’s most famous for its Cathedral. It’s quite a small town with lots of old buildings and green spaces.

It’s very peaceful, and you can walk everywhere easily.

A lot of people work for the university of course, and there are many new IT companies as well.

Yes, it is, because there are plenty of opportunities.

Not very much, maybe a couple of hours a week.

Football, cricket and rugby. Actually, I’ve read that fishing is the most popular hobby in the UK. I’m not sure if that’s sport.

I played basketball at school, because I was a giraffe at a young age, six feet tall at the age of thirteen.

Yes, I think it’s a good idea for children to learn to do some different physical activities. Through sports, they can learn about team working, achieving something through effort and skill.

No, not much. But I do like food.

Quite often. About twice a week on average.

I like restaurants that aren’t too formal. I prefer the cosy kind. But it’s very important to me that the food is fresh and healthy.

I think a good restaurant should change its menu fairly frequently, and use food that is in season at the particular time of the year.

Yes. I’m going to talk about a shop in Canterbury that I like going to. It’s in the centre of Canterbury and about ten minutes walk from my house. It’s “Hotel Chocolat”, and as you can imagine, it sells chocolate. It has a big range of chocolate related products. You can choose from a variety of dark and milk chocolate flavours, including dark chocolate with espresso, and milk chocolate with cherries, which are my favourites. The smell is delicious and the chocolate is too. The shop also sells lots of different teas and tea pots, coffee pots, cups and saucers as well as other nice things for your kitchen. It also sells a few very expensive and luxurious chocolate gifts. I tend to go there about once a week, normally on a Saturday and I buy enough chocolate to last me for the next week. I enjoy going there not just because of the nice chocolate, but also because the lady who works there is very friendly. So that’s my favourite shop.

Yes, they do. It’s a very popular place.

Well, I suppose shops that sell computers and computer games and also those that sell mobile phones. There seem to be more and more of them opening up. I suppose it’s not surprising. But I find these shops rather boring personally.

For me, one of the main disadvantages is that increased consumerism seems to emphasise the difference between rich and poor people. Also another disadvantage is that many people already work too hard and with the increasing consumerism they drive themselves harder and harder just to make money to buy things they don’t actually need, or have time to enjoy.

The more advertising there is, the more people seem to want. And they never satisfied with what they’ve got. I suppose it’s really depends what you mean by advertising. Some of it could be seen as socially useful. For example, anti-smoking advertising campaigns.

Well, I’m sure there will be an increasing online shopping, because more and more people have access to home computers. I also think that many small shops in the centre of town will close down, and bigger and bigger supermarkets will open on the outskirts. In some ways it may be more convenient, but I don’t know if these changes will really improve our lives.

Thank you. I hope you have a good weekend too.