Last night, I went to an English pub in Meguro to celebrate my friend's birthday. I was happy to have pints of beer and nice chips which I miss from London days. It was Monday but I came home after midnight.

I haven't had Belgian white Hoegaarden beer for ages. It was very nice. In Japan, people pronounce this beer like 'hugh (as Hugh Grant) garuden', in London they say 'ho-garden'. I didn't know which was correct. In Japan, we usually follow the original pronunciation, even if sometimes our Katakana sounds are not good enough. The English say 'ag-nes-b' for the French brand agnès b., but we say 'ani-es be'. That's why I believed that the Japanese way of saying Hoegaaden was right, but it wasn't. I found the truth on Subarashiki Belgian Beers' World (in Japanese only). You can hear the proper pronunciation here.