Blog#7: Summer Training Camp

Hello!! I'm Akari. I went on my dancing club training camp on 9-12 September in Ibaraki. The site of the camp was old, but there was a big dancing hall. We danced all day in the camp and practice was so hard. After stretch and muscle training, we practiced dancing that we will perform at the school festival. The festival is the biggest event in a year and we will perform four times in the festival. I'll perform five out of twelve dancing and I'm exciting from now. In the end of a day, we danced in its entirely and then recorded it on video. After practice, we watched the video or practiced independently until about 23 p.m, so I was very tired.  At the final night, we had a party and my tiredness vanished. We played bingo and chatted over drinking and eating. Then there was an announcement of the next position because our seniors will retire after the event. I'll be the vice-captain. I'm very anxious, but I'm going to strive my role! The camp was so hard, but I could practice full of dancing and chat our juniors a lot. So I spent a full and pleasant time!

Blog#8:Amelie came to Japan

 Hi, I'm Megumi.  From 10th August to 5th September, Amelie came to Japan and stayed at my house.
Amelie is my brother's girl friend who is from Switzerland. My brother got to know her during his study abroad in UK. Amelie also studied abroad in UK to study English. They used to go to same language school.

 I and Amelie and my brother went to many place. Mt Tsukuba, Akibahara, Beach in Kuzyukuri.  The place I enjoyed the most is the beach in Kuzyukuri. The day we went there was so hot. But we didn't bring a swimsuit so we got into the water with the closes on. We were in high spirits like a child. We went back home with wearing wet clothes.

 When she left my house,  I and my mother cried a little. Then she promised us that she would come to Japan on December.

In the beach (a man behind Amelie is my brother)

Blog#7:Study abroad in Oxford

 Hi, I'm Megumi. I went to Oxford from 22nd July to 20th August to  study English.
It was my first trip to go to abroad so I was anxious about many things at first.
When I arrived at Heathrow airport, I was very tired because I had been taking an airplane for 12 hours. It was too long for me because I had never taken an airplane such a long time.  But when I took the first step toward outside of airport, everything I saw was fresh. A sign written in  English, a car number written in English...these things  made me excited.

I went to language school in Oxford. In the school, students came from a variety of country.  I made friends with Chinese, Korean, Slovakian, Czech, Italian, Indonesian, and Kazakh!! Especially, I became close friends with  two Chinese girls and one Kazakh girl. We could understand almost everything each other. But sometimes we couldn't. In that case we communicated by gesture or handwriting. We often went out with them after school. We went London, Brighton, Stonehenge. I made a lot of unforgettable memories.

But actually, not all memories were happy. Sometimes I couldn't say my opinion in my class because of  my lack of English speaking ability. When it happened, I felt stressed. And unfortunately, my  I phone was stolen, then I went to the police, but I couldn't understand what policers said and couldn't tell them the truth correctly. I was very disappointed.


The days I spent in Oxford were valuable days. But I thought I need to study English hard.

 with my class mate

London tower

a famous building in Oxford

Blog#8: Trip to Hokkaido

Hello, this is Masako. Today, I’m going to talk about my trip in the summer vacation. I went to Hokkaido with my old friends for four days in August. We visited a lot of interesting place and enjoyed sightseeing. The first day, we went to Hokkaido by plane, and saw many famous places such as Goryoukaku, Hakodate Mountain, Asaichi, and the cemetery for Westerners. It had been our dream to go to Hokkaido since we were junior high school student, so we were very excited. The second day, we went to Biei and Furano by train and bus. Biei and Furano are famous for the vast nature, the vegetables, and the flower farms. The flower farm was so beautiful. Third day and Fourth day, we went to Otaru and Kushiro. In Otaru, we ride the Zinrikisha for the first time, so we had impressive experience and good time. This trip became one of the most important events of my life. If I have a chance, I want to visit Hokkaido with her again.

 

 

If you want to know about Hokkaido, I reccomend you to check here.



Blog#8 Summer Training Camp

Hi, I'm Moe. In this summer, from August 21 to 26,  I went to Sugadaira in Nagano prefecture for a summer training camp. I'm belonging to a Track and Field club team in Gakushuin, so I went there with my club team mates. There was not so hot compared with Tokyo, but my skin was suntanned because I was exposed to the direct rays of the sun everyday. The summer training camp was very hard, so for all the camp, I was thinking I want to go home early. To tell the truth, I don't like a summer training camp. However, I could keep going to the end due to my club team mates. We gave encouragement each other. I like running because after the trainings, I can feel a sense of achievement so I could a lot of them after the summer training camp.

This is a picture of the same period of my club team mates. They are my valued people.

Blog7#Kusatsu Hot Springs

Hi, I'm Moe. In this summer vacation, I went to Kusatsu hot springs in Gunma prefecture with my family. Kusatsu is very famous for its a lot of hot springs in japan. Have you ever been to hot springs? I like them very much because I can shake off my tiredness in there and feel happy. I think hot springs are nice Japanese culture of which we can be proud to foreign countries. My family also like it so we often go there in vacation. After we enjoyed hot springs, we ate Japanese foods at old Japanese-style hotel. It was very delicious. I like Japanese foods, such as sashimi and tempra, better than foreign foods so I was very happy to eat them. the atmosphere of the hotel was also nice because of its good treatment and a comfprtable room.  Besides, at night, we walked a road of hot springs, called yubatake. It was fantastic to see some light of  each hot spring. I thought I want to go there again.If you are interested in kusatsu hot springs, click here.

Blog#8: Tokyo Skytree

Hi! I'm Tomoko. In August, I visited Tokyo Skytree with my friends. Tokyo Skytree is 634 meters high, so it was very scarely when I was overlooked towns at the observation deck. Tokyo Skytree is illuminated by two types, "Iki" and "Miyabi". "Iki" is blue color which is imaged water. "Iki" shows spirits of a person born and brought up in Tokyo. While, "Miyabi" is purple color that shows "Edo purple". "Edo purple" is dyed color. The night of the day I went, Tokyo Skytree was illuminated by purple color, "Miyabi". It was a moving sight for me. After we went there, we moved to Tokyo Soramati. Tokyo Soramati is a shopping mall and there are many kinds of shops such as clothes, shoes, miscellaneous goods and food. I bought a accessory. We ate dinner at the Italian restaurant that we could see very beautiful sights. We ate pizza and a spaghetti with tomate sauce.The Italian food was to my taste. It was so delicious. I want to visit Tokyo Skytree and Tokyo soramati again. Next time, I want to go to Sumida aquarium.
                                                   This is blue color, "Iki".

                                              This is purple color, "Miyabi".

This is the picture of Italian food we ate.