Hello, everyone! I’m Honoka Endoh.
The time I can spend in Australia has almost finished… I can’t believe I’ve already been here for 11 months. When I look back my staying, a number of things happened and I did happy and exciting experience as well as hard and very stressful experience. That makes me feel I’ve been here in Australia so long time but also I feel like I just came to Australia and it’s too early to think about I’m going back.
I’m very excited to go back to Japan because I really want to see my friends in Japan again and talk a lot. Also, I’m missing Japanese food so much. However, I’m so sad that I have to say good-bye to my lovely friends, teachers and host family who make my staying fantastic experience. I’m not sure how I can return all these kindness to everyone but I’ll definitely keep in touch with them and I’ll come and visit Australia again.
In this report, I’ll write about my Sydney trip and the badge ceremony.
From 28th Feb. to 2nd Mar. I went to holiday to Sydney with my host family (my Chinese host sister and my host mother). It was lovely weekend. We went around the sightseeing spots of Sydney.
The most exciting thing was getting on the ferry and seeing Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The view was so nice.
We went two beaches, Bondi Beach and Manly Beach. Bondi beach is very famous among the tourists and Mainly Beach is not as popular as how the Bondi Beach is. It can be said that Manly Beach is for local people rather than tourists. I liked both but I felt I can more relax at the Mainly Beach because it wasn’t so busy.
Manly Beach 
Bondi Beach
Also, we used a Big Bus which we could top on ad top off the bus for a day. And the bus took us famous spots around the city. We went to the Bondi beach which I just told, St. Mary’s Cathedral and Rocks.
China town was near the hotel we stayed so I enjoyed a lot of Asian dishes especially Chinese and Japanese. I felt bit weird because, although I was in Sydney, there were very multi-cultural restraints, shops and people. It was very fun though.
I liked Sydney so much. I thought it was really good place to visit because there were a lot of place to visit and enjoy as well as old buildings which were reserved by the government so we could enjoy the buildings as well. However, I thought I preferred Brisbane to Sydney to live because Brisbane has more nature and not as busy as Sydney so I can relax more.
Before I finish this report, I will talk about the badge ceremony at school a bit.
We had a badge ceremony at the end of February. All year 12 students and some students from other grades attended the ceremony. All year 12 received senior badge as a highest grade student. It also means we need a responsibility as one of a leader of school. I’ll leave this school soon but I could get one as a one of the year 12s as well. It was one of the great memories of school. After the ceremony we took pictures together.
It’s already been a few weeks from that day and Week 7 of this term just finished. (1 term is 10 weeks and I’ll go back to Japan soon after this term.) I feel like the assignments of school are getting harder as I became a higher grade. I’ve done the last assignments of half of my subjects already. The assignments of the rest of my subjects will be so hard as well. But I’m going to do my best as my last achievement of study abroad.
I feel like everything, good things but also bad things, were all treasure of mine. I’ll study hard and also enjoy a lot rest of the time in Australia. I’m going to tell “thank you” to all people who helped me and make my staying in Australia grate time before I leave here.
Thank you very much for reading through to the end.
Honoka Endoh
14/03/2020
