I have experienced plenty of things in Australia. Not all of them were good experiences, but I have enjoyed most of them and I have changed a lot thanks to them.

    In terms of study, my English skills have definitely improved, especially listening skill. I could learn English in ICTE with enjoying the classes, chatting with my classmates, and doing some activities. I’ve gone through some tough assignments through the last semester in UQ, and they helped me acquire the abilities. Either of them has been really helpful for my proficiency in English.

    I have visited some beautiful places. The most impressive one was my homestay father’s brother’s place which is the outback, so-called the bush, of Australia. He owns his property out there

It is his house. There are no houses around. It just has the specious grass field, his reservoir and cattle. I stayed there for 2 days and I saw the sunrise which was breathtaking. I have never seen such a beautiful view. I am going there again on this weekend, so I am now looking forward to it

    The most precious experience I had in Australia was making and talking with friends from different countries and cultures. That is, I have become open-minded. As I was talking with such friends, I realized the information about the other countries, prevailing as facts in Japan, can be manipulated more or less. We all could be controlled. Therefore, I think it is good to take any biased thoughts away by making friend with people from various countries.

Now the time for the welcome celemony.

My hosts have accepted over 170 students for roughly 15 years. I have already seen 7 students as housemates since March in this year. We were all nicely and kindly welcomed in their house. However, they are also mischievous enough.

What crosses into your mind if you are asked the food peculiar to Australia? Steaks? Fish and chips? or maybe TimTam? Yes, they are all tasty, but I don’t think they are the best answers. I am going to give you more information. Most of people from the other countries don’t like it. It is salty spread. I reckon you imagine the same thing as I do. Yes, that is Vegemite.

    So, what do you think Vegemite has to do with my hosts’ naughtiness?

    It relates to a horrible ceremony. At dinner time of a day in which a new student come to our house, the host brings Vegemite on a table and tells the new student that it is the Australian food. He takes two spoonfuls of it for the new student and himself.

    Then they cross the spoons, saying “Welcome to our house!” and eat them.

    …I think you can imagine what it results in. The student’s face is distorted and he cannot swallow it. The host and the other students are laughing. Some students take vegemite out of their mouths, some students manage to swallow it.

(It was not the first time for me to do that so enjoy the other boys' reactions)

    However, that is not merely teasing. Some students including me are very nervous when they come to Australia. That “ceremony” is for such students to get accustomed to living in the house and to get to know each other. Although I was also anxious and worried in the first several days of my staying, I was able to eliminate these feelings not least thanks to what they did for me such as the Vegemite ceremony. I have less than 2 months left; thus I would like to enjoy the Australian culture till I go back to Japan.

work and play

Hi! It’s been cooler at night, but still hot in the daytime. It’s too hot to say the winter has come, isn’t it?

This time, I want to write about my study and leisure! I could get an acceptable score to study in the undergraduate classes in UQ. They are very hard so far. I have plenty of reading tasks every week and I will have to write over 1000 words in the writing assignments. It’s just amazing! I’ve never written such long essays. As for reading, actually I am a slow reader so it takes so long for me to do reading assignments, which is annoying me!

Anyway, I would complain and moan more about it if I go on mentioning the study in UQ, so let’s talk about something enjoyable!

I flew up to Cairns in the last break. It was beautiful! First, I visited Green Island to ride a glass bottom boat and see the beautiful coral reef and heaps of fish. I took photos of the beach and ate an ice cream. It was delicious!

Then, I took the Skyrail to go to Kuranda in the next day. I looked over Cairns form there. In Kuranda, I browsed through some souvenir shops and ate an ice cream. It was delicious! I came back to the Cairns city by railway which runs through mountains. I saw a magnificent waterfall on the way.

In the last morning of staying Cairns, I went to the beach early to see the sunrise from the horizon. I was really impressed with that. I had never ever seen such beautiful sunrise.

Now I’m undergoing the sticky things in UQ but I hope it turns into a good experience after all. I want to enjoy living in and exploring this enormous country!