Please let us, Otsuma Nakano, express our sincere new year greeting to you all. Also, it would be our great pleasure to share a happy new year report from an exchange student, Uruha Matsui, from Burnaby, Canada.  Uruha, a 10th grader student, is now enrolling at Burnaby South Secondary School for one-year exchange program.

Hi, everyone!  I wish all of you Happy New Year.  I’m Uruha Matsui, a one-year exchange student studying at Burnaby South Secondary School in Canada.  It is my great pleasure to give you a happy new year report from Canada at the beginning of the year of 2019.  Now here in Canada, we are having a winter vacation.  Our winter vacation started from 12/22 and will end on 1/7, which is basically the same as the winter vacation in Japan.

Now in this report, I would like to share with you what I did during Christmas holidays and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

First, I would like to introduce what Christmas was like in Canada.  In Canada, Christmas is very different from that in Japan.  Christmas is a super big event day in Canada.  So, a lot of stores are closed on the day of December 25.  I joined Christmas parties 3 times during this Christmas days. On 24 of December, I had an opportunity to go to church with my host family, where all of us gave a prayer. After visiting church, I joined a Christmas party, where we enjoyed eating many things and talking a lot. It was very fun time and precious experience for me.

Second, it would be great to share with you what I did in the New Year’s Eve here in Canada.  On the day, I went to Canada Place with my friends.  Actually, I had wanted to do “count down” at the place there.  But unfortunately, there were no bus service available around midnight there.  So, we only stayed at the place from 6:00 to 9:30 pm at night of New Year’s Eve.  We were able to see fireworks around 9:00 pm there with eating Japanese food. It was very good.  Anyway, I enjoyed the countdown party at my homestay house with playing games and having a lot of fun there.

Finally, I have more about 6 months to study here in Burnaby as an exchange student here in Canada.  I want to spend the time of this 6 months meaningfully giving it my best try and do anything.

Thank you so much for reading my report and I wish all of you will have great year of 2019.

こんにちは。明けましておめでとうございます。私は松井麗羽です。私はカナダのバーナビーサウスセカンダリースクールに1年間留学をしています。

私達は今冬休みです。12/22から1/7までなのでほぼ日本とおなじ期間冬休みです。私はカナダのクリスマスと年末年始を紹介したいと思います。

初めにクリスマスについて話します。カナダのクリスマスは日本とはだいぶ違います。カナダではクリスマスはとても大きなイベントとなっています。12/25日は多くのお店が閉まっています。私はクリスマスパーティーに3回参加しました。12/24にはホストファミリーと教会に行って願いを捧げました。教会に行ったあとは、クリスマスパーティーに参加し色々なものを食べたり話したり楽しい時間を過ごしました。

次は年末年始について話したいと思います。私はカナダプレイスという場所に友達と一緒に行きました。本当はカナダプレイスで年越し過ごしたかったのですが、帰りのバスがなかったため、6時から9時頃まで滞在しました。そこでは日本食を食べたり花火を見たりして楽しみました。帰宅後は、家で開催されていたホームパーティに参加し、ゲームをしたりして年越しを迎えました。とても充実した年末でした。

最後に、私の留学は6ヶ月間バーナービーの留学生として過ごします。自分のベストを出せるように日々努力したいです。ご覧頂きありがとうございました。皆さんの1年が実りあるものになるよう願っています。