"Japan Day"

Melbourne is having a very hot day today.

The weather forecast is to reach close to 40 degrees today.

It is very unusual for November... The students are enjoying the sun and the beach though.

Trajal "Japan Day" is held annually on campus.

This year, the students did a fashion show, danced hip-hop, sang a Japanese song with Japanese sign language, and showed "Eisaa" (Okinawan dance).

Everyone was having fun and I would like to give a big hand to my students for the successful event!

Yoko Quinn (Melbourne Campus)

Yoga in English

Yoga in English is a new class offered at Trajal on Tuesday afternoons from 5:30pm to 6pm.
It`s only a 30 minute class, but it`s enough to get everyone sweating!
We focus on deep breathing and balance as we stretch out and hold some tough positions.
This class is great for everyone! Even if you are not flexible, with practice every week, you soon will be. Even if you are not so strong, yoga works every muscle in your body and soon you will find new strength!
This class also helps everyone relax et relieves tension in the neck and back. If you haven`t tried it yet, I highly suggest you should! You`ll feel positively great afterwards! See you in the Yoga in English class!

Nadia
Hospitality & Tourism College

＊♪＊ TOU-NICHI-BUN (vol.15) ＊♪＊ from a student

Class field trip to Yokosuka Park

For the field trip that we all took recently at the Japanese language school in Higashi Nakano, we went to a beautiful park with many activities in Yokosuka. The experience started out with an early morning gathering at the language school, which was followed by an hour and a half bus ride to Yokosuka. Everyone was fairly tired, and you could see a lot of people hadn’t usually woken up that early normally! Almost everyone took the time to get some more rest for the day ahead.

Once we got to the park we were told we could enjoy all of the actives and attractions that included; kayaking, archery, and horse riding just to name a few. I enjoyed archery very much with the friends I had made at the school and the boat ride we all took was fantastic! Lunch time required us to get into groups and cook our lunch from the ingredients and food provided. These ingredients included; soba noodles, many different kinds of meat, peppers, and vegetables. The only problem we had with cooking as trying to keep the fire going from under our grill!

Lunch took a fair while to start, cook and then clean up but after lunch we were left to explore the park as much as possible before our departure at 3 o’clock. The small lake had many boats and kayaks , and as it was a sunny day, it was perfect for being out on a boat on a lake. Seeing everyone from school all in one lake was great to see! As time seemed to pass us by slowly, the reality was that 3 o’clock had come around so quickly many people were surprised the day had gone by so quickly. By the look on some peoples faces though suggested exhaustion had crept in. The combination of it being a hot day and everyone cooking; was the reason many people were tired. The bus ride back to Higashi Nakano took a little longer than coming because of the 5 o’clock rush hour.
The whole experience was very enjoyable and would love to go again some time.

Thanks to all the staff at Higashi Nakano Japanese Language School!

Thomas Eldridge
Tokyo Japanese Language & Culture College

＊♪＊ TOU-NICHI-BUN (vol.14) ＊♪＊

Our student Miss Jiyeong Jeon’s essay appeared in the November issue of the magazine named “Chukyu-no Nihongo” (published by SOUSAKUSHUDAN NIHONGO).
The title of the essay is “The warmth of the winter”.

Amazingly, it was the first time an overseas students’ essay appeared in this magazine. It gives us great pleasure!!

Junko Fujisaki
Tokyo Japanese Language & Culture College

Uluru

Hello, this is MARI. I’d like to talk about the Central Australia 12 day tour in the last holiday. Actually, this tour takes 3 days on one way for Uluru by bus. It was very hard for us(><)!!!! On the way to Uluru, we experienced many things!! For example, Kaori and I encountered a leak of rain, and we watched Opal making, and we went to Cooper Pedy. When we went there, we were really shocked because it was first time to stay and sleep in the underground.

At last, we arrived at Uluru, then, our life of tent started!!! We went to watch sun set of Uluru. It was sooooooo beautiful!!!!! We were very excited!!!

Next day, we made our way out to visit Mt. Olgas. After we saw it, we visited the Kata Tjuta Culture Centre where we learned about the Aborigine. And early next morning, we watched the sunrise over Urulu before taking a walk around the base of Urulu. Our walk took about 3 hours to complete!!!! However, Uluru was really great!!! We were impressed very much.

Moreover, that day was Maya’s 20th Birthday!!! We celebrated her birthday with a cake and card from TRAJAL students. After that, we did camp fire and ate marshmallows. I really enjoyed camping, because we were together. The stars were twinkling in the sky. We had been impressed with Uluru(><)!!!!!!

Melbourne Mari

Trick or Treat! It’s Halloween in Seattle.

Late October in Seattle can be a gloomy time – the days grow shorter and colder, the colorful leaves turn brown and fall off the trees, many days are cloudy and wet – but Halloween adds a lot of color, fun and excitement.

Halloween is actually the night of October 31st, but since that was a Saturday this year, our students had their Halloween parties in class and at school on Thursday and Friday. All the HTC students got into the Halloween spirit and came to class in costume. Among the girls there were a lot of typical costumes – angels, witches, cats, pirates, maids, and various princesses from Disney films – but as has been the trend in recent years, most of the costumes were too short and sexy for the October weather in Seattle (many students had colds the following week). The guys’ costumes also included some typical Halloween themes – vampires, skeletons, monsters – but several of the guys, even Mr. Nojima, gave the girls some tough competition for sexiest costume by dressing as drag queens (= men dressed as women). At the Halloween Party at Shoreline Community College, HTC student Taihei Shimizu won the costume contest with his Pink Lady outfit.

I turned to the Bible for inspiration and went dressed as Moses, with two fake stone tablets and a long wooden staff. To my chagrin, none of the HTC students could guess who I was; they asked “Are you from ‘Lord of the Rings’ or Professor Dumbledore from ‘Harry Potter?’ “, but the American people and many of the other international students from Asia could recognize Moses easily. I guess that is evidence of the absence of religious themes, especially Western religion, in Japanese education.

Neal Colodner, HTC Seattle

Trajal English Salon

Hi everybody,
My name is Peter Tikkanen, the moderator of the English Salon. Every week, on Thursday afternoons, we take some time to talk about many topics that come up in our lives. Some of the topics deal with working, or job hunting; while others with relationships or travel, or culture. Our goal is to give you the chance to communicate in English, to both learn new things from new people and give you a chance to speak in a different language. You don't have to be fluent to join us, just come in and try. You'll be glad you did.
I hope to see you in the near future. Have a great day.

Peter Tikkanen

Trajal Hospitality & Tourism College (Tokyo)

Student-created Tour is commercialized!

A second-year student of the travel course planned a tour for students and gave a presentation to a travel agency.

Mr. Nagashima who is the manager of the planning section of NOE was very interested in the Thailand tour. He gave it a high evaluation, because it had many attractive optional tours, making it very good for students who are vsiting Thailand for the first time.

The student and Mr. Nagashima know very well what the young customers want. Finally it was decided to market the tour.
Now the student and Mr.Nagashima are preparing the travel brochure.

You can find the brochure at almost 500 to 600 travel agencies by the end of November.
If you are looking for a Thailand tour, you can take the tour!! You will have a good time in Thailand!

Kumiko YAMAMOTO
Trajal Hospitality & Tourism College (Osaka)

My Summer Vacation in America

I took a great trip for 22 days with outdoor experts Leo and Sony, and 5 other HTC students.
We went to many places, including Crater Lake (Oregon), Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon (Utah), the Grand Canyon (Arizona), and some natural hot springs. Everywhere we could see amazing natural beauty. I was moved by the deep blue color of Crater Lake, and at the Grand Canyon I felt how small I am. We couldn’t take a shower for a week, but we washed our hair in a river or a lake instead. It was very good, and I felt like I was reborn.
We also went to Las Vegas. We looked around many hotels on the strip, and we were surprised how gorgeous they are. We were able to watch “O” by Cirque du Soleil, and it was beautiful and spectacular. I want to watch the show again.

The best part of this trip was Burning Man. It’s a big fire-art festival at Black Rock Desert in Nevada, and it lasts one whole week. Many people go there from all over the world and create various artworks in the desert. On the final night, all of the artwork is set afire and burned. Everyone there was kind and friendly and liked to party, so we could make a lot of friends – with not only Americans, but also Japanese, Koreans, Germans, and Israelis. I absolutely cannot experience such a wonderful trip in Japan. It was the best summer I ever had!

Misato Shirai, HTC Seattle, October 1, 2009

＊♪＊ TOU-NICHI-BUN (vol.13) ＊♪＊

We had a “Japanese Culture” class (advanced level; class U and P) on the 5th of November. We are holding this kind of class five times during the fall term. It is the first time for us to adopt “Japanese Culture” class several times in the regular Japanese Language class.

This day, two teachers introduced their area of specialty, “kimono” or “yukata” to the students, and the students tried wearing the yukata or watched.
Take a look at the photos. The beautiful kimono and yukata are so impressive and the two instructors were great as well.

Junko Fujisaki
Tokyo Japanese Language & Culture College

Return to Seattle to continue to study English

Hi, there! How’s your day going?
I’m Ayano from the international Communication Course.
I went to study in Seattle through the Hospitality Tourism College program last year.
I worked at the Mariners shop Downtown Seattle as an internship for about 5-monts. I really loved my time there because my co-workers were very friendly and helped me out a lot w/ expressing myself in English so that I got over my embarrassment about making mistakes.
That’s why I always tried to strike up conversations w/ my co-workers.
That relationship brought me a lot of joy and comfort, and made me study English even more. I’m gonna return to Seattle to continue to study English next April. I’m still working on brushing up my English.

I’m sure if you stay focused you can be whatever you want!
I’ll keep my fingers crossed!!

Ayano
Hospitality & Tourism College (Tokyo)

＊♪＊ TOU-NICHI-BUN (vol.12) ＊♪＊ from a student

Hi, everybody. My name is Phoebe from Taipei Taiwan. It is so glad to share my life in Japan with you guys. Before I came to Japan, I could not speak any Japanese. But learning Japanese in Tokyo Japanese Language & Culture College is a real good choice in my life. We have lots of interesting courses. Singing Japanese pop song, watching drama, to know what is the traditional Japanese opera “KABUKI”, and more than that. Studying Japanese without stress is such a cool thing, isn’t it?

In this October, in order to make student’s relationship getting closely, we had an excursion event and went to “SOLEIL PARK” in “YOKOSUKA”. Then BBQ and had some games in the park. We certainly had a lot of fun. I think it will be my good memory of my life. So, what are you waiting for? Just join us to make your life colorful!

Phoebe (Lin Yi-Chen)
Tokyo Japanese Language & Culture College

絆～Road to Peace～

Staying late at school for the meeting and preparation

Making costumes by ourselves for the performances

Trajal Dance Group “From 0” All members were absolute beginners. We’re practicing very hard!!!

Hello! How ya going?
Although we’ve often talked about food in Blog from Melbourne, today, I’d like to talk about different topic.
Japan Day which is very big event for TRAJAL students will be held in November. The theme this year is “ 絆～Road to Peace～”. 絆(KIZUNA) means “bond” in English.　We organize a lot of events, for example fashion show, singing, dancing and “Eisa“. Eisa is the traditional dance in Okinawa, Japan.
We are getting ready and practicing these every day recently. We hope that the Japan Day will be successful.

Melbourne 　Konomi

Web Chat with Suzy

Every Thursday, our students chat with Suzy in Melbourne through Skype.

We chose the city because we have a school there and there is only a two hour time difference (summer time) between Tokyo and Melbourne.

Our theme is “Real-time and interactive communication over a long distance.”
We have a dream, some day, we would like to become a borderless school in an effort to provide our educational philosophy all over the world.

Satoshi Tsukada
Travel Journal Educational Foundation (Tokyo)