Students at Embassy

Brisbane Festival

 Brisbane is having a festival from 4th to 26th Sep. Brisbane festival is one of the best festivals. The first day of festival, there are fireworks at 7pm. To see the fireworks really well, we went to Southbank and Kangaroo Point. It is a good place. So I chose Kangoroo Point. Some friends went there very early - at 12pm - because many people had already arrived. We had a barbecue with friends. While eating we watched the fireworks.

  
Actually, I didn't expect this because I see so many fireworks in Seoul every year. When the time was almost 7pm, everyone was looking forward to the fireworks. As soon as it was 7pm a lot of fireworks lit up the skies. Suddenly, the whole city changed to red and orange - it was fantastic and gorgeous. I thought it a looked like war because it made very big popping sounds and loud jet-airplane noises. I could see all the fireworks from Southbank and Kangaroo point. The whole city was very bright.

 

The fireworlks lasted around 20 mins. I walked from Kangaroo Point to my shared house and it took about one hour but it was worth it to have these memories.

 

Byron Bay

I went to Byron Bay on Saturday 10th. This is my first travel within Australia. So I was most excited and expectant. Byron Bay is in New South Wales, like Sydney. But from Sydney to Byron Bay takes around 13 hours by bus. From Brisbane to Byron Bay is not so far.

We met at 8:30 in the city. I went with an agency, with my friend and other people. We took a big bus. After 2 hours we arrived at a beach.

We had a little break time, tea-time and we took pictures with the beach in the background with my friend. The smell of the beach made me fresh and feel so good. And then after about another hour , we arrived at the Cape Byron Bay lighthouse.  The view is very beautiful and gorgeous. The waves are white.

 

It looks like white cream on coffee. This view that I saw - at first I couldn't belive what I saw. We took pictures, did some sightseeing and ate lunch. Actually I didn't expect that, because this trip was very cheap. Also I thought that lunch wouldn't be so good. However lunch was very good, with  snacks, water and some beverages.

 We ate a lunch and the we had free time.

For the 3 months, I have stayed in the city so I didn't know the real Australia. Now, I know a little.

We went back to the city around 6pm.

Although my body was very tired, today I am brimful of energy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australia, land of the giants

I went to Albany for a short holiday and I´m looking forward to sharing with you my great experiences. Albany is a beautiful city to 400 km from Perth, with stunning landscapes, seascapes and wild kangaroos everywhere. You can go to Whale World and find out all about these amazing giants of the sea, and how important whales were for the Albany community 35 years ago, however, to me the most exciting thing was see the whales from a shore close to the center of Albany, I can´t explain the sensation, neither the pictures can, you have to be there to feel it.

Another spectacular place to go is The Gap and Natural Bridge; you can take amazing pictures and see what the sea has done to the rocks. And if you love surfing, then this is the place for you, huge waves come anytime. Around Albany you would find cheese farms, strawberry farms, blackberry farms, chocolate farms and a lot of wineries, and if you go at the right time you would be able to go in, have fun and put on some pounds.

You can travel to Albany, via Denmark and go to The Valley of the Giants, where you can walk through Tingle trees to 40 meters of higher and feel almost that you are floating. This is Australia, land of the Giants!

Meet Sabina

Let me introduce myself. Hello everyone! my name is Yu Jin Kim and I'm from South Korea.

My English name is Sabina. You can call me Sabina. I am a teacher and I teach literature at middle school in my country. I will be posting my expericences in Australia and I hope you enjoy reading them. I'm from Seoul, the capital of Korea. I think that many people know about Seoul and later I will introduce more above Seoul to you.

Now I'm on break from my work in Korea: because of that I decided to come and spend the whole year learning English in Australia.

Why did I choose Australia? There are two main reasons.

Firstly, I like travelling. So I wanted to find the best place to travel. There are many beautiful beaches, mountains and other fascinating places which make you relax and forget about everything.

Secondly, I've learned that Australian people are very frindly to visitors and I could meet many people from various countries at my school. I was sure this would be a great experience in my life and it has been so far!

I planned to study for 8 months,  I hope I will be able to learn to speak fluently. I think it is great to have the opportunity to practice my writing also on this Embassy blog.

Thank you for your time reading my blog.  Next update soon...

Huh, another one :P

Well, here is another blog post since the last time my computer somehow would not want to put in pictures -.-

My friend took me to his suburb, where they got a hill from which I had a nice view of Melbourne. Too bad they are going to build houses all over that place...

 

Today, I went to Chinatown (which is not unusual since there are many Asians in Melbourne). But there is also a Greek precinct nearby.

 

Something else you should try when you come to Australia are cupcakes and macarons. So nice, but only for people who have a sweet tooth! 

Left: cupcake, right: macaron (both strawberry flavour xD)

To sum up, I can just say that I learned a lot in Melbourne. Not only did my English improve, but my personality developed also. It has been the longest time that I have been away from home. The longest time before was three weeks xD

And because I met so many different cultures here I can understand better why people behave in this or that way.

It's time to say goodbye ...

Finally, the weather is picking up. I mean, spring has already begun so it should somehow get better.

In school, we watched the Australian movie "Mary and Max". It's like a cartoon and you can compare it to how "Wallace and Gromit" was made. It's a very sad and moving story and you can really learn a lot from it.

 

For the first time ever, I went to a karaoke bar. It's a very Asian thing, but since there are quite a few Asians in Melbourne you can find karaoke here as well. But nevertheless I have to admit that I prefer SingStar. Somehow it's easier cause you can make sure you sing properly since it tells you whether to sing high or low xD

There is a cake shop called 'Le petit gateau'. They produce such nice cakes - yummi! I ate one which had silver on it ^^

Yesterday I went to Box Hill which is an Asian suburb. You can get nice Asian food and quite a few things are cheaper over there.

This is going to be my last blog since I am leaving soon. But someone else is going to keep you up to date about what is going on in Melbourne! If I were you, I'd come here one day!

 

 

 

 

News from Melbourne (still rainy xD)

You haven’t heard anything from me for quite a long time, have you? I just have too many things to do and am having too much fun! xD

School is still going well. Once we played this funny game… We formed two groups and had to spell words with letters written on cards. Those who finished first and had the correct spelling got a point:

 

To celebrate some students' farewell we went to a famous chocolate café here in Melbourne which is called Max Brenner. I shared a 'chocolate pizza' with two other students:

 

Yummi!

I tried to stay fit, and this is the reaon why I went jogging in my neighbourhood. Unfortunately, the swooping season has just started... It lasts for about six weeks. What's so bad about it? Well, the birds (like magpies) are nesting and therefore behave super protective - hence, they attack you if you approach their nest and if you don't know how to protect yourself. I tried running away because I didn't know ^^ Useless, it makes it even worse -.- In fact, it's quite simple, you just have to look at them and keep the eye contact...

When you think of Germany, you may think of pretzels! I have seen a ‘Pretzel World’ here in Melbourne, but they sell very strange variations. Today, I tried ‘Jamaican Almond’. It tasted very different from the usual, salted one, because it had sugar on it. Nevertheless, it was very nice!

Next week I will have to leave Melbourne, so I'm going to profit as much as possible from the time left!!!