From Australia_Report on St. Andrew’s CC_May 23rd_2016

Updated Report on May 23^rd from Cairns, Australia. 

The following report is the updated one on May 23^rd from Emily Ishii, a Year 11^th student of Otsuma Nakano High School, who is now enrolling at St. Andrew’s Catholic College as an exchange student for Term 2, 2016.  We do hope you will share her impression about Australian culture.

Hello there, again.  I’m Emily Ishii, who is an exchange student here at St. Andrew’s Catholic College.  Five weeks have passed out of my eleven weeks in Cairns, Australia.

I am having a lovely time here and I think that one of the reasons for that is because of the great teachers at St. Andrews. Something I have noticed is that many of them are very friendly. Although the teachers at my school in Japan are spectacular as well, I think that they are great in different ways. In Japan, from my experiences, even if a teacher is friendly, most of them would keep their private life to themselves. However, I feel like many teachers here are pretty open about their private life. I reckon that one of the reasons for this may be because many teachers meet their students on their days off whereas that rarely happens where I live.

On the 6th of May, there was a Japanese festival at school. Students from elementary school were doing performances based on Japan, but we were allowed to watch. Since there were many people dressed up, my friend that came from Japan and I got dressed in a Yukata as well. They also sold some Japanese food which was delicious. Watching this showed me how people outside of Japan see my country, and what they think of it. It really brings me joy to think that there are people outside of Japan who actually learn about Japan and the language, and that some people are interested in the culture. When I was younger, I was never proud of where I was from, and so coming here gave me a new perspective of things.

On the weekends, I went to palm cove again, which is a beach with shops and restaurants on the side. However, this time, they were doing a market that they only do once every couple of weeks. My host family and I went for a stroll around the market and there were many beautiful items and art work. I love the patterns that a lot of items here are designed in. They are so laid-back, summer based and makes me think of resorts. There was also a dog show where they had a lot of dogs competing in different kinds of categories, and they were all so adorable! As for food, we got a potato swirled up onto a huge stick from the markets, which may not sound very good assuming from my explanation but it was absolutely delicious.

On another day off, my friend and I went to Sugar World with my host family and their friends. Sugar World is a water park where there are 3 large water slides and some other stuff. Depending on the slide, we could slide down using floats and mats to increase the excitement! When we were there, there was a wild, beautiful blue peacock just running around and it seemed to be used to humans so I was even able to get a good picture of it.  I also went mountain climbing with my host sister. I hadn't exercised in a while so it felt really good after I finished, and the view was amazing.

Since the past two weeks both had long holidays, this week was a little tiring but all the fun I had payed off for it. There is a school event called Language Perfect coming up this Friday and I have a couple of other things planned for the weekend, so I have many things to look forward to during the week.  Of course I want to do my best to enjoy every experience here in Australia.

Best,

Emily,

11週間中の5週間がもう経ってしまいました。オーストラリアでとても有意義な時間を過ごすことができていて、その理由の1つはSt. Andrewsの素晴らしい先生方のおかげです。こっちの学校の先生の特徴として気がついたことは、こっちの人はとてもフレンドリーです。日本の学校の先生方もとても素晴らしいのですが、どちらも少し違った意味で良いです。私の経験の中からいうと、日本の先生の場合、どんなにフレンドリーな先生でもプライベートな生活を大切にしてるように感じられます。だが、こっちの場合、多くの先生は自分のプライベートについてもう少しオープンにしてると思いました。それの原因の１つとして思い浮かんだのは、こっちだと、学校外でも出掛けたりするときに生徒と先生が会うことが多く、私が住んでいるところだとそのようなことは滅多にないからではないかと思いました。

５月６日は学校で日本フェスティバルがありました。この日本フェスティバルは主に小学生のイベントで、小学生が日本に基づいてパフォーマンスや発表をしたりし、日本の食べ物も売られてました。私と中村さんはこの発表を見ることができ、回りの人の多くが仮装してたので私たちも浴衣を着ました。私は小さい頃、あまり自分の国の文化などが好きではなかったのですが、このように外国の人まで自分の国について学んだり、興味を持ってもらってるのを見てとても嬉しかったです。これを通してまた新たな視点ができたので参加することができて良かったと思っています。

週末には、またPalm Coveという、海と沢山のお店やレストランが並んでるところに行きました。しかし、今回は何週間かに１度しかやらないマーケットもやってました。ホストファミリーと一緒にマーケットを回り、とても美しい品物をいっぱい見ることができました。売られていた物の多くのデザインはとてもリラックスした様な柄で、リゾートを思い浮かべる様な雰囲気でした。そこではドッグショーもやっていて、沢山の犬が様々なカテゴリーで対決しててとても可愛かったです。また、大変大きな棒にジャガイモを丸ごとくるくる切って刺したのも食べました。説明としてはあまり美味しくなさそうに聞こえると思いますがとても美味しかったです！

違う日には中村さんと、私のホストファミリーと、ホストファミリーの友達でSugar Worldに行きました。Sugar Worldには3つの大きなウォータースライドやプールなどかありました。スライドによっては浮き輪やマットに乗って面白さを増すことができてすごく楽しかったです。また、運良くちょうどそこにいるときに野生の、青くて美しい孔雀がいて、とても人懐っこかったので近くて写真を撮るのともできました。ホストシスターと山登りなども何回かして、久し振りに運動ができて、景色も最高に美しかったので気持ちよかったです。

今週は、２週間連続での３連休のあとの、久々普通の週だったので、とても疲れましたが、楽しかったのでそれほどの価値はありました。次の週の金曜日はLanguage Perfectというイベントが学校であり、週末の予定も立っているので楽しみがいっぱいです。その分の努力もしっかりしたいと思います。