Weekly gathering on January 4, 2016

(Notes by Andy, photos by Henry)

Tom announced the outing is postponed to Jan-11 due to bad weather and will notify attendees the final decision by Saturday.

Tammy hosted the article “Five Healthy Resolutions.”  Weight loss is definitely the top one of New Year’s resolutions.  However, there were 5 must-take healthy resolutions that have nothing to do with weight loss:

1. Do more at-home workouts: it also prevents pm2.5 issue when you exercise inside.

2. Take a break

3. Drink four more cups of water each day: note it is not coffee or tea.

4. Put down the iPhone/Pad/Device an hour before bed: it is not easy to do these. Nevertheless, Tammy places her smart phone in the living room instead of bed room.

5. Talk it out: verbalize feelings can have a therapeutic effect on the brain.

She also introduced the session of ‘Ebola Returns in Liberia.” The Ebola virus was found in 1976, broke out in 2013 and came back in 2015. The mortality from Ebola is very high, around 83% to 90%.

Ben just returned from his trip to Hokkaido, so he briefed his tour:  Kushiro釧路: to see red-head crane 丹顶鹤, migrating from Siberia 

Sounkyo層雲峡: the coldest place in Japan. It was minus 14 degrees Celsius when he arrived.  He enjoyed the hot spring there.

Asahikawa旭川: to see polar bears and penguins

Jozankei 定山溪: famous hot spring resort.

Ben talked about the article “Wash your Hands.”  Why you wash your hands was because your hands touched everything.  He asked what the dirtiest thing you touched in everyday life. Some answers were cellphones, toilets, etc. But the dirtiest one is money (notes & coins). And what is the right way to wash your hands. Based on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control 疾病管制署), the correct 5 steps are Wet, Lather, Scrub, Rinse, and Dry. But how about turning off the faucet after you washed your hands.  At home, you might wash it directly. But at public area, you might turn it off by towel.

Welcomed to 2 new members:

Kurt: retired 3 years ago and will be 65 this July. He ran business in China for a long time.

Shelly: English teacher in junior high school. Now she has only 3-day teaching weekly, so she can join our club. She is proud of her 2 sons: one in Canada, one in Finland.

Michelle hosted the game play.  She passed 3 small notepapers in different colors to each member.  In addition, it was so considerate of her to pass a sheet of good adjectives, so we could choose the appropriate words.  Each wrote down 3 or 4 positive adjectives (characteristic or praise) for 1 member on each notepaper and put them into a twist egg(扭蛋). Then all the twist eggs were collected into a big bag.  Each member drew a twist egg and read the positive characteristic descriptions to that member. Therefore, all the members received 3 notepapers and were praised 3 times.  I believe it was very good because we all like compliments.

Last, we concluded our gathering with a 16-step simple Macarena dance.  It was easier or not torturing than hopping bunny dance last week.