Soggy Half Marathon

Thirty-five students from Trajal Seattle are registered to run in the Honolulu Marathon in December. I was concerned that most of them are taking too casual an approach to the full marathon (42 km) and not training enough, so I suggested that they test their strength and guts in the Seattle Half Marathon (21 km) on November 27th. Only five brave students took up the challenge. I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to hold a marathon event in Seattle at this time of year, when it is almost guaranteed to be cold and wet – sometimes even snowing! This time the cold was bearable – about 5 degrees C for the start at 7:30 AM. But just when the starting air horn sounded, the cold rain began falling and continued all through the race. Clothing, shoes, socks – all got soaked, making it easy to get blisters on the toes.
So it was a rather miserable morning run, but the five students all finished between 2 hours and 2½ hours – quicker than I had expected, but it took its toll physically (most of them stayed home from school the next day. Now I think those five students realize what they are facing in the full marathon in Honolulu, and I hope they will make their friends aware of it too, but now it’s probably too late to begin an intensified training program.

Neal Colodner

Halloween

From mid-October, the Seattle weather usually starts getting cold and cloudy, but the colorful autumn leaves and mountains of bright-orange pumpkins piled in front of supermarkets and produce stores make the season a little brighter. All stores decorate their interiors for Halloween – with various forms of monsters, ghosts, witches, cats – some creepy and some cute.
This year Halloween (October 31st) fell on a Monday, but college campuses held their Halloween costume parties on the previous Friday, since there are few classes on Friday afternoons, and there is no school the next day. But children going house to house yelling “trick-or-treat” had to wait for the actual Halloween on Monday, as that is the only day that people in their homes will give out candy. The HTC ESL classes also had their Halloween activities – like pumpkin carving and costume contests on the 31st.

Neal Colodner

Japan Festivals in Seattle

In Japan, autumn is considered the season for sports competitions and culture festivals. America doesn’t have those traditions, but some major American holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving come in autumn.
On October 12th, our students at both Edmonds and Shoreline held the annual HTC Japan Festival. (Actually, this is also the date of another American holiday- Columbus Day – the day that Columbus first landed on a Caribbean island.) At the Japan Festival, HTC students introduce some traditional and modern Japanese culture to the general students and college staff. The Shoreline students had stations for wearing yukata, learning kanji, using chopsticks, origami, the “face game”, and getting brush-painted kanji for visitors’ names. The Edmonds students took a more modern approach – providing Japan tourism information, pop music, and Japanese-style makeup demonstrations in addition to calligraphy and origami. But of course, the most popular table was the one giving out rice balls wrapped in nori. HTC students at both schools performed a dance to Soran Bushi – a famous fisherman’s folk song from Hokkaido.



Neal Colodner

Hey guys! It’s me, Emiko!

Sorry I’m late to write. It’s already at the end of November and we have just about 2months to go back Japan actually. We just finished work experience. I enjoyed myself and it was hard and difficult to communicate, but I’m sure it was good for practicing English. Anyway I’d like to write my holiday trip part2!

October 1st to 4th, I was in Cairns! But Mami may write about that trip. So I’m going to write after that trip! 4th of Oct. in the early morning, I’ve left Cairns for Ayers Rock by myself. It took about 3hours to fly. At about 1pm, I could see dear my friends and I joined a tour!

I had small lunch. After that, we went to Kata Tjutaand and walked about 2hours. Weather was so nice, so I felt very nice. Also we saw lizards. They were sweet. After walking, we saw sunset at Uluru. It was beautiful. We took lots of pictures! These are very very good and funny!

At night, we did OZ BBQ and had kangaroo. It tastes like chicken. I did not feel comfortable to eat anyway. After that, we prepared to sleep immediately because next day we had to get up early. That day we slept in a tent with a sleeping bag. Incidentally, in the day time, it was so hot over 30 degrees but the night time it was chilly. It’s interesting, isn’t it? However one of my friends couldn’t let me go to sleep, so we talked outside drinking cocoa until 2am!

Next day, we saw sunrise where I can see Uluru. The rocks changed colour little by little. It was fabulous that different from sunset.

Then before climbing, we went to culture centre of Aborigines. After knowing their culture, we heard bad news. We are not able to climb Uluru. The reason was that in the morning an aborigine who was important person died, so they didn’t let us climb Uluru to respect the person.

We were dying to climb Uluru! Weather was perfect. You can not have better weather than this for climbing, but we couldn’t so we obliged to change the plan. We walked around Uluru taking about 3hours. The rocks were spectacular!!! But we were walking long way and finally we were not surprised the huge rocks…

After walking, we said good-bye to Uluru and moved to Kings Canyon campsites. It took about more than 4 hours. I just slept in the bus but badly my friend took pictures of sleeping people including me! Oh my goodness.

After arriving there, we had a quick shower and made bush pasta for dinner which is like noodle, but no one minded because it was so yummy! Then we did a game called Emus game! To play the game, you pick up the box placed on the ground by using just a mouth, so we had to make our bodies flexible! That was so hard but we had a good time with tour mates. At night we slept in a sleeping bag under lots of beautiful stars!!!

On the final day, we went to Kings Canyon and climbed it! Actually we just walked and it took about 3hours. While walking, I thought that the view hasn’t been changed, but when I got on the top of the rocks, I was impressed very much!! That was magnificent!!!

After we had small lunch, we left for Alice Springs. The tour was finished when arrived at Alice Springs. On that day, my friends and me, and also 2people of the tour stayed at the backpacker and made dinner together.

In the morning, we said good-bye for them and we caught the bus to Adelaide. It took about 19hours so on the way back we played cards almost about 9hours! Such a long time, but the time passed so quickly. We didn’t get bored because we couldn’t control our mind with looking cards too much!

When we arrived at Adelaide, it was 7am, so we had breaky at McDonald's with of course playing cards! In the arvo, we had noodle for lunch and went sightseeing. Then we played cards in the park again. At the end, we had afternoon tea and peace of cakes at a café. That was so tasty. Then we came back to Melbourne at night!

This trip was so incredible and I had a lot of unusual experience. How can I forget it? Even if I paid a lot of money, I think it was good to go. I do appreciate my parents, and also thanks dear my friends Saori, Yurie and Takumi.

Thanks for reading long article! See you sooooooooooon!!xoxo

Royal Melbourne Show

Hello, I’m Ayaka.
On 2nd of October , I went to Melbourne show grounds.
“Royal Melbourne show” was held there.

There were a lot of events.
I saw many animals.
For example, I could see Emu (Emu is indigenous animal), sheep, pig, alpaca and llama…etc.
I could pat them and their babies.
They were very pretty!



I rode a lot of rides.
I really liked it so I was interesting. ^^
Also I went to Hollywood horror house.
I was surprised because they used the real chain saw.
I was excited.

There were many food shops.
For example, there were Sushi, corn, yam cha and paella… etc.
I ate Sushi and yam cha.
It was delicious!

There were job pavilion.
I took fingerprints and experience to ride police motorcycle at first time! ww
I'm really interested.



Then I looked around show bag pavilion.
There were many kinds of design and these were very cheap.
For example, about 6 perfumes worth $400 were $35, 5 Elmo’s goods which had bag; slipper, note, wallet and pouch were $25…etc.
Its good shopping!

Finally, I saw TOYOTA cars show.
It’s very cool and powerful!
Then I saw fire work.
It’s beautiful and unique because fire work was matched with music.
I had a good time!

BBQ

Hi, how are you? （^^*）I’m Ayaka.
Recently, it’s getting warmer in Melbourne. How is it the weather Japan?
On 16th of September, I had a barbecue with classmates and my teacher at Mordialloc beach. In Japan, If we want to do a berbecue, we need to prepare for a barbecue. But in Melbourne, there is BBQ area. How convenient!
Each student brought food and drinks. There were lamb, chicken, corns, onions, sushi and many kind of drinks. It was a big party. （^^*）
I took a lot of pictures with students. I had a good time!






Ayaka ( Melbourne )

Back to Gold Rush Times

Hello, guys! This is Emiko. It is spring, and it’s gonna be warmer and warmer. We’re on holiday now, so I went to Sovereign Hill for 2days! It is a model park about Gold Rush. The weather was so nice! We had luck of sunny! I have a rainy girl, though.

There was like a real land! because people were there as if they lived there. I thought as if I was in 200 years ago. I felt very strange, but it was not too bad.



We enjoyed just walking around long long time and taking a lot of photos!! We joined some tours about history of the gold rush and how to look for gold. These were so difficult to understand. I felt that gold was a distance and so valuable. We tried to look for gold in the river, but we couldn’t find it. Oh, dear.We also made own candle to paint the color. I mean that we dipped into the color bucket. We knew who has a sense of taste.



We stayed at accommodation in the park, so we could watch night show! The show didn’t have people. I mean that people have never entered on the show. However it was so nice and powerful! I wondered how the show changed to the next stage. I loved that.

Finally, we could have a valuable experience! So we wore the Western dress. It was comfortable than we thought. The reason skirt looks fluffy is that they put on a wire under the skirt! I have solved the puzzle. Anyway,we were soooooo cute!! Don’t’ you think so?



We had a sooo good time and filled nice experience and fabulous memory. I want to live there.Thanks guys, love you! …Oh! I would forget it! If you send a letter from the park, your letter will be stamped on a Sovereign Hill postmark! So you should try!

I’ll go to other trips, so see you sooooooooooooooooooooooon! Oxox

Emiko ( Melbourne )