From New Zealand Report on New Plymouth GHS Mar. 23th, 2016

From New Plymouth we received the 4^th report of Haruka Koyama, who is now studying as an international student in New Plymouth Girls’ High School.  We are so highly of her that we can share her report with you on our website.

Hi there!  Autumn has started here in New Plymouth, but sometimes it’s still very hot.

Last weekend, we had holidays of Taranaki, so I went to Rotorua, which is three and a half hours away for us to drive.  There were a lot of hot springs, so it smelled bad around there. I went with my host mother and little host sister. We stayed there for two nights and three days.

The first day, before we went to Rotorua, we went to Otorohanga to see kiwi birds. We went to a kiwi house, but there were many other kind of birds. I put a seed on my hand and the little green beautiful bird was pecking it. The kiwi bird was bigger than I thought. Kiwi is active only at night, so the room was very dark in order to see the kiwi. They have a long beak and round body. Even they are called “birds”, but they can’t fly.  They were really cute and I wanted to touch them, but I couldn’t. After we enjoyed being there, we finally went to Rotorua. It was already 6, so we just went to buy fish and chips for tea and went back to the hotel. The fish and chips were actually really good.

The second day, we went to Rotorua Skyline to do a very fun activity called Luge. We rode a gondola to go to the top of the mountain. It’s similar to go-cart but it’s not. They had 3 routes, scenic, intermediate, and advance. I had 3 rides of Luge. First I rode the scenic because it was my first time. I had the opportunity to ride the Luge three times, but after choosing the scenic route, I thought that was scary enough for me so I didn’t try other ones. It was absolutely exciting anyway.

The last day, I went shopping in the town. I bought a jade necklace and a ring. I ate sushi for lunch. It was delicious. After that, we went to Rotorua Government Museum. We could learn about Rotorua’s history there. It was almost 2, so we went back home.

From Thursday to Tuesday, we’ll have six days off which because of Easter holiday’s vacation. My host mother told me that we would go to beach as a day trip. I’m so excited.

I have only three more weeks by the day I return to Japan, so I plan to make them count.

Thanks for reading my report and see you in two weeks!

Sincerely,

Haruka

みなさんこんにちは。ニュープリマスはだんだん秋になろうとしていますがまだまだとても暑いです。

先週はこの地域の祝日が月曜日にあったので、３連休でした。なので、ホストマザーとシスターと３人でロトルアというニュープリマスから車で３時間半ぐらいの温泉地で有名な場所に２泊３日で旅行に行ってきました。

１日目は、ロトルアに行く前にオトロハンガにあるキウイハウスに行きました。そこにはキウイだけでなく、様々な鳥がいて、なかには直接餌を手であげられるところもあり、とても楽しかったです。ロトルアに着いた頃にはもうすでに６時だったので、その日は夕食にフィッシュアンドチップスを食べました。

２日目はゴンドラで山の頂上まで行き、Lugeというゴーカートのようなものをやりました。初めてだったので最初は怖かったですが、とても楽しかったです。

最終日には街でショッピングをしました。ニュージーランドで有名な翡翠の専門店でネックレスと指輪を買いました。とても綺麗な緑だったのでうれしかったです。昼食にはお寿司を食べ、そのあとはロトルアの歴史を知ることができる博物館へ行きました。

今週は木曜日からイースターなどで６連休になります。ホストマザーが天気が良ければ近くのではなく、少し遠い海に連れて行ってくれるそうです。

あと3週間しかないことに正直驚いていますが残りの期間を大切に過ごしたいと思います。