The Land Down Under

           Today is another busy day for traveling! Pauline told us to pack our bags before we boarded the airplane.

         “What should we bring for our trip?” she asked us.

“Toys!” We all chorused.

“My Hot Wheels,” S said.

“My airplane– I have an airplane in my backpack,” A said.

“Books,” H said. Our teachers said that we also need to pack a small book with our picture in it– it’s very important and it’s called a passport. Pauline said she can show us next time what it looks like.

We zipped our bags close and we headed for the airport. Then we finally went inside the airplane! We were greeted by H’s mom, R. First, she showed us what the Australian flag looks like. Then she talked about how Australia is a big island with lots of different weather– the North is hot and wet, the Middle is very dry and has a desert, and the South, like in Tazmania, is very cold. Australia has natural landmarks like Uluru, which is a big rock in the middle of the desert, and the largest reef in the whole world, called the Great Barrier Reef. We saw lots of ocean animals in it!

There are lots of animals that live there that can only be found in Australia like the kangaroo, the platypus, echidna, and wombat. Hamish helped us in pointing out which animal was which. We all said “Aww” a little bit when we saw the koala.

We also saw the Sydney Opera house, which is quite famous around the world as it looks like an enormous sailboat in the middle of the water. There’s also Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Rebecca said that we can even walk on top of it. Amazing!

Australia is also known for sports like cricket and rugby. They also have aboriginal people who have lived in Australia for a long time– about 60,000 years ago! Rebecca showed us a nice aboriginal dance, and we tried to copy the moves they were making. She explained that when they dance, they try to copy the animals and their movements. Some of them pretend to be hunters hunting down the animals.

Rebecca asked us if we want to hear a story– and we replied, “Yes, please!” She told us the story of Tiddalick the Frog. He was a very greedy frog who drank all the water from  the billabong (a small lake). The animals were upset and they decided to make Tiddalick laugh so when his mouth opens, the water will spill back to the billabong. A lot of them tried, including the kookaburra (Hamish and Azuto explained to us how the kookaburra sounds), but nothing worked. It was when the eel knotted itself that Tiddalick finally laughed. He realized that he didn’t need to be greedy anymore, and he drank what he only needed to drink. The End. Interesting, right? Rebecca then asked if we had any questions, and some of us wanted to let her know what we liked about Australia.

“The story was so funny, I liked it!” Z gushed.

“I like the koala bear,” N said.

“I like the bridge,” S said. “I want to walk on top of it, it’s not scary,” he added.

We said our thank you to R, and to S, who was also presenting about his home country in a cute cooing voice (S is H’s baby brother). Kai played more aboriginal dance videos and this time, we thought of what animal we could be like and danced around the room while flapping our wings, trying to swim on the floor, writhing around, or growling while stomping. After that, some of us talked about the things we enjoyed the most about Australia.

“The dance,” S said.

“I like the koala,” A said.

“The shark!” A said.

“The koala,” L said.

“The dance, because I love to dance!” Z said enthusiastically.

“Yes… bunny!” U said.

“Dancing,” R said with a smile.

“I like the platypus!” N shared excitedly.

“Dancing,” A said.

“Fish,” D said.

“Sydney Opera House and the bridge,” H shared about his favorite things about his country. He said that he sometimes goes there when he goes back to Australia.

“Animals,” H said.

“When I look down, I’ll be very brave,” he told us, when he goes on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

What a wonderful trip to Australia, and now we must come back to Tokyo, Japan, so that we can go to the Step Park, which we did. It was another beautiful weather, so we had fun running around the green area hand in hand, while we pretended that the teachers were going to eat us up. Heehee.

That’s all for today– how about you? How was your day?

Love,

All the junior jetsetters in Petals Class