Christmas and New Year in Adelaide

When I was in Australia, I had three weeks free time, so I visited my host sister who came to Japan two years ago. My host sister lives in Adelaide. I spent Christmas and New Year with her family. My host sister can speak Japanese very well because she studied abroad and stayed in my house in Japan. It was nice to meet her again in Australia. Adelaide is located in South Australia, Australia. If you want to go to Adelaide, you can’t go by direct flight from Japan. You need to get another flight in Sydney, Perth, Gold Coast, or Cairns.

My host sister can drive, so she took me a lot of places in Adelaide. First of all, we went to Gorge Wildlife Park. In this park, we can hold a koala for free. In Australia, there is rule on holding a koala. Before you go to the zoo, you need to check the information about whether you can hold it or not.

Secondly, we went to many beautiful beaches. I don’t remember the name of the beaches, but there were nice beaches there, such as Henley Beach, Glenelg, Brighton, and Port Gawler.

 

At Christmas, we saw a lot of Christmas decorations. Many houses have cute Christmas decorations outside around the windows, roof, and trim.

 

 

 

 

          On this trip, it was my first time to spend Christmas in Australia. In Japan, it is winter, but in Australia, it is hot Christmas and New Year, so it was a little strange for me. I usually eat Christmas cake in Japan. However, my host family held a big Christmas party in Australia, so I had a wonderful Christmas in Adelaide. I think New Year is a bigger event than Christmas in Japan. On the other hand, Christmas is a bigger event in Australia. On New Year's Day, I couldn’t hear the New Year’s bell-ringing or eat Japanese New Year’s cuisine in Australia, so I spent a normal day 1^st of January.

 
 

 
 

Second Holiday in Perth

                  I will talk about my second holiday when I was in Australia. My second holiday was busy to go to many places because I went to Perth, Cairns, and Ayers Rock together. I wrote about Ayers Rock before, so in this post, I am going to introduce Perth. Perth is located in Western Australia. If you want to go to Perth, you can’t go by direct flight. You need to get a connecting flight. Australia is a huge landmass, so it takes a long flight from Sydney and other big cities. Perth is a warm climate, so it’s very nice weather all year round. Also there are a lot of famous tourist spots, such as Swan Valley, Wave Rock, Pinnacles, Pink Lake, Esperance Beaches, Shark Bay and so on.

 

First of all, the Esperance Beaches have beautiful beaches and sea. “Esperance” means hope in French, 希望 in Japanese. Because in 1792, two warships were sheltered there from the storm. Then the beach was named Esperance after this accident. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to the Esperance Beaches on my trip because I didn’t have enough time.

                                                                                                               Secondly, Pinnacles is one of the most popular tourist points in Western Australia. It is in Nambang National Park and there are a lot of limestone formation. I walked in the desert area and saw many rocks.

 

                                         Thirdly, Wave Rock is an objet d ‘art which was made by nature. This wave is 15 meters high. The strangely shaped rock was eroded for a long time. Around the Wave Rock, we can see The Hippo’s Yawn, and Mulka’s Cave.

It takes a long time to travel to Perth, but I recommend going to there. Perth is a beautiful city and there is a lot of nature, and there are many tourist spots. You can join an interesting tour.

Gold Coast

Thank you for reading my blog. I’m back and I will continue to write my blog about Australia. This time, I would like to talk about Gold Coast. Gold Coast is located in Queensland, Australia. You can get to Gold Coast on a 9 hour flight from Japan. In addition, it is easy to go to Gold Coast from Sydney or Brisbane and other cities because there are various ways to get there. There are many famous beaches and tall buildings there.

 

Firstly, if you go to Gold Coast, you should take a walk along the beach. The beautiful beaches continue for about 60 kilometers. You can enjoy a lot of marine sports, such as surfing, bodyboarding, scuba diving, parasailing and jet ski. I wanted to try marine sports at Gold Coast, but I couldn't. Gold Coast was my last city before I went back to Japan, so I needed to go shopping, and I bought a lot of souvenirs.

 

 

 

 

 

Next, Gold Coast is the most crowded area of amusement parks in Australia, such as Sea World, Warner Bros. Movie World, Water World, Dreamworld, and so on. I didn’t have time to go at that time, but when I was 4 years old, I went to Dreamworld with my family. I don't remember anything about that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          
While I stayed at Gold Coast, I went shopping, sightseeing and met my friends who came to Japan to study abroad before. You can go to the World Heritage forest from Gold Coast so I recommend going there and seeing fireflies.

 
 
 
 

Ayers Rock

This is my last post this year. I would like to talk about Ayers Rock which is located in the center of Australia. Do you know another name for Ayers Rock? Ayers Rock is also known as Uluru. I think many people know Ayers Rock because it is a very famous landmark in Australia. If you want to go to Ayers Rock, you need to catch a connecting flight. You can go to Ayers Rock from Sydney or Cairns by airplane. You can go to the Northern Territory by train and bus as well. However, it takes a very long time and it's expensive. In the Northern Territory, it is difficult to set to other tourist spots because Northern Territory is a desert area. There is a lot of nature and native Aboriginals live there. Tourists have to obey the rules to protect the nature and wildlife.

I went to Ayers Rock on my second holiday in Australia. My host mother suggested to me that I join a tour of Ayers Rock. Many tourists come to Ayers Rock Resort so I met many Japanese people. I just stayed at Ayers Rock Resort two nights, but I saw the wonderful scenery of Ayers Rock.

First of all, I went to the valley of the winds. This is about a seven kilometer trail. During my walking, I saw many rare plants, eucalyptus trees, and large rocks. After that, I went to see the sunset of Ayers Rock. It was an amazing view of Ayers Rock. The color of Ayers Rock changed little by little.

The next day, I woke up early in the morning because I went to see the sunrise of Ayers Rock. The Ayers Rock sunrise was different from the sunset view. The rock surface changes to the various colors in a day. Then I went to Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Center. There we can learn history of Ayers Rock and lifestyle of the Aborigine. I also went to another rock’s area. Kata Tjuta is another name for the Olgas.

I would recommend going to Ayers Rock when you go to Australia. In Australia, there are many famous places to visit. When speaking of Australia, I think the best symbol is Ayers Rock.
 

Welcome Back!!

In this post, I would like to talk about my last holiday in Japan, because I went back to Armidale during this summer holiday. I haven't been to Armidale for seven months, but Armidale hasn't changed a bit. I was very happy to meet my host family and friends. I also met Tsurumi students who are studying abroad in Australia now.

My friend had a holiday at that time, so she picked me up in Sydney. We visited various tourist spots around the city. After that, we went to Armidale by train because it's cheaper than going by plane. However, it’s about eight hours from Sydney to Armidale by train. Unfortunately, we had to change to another train at that time, so it took about nine hours.

In Armidale, I could meet many friends, teachers, and my host family. My friends hold a party for me. I was very surprised and happy because it was a nice party. My host family hold a party too. It was a Japanese food party. We made sushi, spring rolls, and dumplings.

When I finished ELC, all Japanese students went back to Japan because we just had a year study program. Other students still study at UNE, such as Chinese, Korea, Vietnamese, and so on. I thought their English was getting better because they need to speak English every day. However, I don’t have many opportunities to speak English in Japan. I belong to the English communication course, but many classes are using Japanese. We don’t need to speak English in all classes. After I went back to Australia this summer, I came to realize again how difficult it is to keep my English speaking skill.

Japanese Shops

In Australia, I found many Japanese things, so I will introduce things that I found last year.

 First of all, there are UNIQLO (ユニクロ) stores in  Sydney and Melbourne. I was very surprised at the price of items, because the prices are too expensive. However, when I went to UNIQLO, there were many people in the shop. Secondly, I saw DAISO in many places because there are over twenty shops in Australia, especially in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. In Japan, we can buy one item for 108 yen, but in Australia is 2.80 dollars.

Thirdly, there are MUJI (無印良品) stores in Sydney and Melbourne. I could not look at any items because it was closed, so I didn't know about the prices. Next, there is a very big Kinokuniya (紀伊国屋書店) in Sydney. In this book shop, we can buy both Japanese books and English books. If you buy Japanese books there, the price is double the Japanese price.

 








                                          In addition, I found shops that have many Japanese food, like Japanese convenience store. In Sydney, there are many Japanese restaurants too, such as sushi, tempura which is Japanese style deep fried battered seafood or vegetables, ramen, soba, udon, and so on. When I saw many Japanese things, I was very happy to see the Japanese writing. In Armidale, there is just one Japanese restaurant which is called Ten Koo. This restaurant is open only at lunchtime, Monday to Friday. I could not go many times because I had class Monday to Friday.

I think that in a big city like Sydney, it's easy to get Japanese things, but in Armidale, it's too difficult to get Japanese things. When I stayed in Armidale, I sometimes missed Japanese food. Although we can get Japanese things easily when we stay in a big city, there are also many Japanese people. It is not good for studying English, so Armidale is far from Sydney, which makes it a good place to study English.
             

My first holiday: Part 2

In this post,I will write more story of my first holiday. I went to my first host family’s house and Monash University. After that I went sightseeing in Melbourne city. If you want to go to Melbourne from Japan, it's about a ten hour flight.

Now, I would like to talk about a little information . Melbourne is one of the most comfortable places to live in the world. Also, another cities of Australia are comfortable city to live in. Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria, Australia. Before Canberra was fixed in capital of Australia, Melbourne was capital of Australia. Melbourne was founded on the Yarra River. Yarra River is a very famous river in Melbourne. There are many museum about the colonial period of Melbourne, so we can learn about the old days. In addition, the Flinders Street Station is a symbol that is British style building and Federation Square is a modern architecture. These two buildings are expressed nowadays of Melbourne. Do you know a tram? If you go to Melbourne, it is a useful transportation because the tram is a favorite means of transportation used by city residents. This is typical sight in Melbourne.

There are many things to do in Melbourne. For example, there are many streets where we can eat delicious food. Also we can go shopping. There are many zoos and aquariums, but we can't hold a koala in Melbourne, because state law prohibits holding a koala. Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Park are World Heritage sites. The F1 Grand Prix and grand slam of tennis are famous in Melbourne.

Flinders Street Station

City of Melbourne

Queen Victoria Market