A Friend

By Stephen Wang

There is a friend whom I have known since 1974. He has many hobbies which I liked very much. We played together and enjoyed our hobbies. We often launched a beautiful model plane which was assembled by us. He and I put on the different parts of the plane and finally put them together. It was the nicest thing in my childhood.

I haven't seen him since 1995 after he went to America. But we still keep in touch by e-mail. Every New Year's Day and Christmas, we send e-mail and pictures to each other to share the happiness. Maybe one day when we have enough time or after retirement, we can visit each other and play something which we played in childhood.

The Chief Events of November 2008

By Yuji

There were lots of events in November and all of them became unforgettable recollections. At the beginning of November, I had a valuable experience at the Halloween Party. Most of the ESL students went to the party and they disguised themselves admirably in Halloween costumes. At the party, we had a good dinner with alcoholic drinks and danced with rhythmical music. The party also had some pleasant events.

Next, I went to New York City with my friends. My friend Yusuke already wrote about NYC so I’m going to write about it briefly. I had a lot of worries about the trip and especially I was worried about the connecting flight. Unexpectedly, we could catch it easily and also we could receive an entry visa at the Vancouver Airport. Most of the time I spent in Manhattan and hung around each day. Of course, I visited almost all places that are famous in Manhattan. At the World Trade Center, I experienced an indescribable atmosphere. When I went there, I realized the misery of the unforgettable event. I felt there were a lot of funny, strange, and kind people in Manhattan. Anyway, I had a wonderful time in NYC and I got home all right so this trip was really fabulous.

In addition, I played curling with ESL students and it was the first time to play the sport. I knew the sport but I didn’t know how fun the sport is. Actually curling is a very interesting sport and I realized that when I was playing curling. It looks easy when I watch curling on TV, but I understood the difficulty when I played it. This experience also became my good memory.

After that, from 6 or 6:30 p.m., there was a Christmas Parade on 100 street. I arrived there 10 minutes before the beginning of the party. But many people were already waiting for the parade and I was astonished at the number of people. The parade in itself was marvelous and everyone looked happy. People in the parade devised a lot of gorgeous things on the floats. I simultaneously thought the candy sales were unimaginable.

Thus there were lots of wonderful events in November, so I absolutely had a marvelous time. I really appreciate these events and all concerned.

My First Experiences

By Junko Ishikawa

I had two kinds of events on October 25. For one thing, I watched buffalo that my host father and host mother’s father butchered.

I woke up at six o’clock in the morning even though I went to bed late because I was excited about watching it. Then I prepared to go out and I went out at 7:30 a.m. After that, we went to my host mother’s parents' farm and I watched them approach the buffalo, but because buffalo are dangerous, I couldn’t. So, I waited in the car with my host mother and host brother.


In a half an hour or so, he shot the buffalo. She pulled up behind the buffalo. Unfortunately it was cold and windy outside. Thus I got out of the car to watch what they were butchering and went back many times. It was awesome. I had never seen anything like that before and I could touch buffalo’s stomach, lung, liver, bowel and so forth. I had a wonderful experience. The most surprising of all today was when my host father shot 3 times; they always died. Yet this time, the buffalo didn’t die even though it was shot in the same place. The buffalo that my host father shot 5 times finally died.

Another event was Tara's wedding. Lately, some Japanese people celebrate a marriage at church. So it's a little similar to a Canadian wedding. However Japanese traditional wedding is totally different. I was glad to go there and I could know how they celebrated.

Those are my precious memories.