B1 · Finding your flow
Polly's weekly adventures and real-world stories.
- 港が広げた手 Polly flies into New York Harbor and looks closely at the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France built so... Audio
- チーズが必ず勝つレース Once a year in England, people chase a wheel of cheese down a dangerously steep hill, and the cheese almost... Audio
- 爪ほどの大きさの、新種の動物二種 Scientists in Montenegro just described two snail species new to science, found on limestone cliffs in a... Audio
- 本物の虫がコンピューターを止めた日 In nineteen forty-seven, engineers found an actual moth stuck inside a giant computer, taped it into their... Audio
- はさみの中に太陽を持つエビ A small ocean shrimp snaps its claw so fast that it creates a flash of heat nearly as hot as the surface of... Audio
- 二つの国に分かれた家 In a small town on the Belgian-Dutch border, some houses sit in two countries at once, and the front door... Audio
- 働く通りの提灯 In Higashi Chaya, Polly finds a lantern-lit street of wooden teahouses that still works today, and a shop... Audio
- 夜明け前の台所 Before dawn at Omicho market, Polly sees fish laid out on ice in a market three hundred years old, and... Audio
- 叩かれて、ほとんど消えてしまうまで In a gold leaf workshop, Polly learns that Kanazawa makes almost all of Japan's gold leaf, and that a coin... Audio
- 火が奪わなかったもの Polly takes one last high look at Kanazawa, waits out the rain from the sea, and leaves a city that kept... Audio
- 庭が持つべき六つのもの In Kenrokuen, Polly watches koi in a famous pond and learns how gardeners rig cones of rope over the pines... Audio
- 白い屋根と長い壁 At Kanazawa Castle, Polly walks the long stone walls and finds roofs made of lead, weathered white, that... Audio
- 焼け残った街 Polly arrives in Kanazawa, a city between the sea and the mountains, and finds an old wooden centre that... Audio
- 鳥に負けた軍隊 In nineteen thirty-two the Australian military was sent against emus eating the wheat crop in Western... Audio
- チンパンジーにも方言がある A new study of more than eleven thousand recorded calls found that young chimpanzees in different parts of... Audio
- インターネットは海の底にある Almost all international internet traffic travels along cables lying on the sea floor, which break... Audio
- 立方体を作る動物 Wombats are the only known animal to produce cube shaped droppings, and the corners are formed by uneven... Audio
- ひとつの建物に住む町 Almost every resident of Whittier, Alaska lives inside a single fourteen storey building reached through a... Audio
- あなたは光っている。でも誰にも見えない。 Human skin gives off a faint light all day long, and a Japanese team photographed it in a sealed dark room. Audio
- あなたの地図はお昼までに狂ってしまう Satellite clocks tick faster than clocks on the ground, and if nobody corrected for it your phone would... Audio
- 国じゅうが食べるランチ In the Dominican Republic the main meal lands at midday, it is almost always the same three things, and the... Audio
- この青は一つの場所にしか存在しない A stony beach in the Dominican southwest, one pebble that is blue all the way through, and the single... Audio
- この鳥は飛びながら眠る Frigatebirds stay in the air for days over open ocean, and researchers put recorders on their heads to find... Audio
- ひとつのカフェ、ふたつの国 In one small town, the border between Belgium and the Netherlands runs straight through streets, houses and... Audio
- 夜に青く光る海岸 On some warm coasts, the sea lights up electric blue when you touch it. The light comes from billions of... Audio
- あなたのメッセージは海の底を旅する Almost everything you send across an ocean travels through cables lying on the sea floor, not through... Audio
- 眠っている間に移動するホテル On a European night train, you fall asleep in one country and wake up in another, with the Alps outside... Audio
- 火山が作る夕食 On a green island in the Azores, cooks lower a pot into a hot hole in the ground and let the earth slowly... Audio
- 海の底を歩く Twice a day the North Sea pulls back for kilometres, and people walk barefoot across the bare seabed before... Audio
- 王がほとんど住まなかった城 A Bavarian king built a fairy-tale castle on an alpine crag, slept there only a handful of nights, and left... Audio
- 味がわかる腕 Octopus suckers contain special receptors that let an arm taste whatever it touches, even in total darkness. Audio
- 陸上競技史上最高の賞金 A brand new athletics championship this month paid its winners more than the sport has ever offered before. Audio
- コンピューターにクジラ語を教える Researchers are using artificial intelligence to search for real structure inside the clicking patterns of... Audio
- 木のゆっくりした鼓動 Laser scans at night revealed that trees pulse gently every few hours, possibly pumping water through their... Audio
- 午前三時の花市場 At three in the morning, Bangkok's biggest flower market is more awake than midday, and it never really... Audio
- 環状列石と朝の船 The Ring of Brodgar at dusk, then the small practical business of leaving an island, done in four sentences... Audio
- 九十日の麦 In a bar in Kirkwall, a flat dark bannock turns out to be the reason the islands were farmable at all. Audio
- 岩礁の集まり Grey seals are hauling out on the low rocks before the pupping season, and the questions Polly has been... Audio
- あり合わせで造った礼拝堂 On Lamb Holm, two army huts hold a chapel that prisoners of war made out of scrap, and the only honest... Audio
- 嵐があらわした村 At the Bay of Skaill, a guide with a carrying voice explains a village that a storm returned to the light... Audio
- 暖炉のそばの椅子 A guesthouse above the harbour, an argument about what counts as a quiet room, and a chair whose whole... Audio
- 船が入ってくる Polly lands at Stromness off the morning boat and works out, one question at a time, how a place with no... Audio
- 一万人の選手、一つの開会の夜 The 2026 Asian Games, hosted jointly by Aichi and Nagoya, Japan, bring together roughly ten thousand... Audio
- チーズしか受け取らない銀行 An Italian bank keeps a vault holding more than half a million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, accepted as... Audio
- その電池の数字は当てずっぽうです A phone's battery percentage is not a direct measurement, but an estimate calculated from voltage and... Audio
- ごみでできた砂浜 A sparkling beach in Northern California is made entirely of old dumped glass, smoothed into colorful... Audio
- どこにも四階がない In much of East Asia, elevators skip the number four entirely, because it sounds exactly like the word for... Audio
- 霧が彼女のうしろで閉じる On her last afternoon, Polly flies high over the island one more time before fog rolls in and hides it... Audio
- 火山につながれた村 Polly finds the same underground heat that cooked lunch also fills a giant public pool and warms homes,... Audio
- 夜明けに埋める夕食 Polly watches a cook lower sealed pots into holes heated only by the volcano below, where dinner cooks for... Audio
- 一つの火口、二つの色 Polly finds one huge old crater holding two lakes side by side, one blue and one green, joined underneath... Audio
- 二度も絶滅と思われた鳥 Polly searches an old laurel forest for the priolo, a tiny grey and pink bird found only here, once thought... Audio
- ヨーロッパに残る最後の二つの茶園 Polly finds one of only two working tea plantations left in Europe, started after disease wiped out the... Audio
- 九つの島、三つのプレート Polly arrives over São Miguel, the largest of the nine Azores islands, and learns that three tectonic... Audio
- ポリー、バスに乗る Polly boards the bus downtown for the first time, with a patient capybara at the wheel and one nervous... Audio
- ポリー、道をたずねる Polly gets lost looking for the library and learns that asking is faster than wandering. Audio
- ポリー、コーヒーを注文する Polly finds a corner cafe, orders a coffee with milk, discovers churros, and stays for a while by the window. Audio
- ポリー、市場へ行く Berta shows Polly the neighborhood market. Polly asks about an unfamiliar fruit, buys apples, and learns... Audio
- ポリー、新しい人と出会う Polly arrives on a new street, meets Berta the bear over the garden fence, and they agree to meet again at... Audio
- 川を取り戻した街 For fifty years, Seoul hid a river under an elevated highway. Then the city tore the highway down, and the... Audio
- 寒いときにスマホが切れる理由 Your phone shows forty percent battery, then dies in the snow. The battery is not empty. It is cold, and... Audio
- 上空十キロメートル Passenger planes cruise about ten kilometres above the ground. That number is not random: it is where the... Audio
- 最終電車 In Tokyo, the trains stop around midnight. Tomas learns this five minutes too late, and discovers where the... Audio
- 五百光年 Polly watches an exoplanet transit observation that measures what gases are in the atmosphere of a planet... Audio
- 古代人は熱帯雨林で栄えていた Scientists once thought ancient humans avoided rainforests. New evidence from West Africa says they thrived... Audio
- 錠前を開けたタコ An octopus called Inky escaped his aquarium tank at night through a drain pipe, and what it reveals about... Audio
- 3000年前のハチミツが今でも食べられる理由 Honey jars from Egyptian tombs three thousand years old are still edible. The chemistry behind a food that... Audio
- 三日間続いたテニスの試合 The longest tennis match ever played: Isner vs. Mahut, Wimbledon 2010, eleven hours, three days, a final... Audio
- 1960年 Polly studies a photograph of Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, the first humans to reach the bottom of the... Audio
- ウラジオストク Polly arrives in Vladivostok at the end of the 9,289-kilometre Trans-Siberian, stretches her wings, and... Audio
- アムール川 Polly reaches Khabarovsk on the sixth day of the Trans-Siberian, sees the Amur River bordering China, and... Audio
- バイカル湖 Polly spends the fifth day of the Trans-Siberian running along Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake on... Audio
- タイムゾーン Polly explores the dining car on the fourth day, learning that the whole train runs on Moscow time across... Audio
- ウラル山脈を越えて Polly crosses the Ural Mountains, the dividing line between Europe and Asia, on the third day of the... Audio
- 白樺の森 Polly wakes up on the second morning of the Trans-Siberian, watching the birch forests of European Russia.... Audio
- ヤロスラフスキー駅 Polly boards the Rossiya at Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station to begin the 9,289-kilometre, seven-day... Audio
- パスタとの別れ Polly says goodbye to Pasta the octopus and flies out of Naples toward her next destination. Audio
- 自分を編集するもの Polly learns that octopuses edit their own RNA in real time, building a brain that is different in each... Audio
- ピザと長いランチ Polly has the long Italian lunch with Chiara at a Neapolitan pizzeria, learning the protected rules of... Audio
- 考える体 Polly watches Pasta solve a maze with two arms working independently. She learns that two thirds of an... Audio
- ナポリ湾 Polly arrives in Naples and is welcomed into the world's oldest marine biology institute, where she meets a... Audio
- 谷を離れて Polly says goodbye to Ranger Tomas and flies west out of Yosemite, watching a peregrine hunt swifts on her... Audio
- 氷河ポイントの天の川 Polly watches sunset from Glacier Point and stays for the Milky Way, looking through a park astronomer's... Audio
- ハーフドーム Polly rides thermals up the 1,500-metre north face of Half Dome with a flock of swifts, reaches the summit,... Audio
- ダイビング・ファルコン Polly tries to copy a peregrine falcon's dive from El Capitan, learning how the falcon's third eyelid and... Audio
- セコイアの木 Polly visits Mariposa Grove and perches on the Grizzly Giant, a giant sequoia nearly 3,000 years old,... Audio
- レンジャー・トーマスとの旅 Polly spends a morning in Ranger Tomas's truck, learning how he tracks bear feeding in wildflower meadows... Audio
- 谷の上で Polly arrives at Yosemite Valley from the air, takes in its U-shaped glacial geology, watches climbers on... Audio
- 日曜日のパエリア An adult granddaughter visits home and finds her grandfather hasn't forgotten anything yet. Audio
- 空っぽのマグカップ First day at a new office, a small lesson about asking before assuming. Audio
- 四十七番 A small injury, an old magazine, and a waiting room that teaches patience. Audio
- グラナダ行きの列車 An overheard phone call on the train turns a long trip into a kind of company. Audio
- 間違った本屋 A simple coffee order leads to a strange conversation about a bookshop that doesn't exist anymore. Audio
- リスボンで道に迷って A wrong turn on a steep street becomes the best part of the trip. Audio
- 304号室からの眺め A late check-in turns into a small gift when the hotel runs out of rooms on the lower floors. Audio
- 一人用のテーブル A traveler eats alone in Madrid and discovers the waiter is the real star of the meal. Audio