– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to bonus episode  number 154, 1-5-4 of the Culips English Podcast.  

How's it going? My name's Andrew. I'll be your  host and your English study buddy for today. As  

always here, what I do in our bonus episodes is I  tell you some stories from my everyday life. I'm  

a Canadian guy, but I live abroad in Seoul, South  Korea, and I help you build your English fluency  

by sharing some adventures from my life with you. To accompany this episode, there's a free  

interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary  that you can get just by clicking the link in the  

description for this episode. Plus, if you are a  Culips member, and thank you to all of our members  

out there who support us. Guys, we really, really,  really appreciate you. If you are a Culips member,  

then you will also get a comprehension quiz for  this episode so you can test and see how much you  

are able to understand after you finish listening  to the episode. If you'd like to learn more about  

Culips membership, maybe sign up yourself and get  access to all of the great tools and benefits and  

bonuses that we give to our members, then just  visit our website, Culips.com, and you can sign up  

and become a member today for an affordable price. OK, let's get into this week's story, guys. I'm  

going to tell you about my trip to Japan. I  just got back from Japan. I spent one day in  

Osaka and four nights in Sapporo. And I traveled  there with my buddy, Luke. We had a great time.  

It was an awesome adventure. And it was just  really, really fun. 10 out of 10 experience. 

So, I'm going to tell you about the first leg of  the trip. It's interesting. We use that word "leg"  

to talk about a part of the trip. So really, I  had two legs to my journey. The first leg was  

in Osaka, the second leg was in Sapporo. So, this  week I'll tell you about that first leg in Osaka,  

and then next week I'll tell you about my  adventure in Sapporo. So, without any further ado,  

let's get to the story. I hope you enjoy it, and  I hope you're able to build your English fluency  

by listening to it. Here we go. Enjoy. OK, let me tell you about my one day,  

very quick pit stop in Osaka. Do you guys know  this expression, a "pit stop"? It actually comes  

from car racing. You know, think of like a Formula  One car or a NASCAR, they do those races around a  

circuit, right? Well, they're going so fast  and working so hard that sometimes they need  

to stop and get their tires changed or refuel  the car. And that kind of quick stop we call  

a pit stop. The area where they go to get their  car serviced is called “the pit.” So, a pit stop  

is like just a quick stopover. And that's what we  can call this kind of thing in English. So, I did  

a quick pit stop in Osaka on my way to Sapporo. And I did this really for two reasons. The two  

reasons that I stopped in Osaka were, number one,  it's an awesome city. I love Osaka. And it's got  

a great record store scene. In my opinion, maybe  one of the best record store cities in the world.  

There are tons of great independent record stores,  and it's just like a really good community of  

record stores. I think they're all friendly with  each other. When you go to one record store,  

they actually have like a map, and they  recommend other record stores to you. So,  

you know, if you're looking for something and they  don't have it, they're really willing to say, oh,  

try this other record store and they'll point you  to another business to go there. And I love that.  

It's cool to see a small business community like  that working together. They're not just trying  

to keep their competitors from getting business  from customers. They're actively recommending that  

you go here, check that out. And there are just,  yeah, great record stores in Osaka. And of course,  

as a music lover and an LP collector,  I wanted to go there to do some record  

shopping. So that was one of the reasons. And then the second reason is price. It's  

a lot cheaper to fly from Seoul to Osaka and then  Osaka to Sapporo, which was my final destination,  

than it is to go direct. It's not like a  lot cheaper, maybe $100 or $150 cheaper,  

but hey, I'll save that money when I can. So,  I decided to save some money and maybe put that  

money that I saved on my plane ticket towards  some records in Osaka. And so that was my plan. 

Now, in order to maximize the time that I could  spend in Osaka, I decided to fly there as early  

as I could in the morning. So, I booked the  first plane, which I think was around 7:30 in  

the morning that we left. And it's a quick flight  from Seoul to Osaka, it’s just an hour and a half  

or something. So, I figured, in my head, this was  my rough calculation. OK. I'll go to the airport,  

7:30. I’ll fly and I'll arrive in Osaka, let's  say 9:00 AM, 9:30 AM, somewhere in there. And  

then by the time I get through immigration, and I  get onto the airport train, and I actually arrive  

in the central district of Osaka, well, then it  will probably be like 11 a.m., 11:30? And then my  

second flight to go from Osaka to Sapporo was at 6  p.m. So, I thought, OK, I'll have like a good four  

hours maybe before I have to hightail it back to  the airport to get that flight to go to Sapporo.  

"Hightail it" means to go very quickly. So... And now that I'm thinking about this,  

for whatever reason, it seems like I had more  time than I really do. When I'm thinking about  

this and saying it out loud, this plan kind of  seems not so great. And in reality, it was cool.  

It was cool to spend some time in Osaka, but I  was really rushed, and I didn't get to do all  

of the things that I wanted to do. And maybe you  can see why now that I'm talking about the time. 

But anyways, let me tell you about my day in  Osaka. So, as I said, I took the airplane early  

in the morning, 7:30 a.m. departure time, which  means really, I had to wake up, I think I woke  

up before 4:00 a.m. Maybe like 3:45 or something  in the morning. Ridiculous! A time that nobody  

should have to wake up, and quickly got ready and  took the airport bus to the airport because at  

that time in the morning, even the subways aren't  operating. So, it's a little bit uncomfortable to  

get to the airport that early in the morning.  You have to take the bus. And luckily, we have  

great airport shuttles here in Seoul, but they're  a little bit expensive, much more expensive than  

taking the subway. So, subway is ideal to get  to the airport, but obviously couldn't do that  

because it was too early in the morning. So, I woke up at that ungodly hour,  

took the shuttle bus to the airport, checked into  my flight. Everything was cool. The flight over  

to Osaka was cool. And I should say, this is kind  of a key point, that I traveled very light because  

I booked a budget airline ticket. And as part of  that budget airline ticket, I wasn't able to bring  

any luggage with me. There was no luggage included  in the ticket fee, just my one carry-on bag.  

Actually, I was allowed one carry-on bag and one  personal item. And they both, totaling together,  

had to be under seven kilograms. And that was also  the case for my flight to Sapporo as well. It was  

on the same airline. It was kind of part of the  same ticket. I just had that long layover, right? 

So, because I wanted to do record shopping in  Osaka, I figured that if I bought some records,  

maybe let's say I have a really good day  of digging and I find a lot of stuff that  

I want to buy, maybe I would buy eight  or 10 records, if I really did a shopping  

spree. I had to calculate how much that would  weigh. And one record, I weighed it actually,  

usually weighs between 250 to 300 grams. So, I  had to keep that in the back of my mind. OK, let's  

say one record on average weighs 300 grams and I  wanna buy 10. Well, that's three kilograms. So,  

I have to have a bag that's like four kilograms  maximum, or else I would have to pay a really  

insane luggage fee. The cost of going over and  having to purchase extra luggage on these budget  

airlines can sometimes actually not be budget at  all. It's quite expensive. So, I really packed  

light for this trip. I just had one small bag and  I was only going to Sapporo for like four days,  

right? So, I didn't have to pack too much stuff.  I just kept it really, really light, just the bare  

essentials. And yeah, I think my bag was exactly  at around just over four kilograms, maybe 4.1  

or 4.2 kilograms. So, I did a good job there  and I was really mindful about my bag weight. 

So, I get to Osaka. The flight was great.  I think I slept the whole way. I was pretty  

sleepy from waking up at 3:45 in the morning for  the flight. Arrived in Osaka, everything was cool.  

Went through immigration, everything was cool.  And yeah, by this time it was around maybe 9:45  

in the morning. So, everything was on schedule.  And when you arrive in Osaka, you have to take  

a shuttle bus, or at least I did, from where my  plane landed in that terminal to the main terminal  

where you can catch the train to get into the  city itself. So, I was waiting for that shuttle  

bus to come and take me to the main terminal. And at that moment, everybody's phone beeped at  

the same time. It was kind of like beeeeep, that  kind of warning alert sound. And so, I took out my  

phone, I took a look at it, and there was a pop-up  that was entirely in Japanese saying something.  

And, I figured in my mind at that time, I figured  it was probably a heat-alert warning. Because here  

in Korea, when it's a heat wave and we have  really high temperatures, the government will  

sometimes push out alerts warning people and  to, you know, not spend too much time outside,  

or to go into an air conditioned place, or to look  out for elderly people who might be suffering in  

the heat, these kinds of warnings. And I thought,  hey, probably we're getting a heat-wave warning  

because it was so hot in Osaka. It was boiling hot  already by 9:45 in the morning. It was really hot  

and humid. And so that was in my mind. I figured,  OK, of course I can't read it. It's in Japanese,  

right? Entirely in Japanese. So, I  figured it's a heat wave warning. 

And all of the other people in the line, they were  also foreigners. I think mostly Koreans that we  

just got off the same plane together, right? So,  I don't know if they were able to understand it,  

but I think most people just sort of closed  the alert and we got on the shuttle bus and  

went to the terminal, and I didn't really  think too much of it other than that. 

So, get to the terminal and I found a locker.  I stored my bag in the locker because I didn't  

want to carry that 4.2 kilograms around with me  all day. And then I bought my ticket to get the  

shuttle train to the shopping area that I wanted  to visit. I had my path and my route all mapped  

out, so I knew where I was going to go first,  which record stores I was going to hit. And  

here "hit" when I say I want to hit a record  store, doesn't mean that I want to punch it,  

it just means I want to visit it, so sometimes  we use that word "hit" to mean visit. 

So, I had all of the locations marked that I  wanted to hit. And my priorities were to go to  

record shopping first and then I also wanted to  try some coffee because I know from my previous  

visit to Osaka that there's really good coffee in  the city and I wanted to hit up a cafe that I know  

does a really good cup of brew. So, I wanted to  have a cup of coffee. And then my third and final  

priority was lunch. And I had some restaurants  pinned that I thought could be good for lunch. If  

I had time. Lunch, I was willing to sacrifice. But  I really wanted to try and make an effort to go to  

the record stores and to get some coffee. And if I  had to skip lunch, well, hey, it's probably OK for  

my waistline to do that every once in a while. So, I got onto the express train. I splurged  

and bought the express ticket, which would get  me to the area I wanted to go to just a little  

bit faster. And the train was actually really  beautiful. I took a picture of the train and  

I'll put that on social media so you guys can see  it. Or if you're watching the YouTube version of  

this video, you'll be able to see it now as I'm  talking about the train. But I took the express  

train to get to the city a little bit faster. And then it was time to go record shopping.  

And unfortunately, where I got off, on the  train stop to the record store that I wanted  

to visit first, was a bit of a hike. And it was  a little confusing to get there because when I  

was looking on Google maps, it looked like  a pretty direct route, but then in reality,  

the route wasn't so direct because there were  some train lines in the way. So, I thought I  

could just walk in like a straight line. But  then in reality, the road that I needed to  

cross was blocked by a train. So, I had to take a  little shortcut and that took a little bit longer  

than I wanted to actually find this record store. But eventually I got there. And now by this time,  

it was already around noon or so. So, it  had taken me like a lot longer than I was  

expecting. I was expecting to be ready to get  coffee and maybe even lunch by this time. But I  

was just arriving at the first record store. And record stores in Japan are really great  

because they have a huge selection of Japanese  music and Japanese music is really good and  

super high-quality music, lots of interesting and  great stuff that comes out of Japan, of course.  

But also, they have a really extensive collection  of Western music and music from all genres, and  

everything is in good condition. I think Japanese  people, at least from my experience here, shopping  

in their used record stores, really take good care  of their products so that when you do buy a used  

record in Japan, the quality is really good. And so, yeah, once I got to the first store,  

it was digging time, time to search. And there's  so much good stuff to look at, even in the first  

store, I was just, you know, browsing everywhere  and looking everywhere and it was great, but this  

takes a lot of time. And suddenly I looked at my  watch and already an hour had gone by. I was like,  

"Oh my gosh, I don't have too much time  before I have to get back to the airport." 

So, I was in the record store and suddenly I  got a message from my mom. And my mom said,  

"Andrew, did you hear the news? There was an  earthquake in Russia, a huge earthquake. And  

now there's a big tsunami alert for all of  Japan." She was quite worried. She was like,  

"Where are you? Are you OK? Get to high ground." Now, luckily, the building that I was actually in  

at the time, I think it was on the ninth floor.  So, I wasn't really too worried about a tsunami  

coming up to the ninth floor. And, you know, moms  tend to worry a lot, right? So, when your mom  

sends you a message and she's like, "And there's  a tsunami, get to high ground," and she's back  

in Canada watching the news. I'm like, I didn't  really take it very seriously, right? I'm like,  

"Yeah, mom, everything's OK." Like, I think  if there were a real tsunami alert in Osaka,  

probably people would be acting differently. Maybe  there would be a siren going off or something. I  

think there would be more signals. Even though I  can't speak Japanese, I think probably I would be  

able to notice that something's going on.  And so, I wasn't too worried about that,  

but she kept sending me messages and  her tone was pretty serious saying,  

"At least Google it and see what's going on." You  know, I was just in the record store, and there  

were lots of other customers there. And the staff  were just going about their daily business. Nobody  

seemed concerned about a tsunami or anything  like that. So, I wasn't too worried at all. 

But I finished my shopping. I bought four records  at the first store. And then I thought, OK, let's  

see what my mom was talking about. So, I found a  little rest area and I had a seat and I Googled  

and searched on Reddit, which is maybe a better  source of information for real time updates. And  

yeah, I noticed that there was a massive, massive  earthquake on one of these islands in northern  

Russia. And there was a big tsunami alert for  many parts of Japan, but also for parts of Hawaii,  

and I think even maybe into Alaska and  North America, the West Coast as well. So,  

everybody was on alert about the tsunami. And reading on Reddit, people were just  

expecting the tsunami to come in. And there  were predictions that it could be between just  

10 centimeters to up to a meter and maybe even  higher. And for Osaka, there was some concern.  

Like it showed on the map, the areas that  were affected and Osaka was under an alert  

and was affected. But I was more concerned about  Sapporo because I had to take a flight to Sapporo  

in just a few short hours from that moment. So, I was trying frantically to find some  

information about this because there were three  colors that they used. I think there was a yellow,  

red, and purple. And yellow was the mild alert.  That's where Osaka was. It was under a yellow  

alert. The red was a more serious alert and  then a purple was a strong warning. You know,  

the area that I was going to in Sapporo, that  had the red alert. So, I was trying to see like,  

how close is our hotel to the ocean? How far is  Sapporo, the city center to the ocean? I didn't  

know any of this information. I'd never been  there before. I know it's not like a coastal city,  

but I wasn't sure. Like, how far is it really  exactly from the ocean to the city center?  

What's the elevation like? And information  like this. So, I was Googling and trying to  

figure out like, is it safe to fly in right now? Because it turned out that this earthquake was an  

8.6 on the Richter scale, which was the sixth  strongest earthquake in history, apparently  

recorded history. So, a massive, massive  earthquake. And of course, with earthquakes,  

it's not just the initial earthquake, but also  the aftershocks, right? Some strong aftershocks  

could happen. And so, I think when you have  a tsunami warning like this, it's not just  

the initial quake that can cause concern, but  also aftershocks. And maybe it will take a few  

days to know if the tsunami hits or doesn't hit. And so, I had a decision to make in that moment.  

I was like, I don't know really what to do. Is it  going to be safe to go to Sapporo? What happens if  

I go there and then there's a tsunami? How stupid  would that be? You know, If I'm sitting in a safe  

place in Osaka on the ninth floor of a building  and then I take a flight to Sapporo and then  

I get affected by a tsunami, that would just be  so stupid. So, I was trying to find information. 

And I couldn't really find anything, but I noticed  that the phrasing that was used in the weather app  

was “alert,” not “warning.” And I couldn't find  anything about a travel advisory. And when I  

looked at the website for my airline, I noticed  that they had canceled quite a few flights going  

to northern areas of Hokkaido. And Hokkaido is the  island where Sapporo is on the northernmost island  

in Japan. So, I noticed that some of those  flights going to northern Hokkaido, which is  

closer to the epicenter of the earthquake, and I  think more open to a tsunami from that direction,  

all of those flights had been canceled, but my  flight to Sapporo was still scheduled. And so,  

I thought, OK, what I'll do is I'll just  leave it into the hands of fate. And if  

the airline cancels the flight and there's a  travel warning at the airport, or maybe I can  

talk to somebody at the airport, then I won't  go. But if the flight is on, then I'm going. 

Another thing that I had to think about also was  my buddy Luke was flying at that time from Canada  

en route to Sapporo. So, he was in the middle  of that flight and it's not like I could text  

him to communicate with him. He would be arriving  in Sapporo, and he would be expecting to meet me  

there. And so, I had that to consider as well.  So, I thought I'm going to leave it into the  

hands of fate and go to the airport just like  everything is normal. If the flight's canceled,  

that's a big sign not to go. Or if the airline  staff say it's dangerous, you shouldn't be going,  

maybe only people who live in the city or  something are allowed to take the flight,  

then I wouldn't take the flight. But  yeah, I decided, OK, that's my game plan. 

And then I looked at my watch and I was getting  close to two o'clock, 2 p.m. by the time I had  

finished with the Googling, and the research,  and the thinking about what I should do. And  

then I was like, I don't think I have time to do  anything else. I visited one record store and when  

I thought about the path that I would have to take  to get back to the subway station, and then take  

the subway to get back to the airport train, and  then airport train to the airport, and then check  

in for my flight and all of this, I was like,  I'm not going to have time to do anything else. 

So yeah, my time in Osaka was great. I  enjoyed the one record store that I visited,  

but also it was a little bit disappointing  because I had several record stores that I  

wanted to visit. I had a cafe that I wanted  to try the coffee at. I had some restaurants  

pinned on my map that I wanted to check out. And  I realized at that moment that I wasn't going to  

be able to do any of those things. And I just  had to make my way back to the subway station,  

back to the airport express train, and then  back to the airport. And so that's what I did. 

I got to the airport. I collected my bag  from the locker. And when I added the four  

LPs that I bought at that record store to the  bag and then I weighed it again. It came in at  

exactly 6.8 kilograms. So, I was just under,  and I don't know where that extra weight came  

from. Maybe I hadn't really weighed it very  accurately before. I'm not sure, but my bag was  

just under the limit and a really good thing  too because when I flew from Seoul to Osaka,  

they were pretty loosey-goosey with the weight  regulations, and they didn't really check my bags  

at all. They just sort of said, go ahead. But when  I checked in for my flight from Osaka to Sapporo,  

they were very, very diligent about checking  the weight and making sure I was under. I got  

stopped twice and was asked to check the weight  in front of the agent to make sure that I was  

underweight. So yeah, just by the skin of my  teeth, just barely got through with the weight  

restriction and yeah, flew from Osaka to Sapporo. In the end, guys, nothing materialized with the  

tsunami. Thank God everything was OK, and Japan  wasn't really affected too much this time. I  

think there were some areas where there  were some tsunami waves of up to a meter,  

but nothing that I heard about, no big  damage, nothing like what we've seen  

in Japan in previous years. So that was really  good. That was really fortunate. And I was able  

to meet my friend in Sapporo with no problems. But I'll save the details about our Sapporo  

trip and the fun and adventures we got up to in  Sapporo for next time. I think I've been rambling  

on here long enough, everyone. So, if you made  it all the way to the end, thank you so much for  

listening. Thank you so much for spending some  time with me studying English today. Remember,  

this is what you need to do to build your fluency.  You need to get the language into your head. You  

need to spend some time listening to it. And  you did that here today. So great job. Keep  

up the good work. And I think that's going to  bring us to the end. So please take care. Have  

a great week of English studying up ahead. And  I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye-bye.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
episode ˈɛpəsoʊd B1	noun - a separate part or section of a story or series
podcast ˈpoʊdkæst B1	noun - a digital audio file made available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically
host hoʊst A2	noun - a person who introduces and conducts a broadcast program verb - to be the presenter of a broadcast program
buddy ˈbʌdi A2	noun - a close friend
adventure ədˈvɛntʃər A2	verb - to engage in an exciting or unusual experience
leg lɛɡ A1	noun - a part of a journey or trip
pit stop pɪt stɒp B1	noun - a brief stop during a journey, often for refueling or maintenance
splurge splɜːrdʒ B2	verb - to spend money freely or extravagantly
hightail haɪteɪl B2	verb - to leave or move very quickly
ungodly ʌnˈɡɑːdli C1	adjective - very early or inconvenient
mindful ˈmaɪndfəl B2	adjective - conscious or aware of something
frantically ˈfræntɪkli B2	adverb - in a manner that shows extreme urgency or anxiety
materialize məˈtɪəriəlaɪz C1	verb - to become real or actual
rambling ˈræmblɪŋ B2	adjective - long and confusing or incoherent
fluency ˈfluəntʃi B2	noun - the ability to speak or write a language easily and accurately