台湾家庭料理

Just had a chance to eat Taiwanese home dish. It reminded me of my Taiwanese friends...

The final presentation

We gave a presentation on the last day of the class. Yurie, my partner, and I spent whole day preparing the presentation yesterday and still we had something to do at night. It was surely the biggest assignment of this course. Yurie is such a nice lady as she became interested in religion and arranged the interview to her friend's host family for me. She never says "Oh, it is such a hassle, I don't feel like doing that." She prepared both oral and visual ones very well.

Presentations of other students were also very interesting. They talked about Holidays in the US, Gender roles, Baseball, Marriage and divorce, Health care, Environmental issues, and Economic crisis. What they found on each topic was so deep that made me think a lot. Surprisingly, divorce rate in the US is 50%, the world highest. My classmates' interviewees think that it is because American people get married too early, and they do not hesitate to do what they think is right.

Michell, our teacher, gave us an important advice; When you are very nervous at the presentation, tell them "I am so nervous." It makes people laugh and helps you to relax.
Yurie and I were nervous before we start, so I tried saying that "We are very nervous." It did make our classmates laugh and I felt easier. Yurie talked about Hindu and Christianity, then I told them about Islam and Judaism. The contents were; the building they pray, the holy book, how they pray, important rituals or holidays etc. The other day, one of my classmates told me that he didn't know anything about Hindu or Judaism, so he was looking forward to learn something from our presentation. I guess our presentation met his expectition.

What was difficult is that we had a Muslim classmate from Saudi Arabia, the "Mecca" of Islam. When I was explaining what I heard from my former-Muslim interviewee to the class, he sometimes frowned. I had to make sure that that was not a general information of Islam but what I heard from the interviewee who is from Bangradish. Anyway, we finished our work and it was a meaningful activity.

Thanks Yurie.

Maple leef stamp on my passport

It was raining in the morning. I heard someone saying that summer is already over. So soon?

My second day in Victoria started with oatmeal with brown sugar and milk. Oatmeal is kind of okayu made of wheat instead of rice. It is said to be healthy, so I tried one for the first time. The oatmeal tasted good at first but it was different from what I imagined. After I added some brown sugar to it, it got sweeter and less delicious. I sometimes tried to eat it with milk, but I didn't like it very much. Hmmm...

Then I visited the British Columbia Parliament buildings. That buildings were very old and looks like European with green lawn and various kinds of flowers. I joined a free guided tour and they took us inside the Parliament. A man dressed in suits and hat with a stick in his hands, acted as the architect who designed the building and explained the detail. He spoke British English. I wish I could understand what he said thoroughly.

Royal British Columbia Museum was great. They had a special exhibition of world history at that time, so I was excited to see everything. The museum was also huge, and it took 3 hours to go through all of them. I saw many kinds of treasure from all over the world; mummy, jewelry made of gold, native Americans' crafts, so many things. Because their explainations were written in simple English, it was easy to know when and what happened to the treasure at that time. When I was sitting on the couch, an elderly man talked to me. He told me that he lived in Alberta province, which is contiguous to British Columbia. We talked about this museum and history for a while and had a good time. Then I dropped in at the Museum cafe and ate Italian panini and mashroom soup for lunch. They were both hot and delicious! They helped me to keep warm.

On the way back to Seattle, a girl from South Korea sat next to me. She told me that she had just finished working in Vancouver for 3 months and was visiting Seattle. She was working as a volunteer in a special care house and they provided accomodation and meals. Her English was very good, and we talked about a lot of things in the ferry. One problem was that she had not reserved any hostel yet. It was middle in the 3-day off, so all the hostels in Seattle were fully booked. She had to call them again to ask whether they had any cancellation fot that night. I was very worried because it was almost 8 pm and she was going to sleep in a park if she could not find any vacancy, which is of course dangerous. I gave her some quaters so that she would be able to make a phone call immediately after arrival as she had no American currency. I felt happy to do so because I did the same thing with the lady who gave me some American coins on the airplane coming to Seattle. The kindness is being passed on. I hope she found somewhere to stay at and is enjoying her visit in Seattle.

This trip to Victoria made me more confident about my English as I reserved the ferry and the hotel on the phone and explored Victoria all by myself. I will not hesitate to ask questions or make reservations any more. It was such a wonderful, unforgettable experience.

Victoria, Canada

It was raining in the morning in Seattle. Bad day for going on a trip, but anyway I took a ferry heading for Victoria, Canada. Victoria is located in southern part of Vancouver island. It is a very beautiful, pretty city with lots of flowers and old well-preserved buildings. Though it takes only 3 hours by ferry, the atmosphere is totally different from that in Seattle, where is pretty modern.

Formally called Port of Camosack, Victoria was first chosen as a trading post and fort and then later named Fort Victoria. It became the outfitting center of miners and adventurers. In 1868, Queen Victoria named it the Capital city of the Crown colony of British Columbia. Victoria has emerged from its frontier roots and royal heritage, to a city with rich architecture, lush gardens and West coast Hospitality.

The area where the vessel arrived is called Inner Harbour. I saw many shops with the flags of all nations, the Empress Hotel, and British Columbia Parliament Buildings. The Empress Hotel was huge, very old, and dignified. It is flanked by a rose garden and has inviting expanse of lawn in front. The various colors of national flags and flowers make the city vibrant.

I went to Starbucks in downtown out of curiosity and had a wrap of tuna salad. Starbucks was almost the same to those in Seattle or Japan, but they had less kind of food. Things in Victoria were not as expensive as Seattle, but still not that cheap. What is interesting is that everything is written in both English and French. In Inner Harbour, was a music festival. A lot of people were sitting on benches or lawn and listening to it. It was cloudy and sometimes sunny, when it became warm.

The craigdarroch Castle was a little bit from the city center, about 30 minute-walking, but it was worth visiting. It was completed in 1890 for Robert Dunsmuir, a Scottish immigrant who made his fortune from Vancouver island coal. Unfortunately he passed away just before construction of the Castle was completed, so his widow lived there for approximately 20 years. Inside of the castle was so gorgeous and luxury with a billiard room, dance hall (orchestras were hired!), library, number of bedrooms... Even the residents might have got lost in their own "house".

There was an art gallery near the castle, and I had a look at it. They had exhibitions of Asian arts, photographs of Rockey Mountains, which was very beautiful, drawings of Emily Carr, one of Canada's greatest and most loved artists.

I was surprised the hotel I stayed at is 3rd oldest in Victoria! It was 3 blocks away from downtown, neat and tidy, and welcoming. The room was very clean with large bathrooms and a queen-sized bed. I like the hotel very much.

Sports day on a rainy day

Today we were supporsed to play some sports in Denny field. It was showering when we arrived there, but we started playing valleyball. I took a lot of picture of my classmates playing. It began raining very soon, so we stopped and wait for the rain to stop.

The rain did not stop, so we went home. A Pretty bad day for sports. It was my first time to see such heavy rain in Seattle. I went to Suzzalo library and saw what is called "Harry Potter's room", which is a big hall with all shelves filled with books. It looked like an old, beautiful church.

In the class we chose the topic of the presentations we will give next week. We are going to interview some Americans, and learn what we want to know. I chose religion since I am very interested in that topic. I hope I would be able to get an idea of how religions influence on the people's lives and find out their opinions about their religion.

Ballard Locks

We visited the Ballard Locks today. Ballard is the name of that area, and the locks connects Puget sound and Lake Union. The locks are kind of elevator which let vessels go through the canal from the lake to the sea, or from the sea to the lake.

In the past, they needed to carry lumbers by ship from lake Washington to Puget sound via Lake Union. The problem was; the water level of the lake was higher than that of the sea. If we connect the lake and the sea directly without the locks, the freshwater in the lake will flow into the sea, and it will dry up. We need locks because we do not want to empty the lake.

This is the step-by-step explanation how the lock works;
When the ship is going to go into the sea from the lake, the gate opens and the ship goes in the lock, and then it is closed. The water in the lock will be drained until the level become equal to that of seawater, and the other gate is opened, which connects the lock and the sea. The ship gets out of the lock. Because freshwater is lighter than saltwater, the freshwater in the lake generally will not mix with the seawater. Besides, At the bottom of the lake are some barriers which prevents seawater to go into the freshwater, something like bumps.

Salmons, their precious resorce of the Pacific ocean, come back to the lake, where they were born, from the sea in this time of year. Salmons spawn only in the lake, so people had to let the salmons return to the lake. They invented what is called "Fish ladder", which is similar to stairway, so that the salmons can go back and lay eggs.

I did not know what is the locks like, and how it works, so it was good for me to know. The Panama canal and other canals were built with the same idea.

I went to waterfront park again, and took many pictures of buildings in the city center. Seattle library is famous for its look, which is fully constructed with glass. It was beautiful but unfortunately it was closed due to the maintenance. Skyscrepers were very tall in that area and traditional hotels were also good.