Macquarie in Akashi

Memo 3- Origami kyoshitsu &Hanabi Daikai! Origami tutorial: Today I attended the Origami lesson which held by a bunch of active student ambassadors.  The class was so interesting that I was taught to make the various kinds of origami including Zuru, Samurai hat, shuriken and Ohimesama.  During the process we made a lot of mistakes and ended up laughing so hard, I enjoyed so much and appreciated the kindness of the student ambassador for continuously letting use experience Japanese culture. Hanabi Daikai (firework show): After a little break for refreshments. I grouped up with two dozens of students and headed to the shoreline 10 minutes walk away from the Uozumi station. It was a blast!  After many years of witnessing the appearance of Firework show on TV, it was an absolutely mind-blowing and poetic event. I was given different kinds of small fireworks (Yes! We were making our own little firework show) and ignited them to enjoy the seconds of beautifu...

Memo 2 Today I also went to a local primary school to get in touch with the little kids in Akashi. The kids I was dealing with were just so energetic and polite. They called me " 先生 " and asked me to play " トランプ ", a kind of playing poker.  It was fun and I enjoyed every second because not only I like the game itself, but I also got the opportunity to study the how Japanese children talk, the use of language is simple, basic verb, short sentence. In that way, I was able to follow up and did some shadowing.  It also expanded the range of my listening resources which makes my listening comprehension more consolidated. Kids were just so naive and cute, hopefully, they could stay that innocence even grew up:D (I am still waiting for senpai to send over the pictures to me :p) Another wonderful day, Blake

Memo 1 Today I tried to dine in the cafeteria inside Kousen, the experience is definitely memorable as it allows me to be a step further to experience a lunch culture inside a Japanese school. By following the instructions, I got myself a curry tonkatsu set meal (定食), despite commenting on the food itself, I found there are certain dine in etiquettes I have to keep eyes on.  First, we have to take a tray and get into the queue until you are up to get the food. After finishing the food, we not only have to return used dishes and the tray, we also have to put different tablewares to designated places and preferably rinse before return. I have grown much more respect to how Japanese are inherently willing to reduce the workloads for staffs. Looking forward to getting to know more about campus culture in Japan! Blake on 5th July

Hello~ 皆さんこにちは、 Apologize for coming late because of some technical reasons. To give you guys some ideas, t his is Blake a.k.a ブレーク from Macquarie University, Australia.  I am honoured to be here writing my own stories in  N ational Institute of Technology, Akashi College. I believe many of you have come across me at John's English classes or Global Terrace. But for those who have not, I am absolutely eager to see any one of you start dropping by Global Terrace in your free time to have a chat with me and Tony!  This is just a start of my blog, more will be coming! Stay tuned and leave any comments you want! Cheers, Blake and Tony