Tamaki Tech

Every Thursday the year 8 students of Pt England, make their way down to Tamaki College. we were usually in Food Tech, but today we were shifting to Japanese. Looking up, dark rain clouds blanketed the sky. As I entered Tamaki college, I saw a man standing, waiting for us. He looked Asian, his hair was brushed neatly, and he was holding a box that was jam-packed with papers, pencils and other things that could not be identified. We walked over to the Sylvia Fausset library.

As I stepped into this new environment, all that greeted me were shelves and shelves of stacked books. It was dead silent until we entered the premises. We made our way to the work area. Putting our chairs down all you could hear was the clank of the metal legs. While he our Teacher was getting ready, I looked out the window. The rain was falling in sheets, coating the ground  in water. “Trickle, trickle” was the sound of the rain trickling on the roof. He snatched our attention back with his loud voice “Hello class, My name is Mr Ishibahi”. Our Japanese lesson was about to begin.

Throughout that lesson we were learning interesting facts about Japan like these:
* Japan is made out of 5 main islands which are: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa. The main island is Honshu.
* Before Tokyo, the capital city of Japan was Kyoto.
*Japan has roughly 120 million people living there.
*Japan’s currency is Yen.
*Karate, Sumo wrestling and Judo are all very popular sports in Japan.

Struggling to fold the paper, I felt like pulling my hair out. Origami was really hard, especially when I was trying to make a samurai hat. The instructions didn't make any sense...well at least to me they didn't. Folding it right, left over the top and under, it didn't look anything like a hat. "YES!" I exclaimed. I had finally made a Samurai hat. This was a huge accomplishment, especially since this was the first ever time I had come to Japanese. Time was up, It was time to learn the Japanese language.

"Ohayou Gozaimasu, Ishibashi Sensei" I replied uncertainly. "That is correct" He said proudly. I was relieved because if that was wrong that would've been embarrassing. We learnt 3 phrases that day: Ohayou Gozaimasu, which means Good morning. Sayonara which mans, Goodbye and Arigato Gozaimasu, which means Thank you. The next week we came we had to greet him in Japanese.

Japanese class was an exciting experience. Learning about a foreign country, that exports goods to our country. I look forward to learning about this country that has temples, shrines, had an atomic bomb dropped on them and isolated themselves from the rest of the world. I can't wait to go to Tech now!