Yuko's Page
Please give me messages in English
CONTENTS
2. The Reason I Joined the Volunteer Activities
Hello friends! How are you all doing?
I'm Yuko Nishida. I've been studying English at Phoenix for a long time. I entered this school more than two years ago. Now, I'm a third year student. Time passed so quickly.
Well, let me tell you about one of my hobbies.
San Francisco, Las Vegas, South Korea, Singapore, Turkey.
Can you guess my hobby from these words? Yes!? I love traveling and these are places I have visited. Please don't ask me which place I like the best because I like all the places I visited very much and cannot choose one of them..
However, I also had a hard time in those places. For example, when I went to San Francisco, I had heavy rain and I had to come back to Japan earlier than I planned.
In South Korea, I also had heavy rain and flood. This one was so big. It was the heaviest rain in 13 years in Korea I heard, and some villages were covered with water because of it. I had a hard time getting to the airport.
And then in Turkey, you know the big earthquake which took place in Istanbul this summer, don't you? I was there at that time. I may say that I am liked by disaster. Anyway, here I am surviving. I will never quit traveling and hope to travel every country in the world.
Next week, I will tell you the detail of my travel experiences. Until then, expect the next article soon!!
Yuko
2.The reason I joined the volunteer Activity
How are you all doing? As I told you last week, I will tell you my travel, but I cannot talk about all experiences today because it will be sooooo long.
I will start from my latest travel in Turkey. I hope you will enjoy reading my story.
I went to Turkey to join international volunteer activities. First I would like to talk about how I came to join the activities and why I decided to go to Turkey.
It was two years ago when I went to take TOEFL. I don't remember at which university I took it, but I remember I had a hard time finding the entrance of the university from the bus stop because there was no sign. Another girl was also having the same problem and we start walking together looking for the university.
At the entrance of the university, we were separated wishing both of us luck. However, after the exam, we met gain so we walked down to the bus stop together. She had her friend waiting for her to pick her up near the bus stop. She asked her friend to take me to the station, too. It was so nice of her. I was so happy because there was a long line of people waiting for the bus.
It was around lunch time. So we decided to have lunch together. While talking, we found that three of us were all interested in English. Our talk went on and on. We shared the information that we had about English.
They told me about NICE. It was the first time to hear about NICE. This is a company which helps people to join volunteers not only in Japan but also overseas. Mainly, they support work camps held all over the world. I was very interested in volunteer activities at that time and I thought It would be really cool if I could join some volunteer groups using English.
Fortunately, she had a brochure of NICE and I got the one from her. The office of NICE is located in Shinjyuku near Phoenix. So I went to the office and got some information. I tried to apply for the work camp last summer, but unfortunately the program I wanted to apply for was already full. I tried to find another group but I couldn't find the one which attracts me so I decided to join the next year's program and I joined the program to go to Turkey this year.
Now, why Turkey?. When I went to the NICE office, I read many reports which were written by people who joined work camp in different countries before. I also had to buy a book containing many reports before I applied for joining a work camp.
I chose Turkey mostly because I was influenced by these reports. They said Turkish are very lazy and they don't work so long. They also said that they went dancing or drinking almost every night. That sounds fun. Are you disappointed with my reasons? Well, I of course have another reasons. I wanted to go to one of European countries with less money. Turkey was one of the cheapest places for me to visit in Europe considering the transportation fee and things prices..
That's all about how I ended up deciding to
join the work camp in Turkey.
Well, well, well. I am afraid that I have spent too much time
before talking about the travel itself. I will start
talking about my journey next week.
See you
| 4.The Journey to Turkey. Before I start talking about my journey, I have a question for you. How long do you think it took me to get to Turkey from Japan. It took 25 hours!! Surprised!? Can you believe it? It's more than one day. I used the Malaysia Airline and stopped at kuala Lumpur for five hours, but excluding these five hours, it's still a lot of time. While I was killing time at kuala Lumpur airport, I met a couple of Turkish husband and Japanese wife. They got married couple years ago and it was the first time for the woman to see his parents. The man taught me some Turkish and helped me exchanging currencies and finding a shuttle at the Istanbul Airport. It was the first time for me to travel alone and the first time to go to non-English speaking countries. So, I felt nervous and uneasy. His kind help encouraged me a lot. I was going to stay at a dorm at Borgazic University and meet other members there. I got to the University safely and I was having a good time there for the first two days. However, do you know what happened on the third days? |
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August 17, it was the day that the big earthquake hit Turkey. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and of course I was sleeping. The place I stayed was 5 or 6 hours' drive from the epicenter of the earthquake. So, I did not feel a strong shake. I thought it was a dream at first. I shard a room with two other friends and one went out. I thought something was happening outside and she went to see it. A little later, my leader came to my room and asked me to go out. Then I realized that they were afraid of collapse of the building. I had to sleep outside with one blanket on concrete for two days. I was so happy when I heard that I could sleep inside the building on the third day. However, on the fourth day, I had to sleep outside again because one university professor predicted there would be an earthquake again. Fortunately, Nothing happened that night.
I went shopping with friends the next day instead of working as a volunteer, but most shops were closed and all shops were out of light because of the earthquake. I heard lots of police siren.]
The effect of the earthquake was not only this. Loud music was prohibited for a month. One night, we were listening to music in the dorm. University guards came to our room and asked us to turn down the volume. We were very surprised because they came to our room not from a door but from a window. They're so strange.
I had a problem of myself. I caught a cold. Fortunately, I didn't have a fever, but I had a terrible sore throat. I went to see a doctor in the campus and got some medicine. I had to take four tablets after every meal. It was terrible. The tablets were so big, three or four times bigger than Japanese ones and I'd never seen such big tablets. Moreover, they didn't work a bit. I went to see a doctor four days later again, but he just said "They should help you to get better. Just keep taking for a week." He didn't even examine me. Can you believe it? I stopped taking big tablets which I hated. I took only liquid medicine and small tablets. Then, I got better couple days later.
Anyway, I went shopping, drinking, dancing almost every night. I had so much fun there and I'd love to go there again. .
This is a part of my diary in Turkey. Please enjoy reading this. I'll give you the answer next week.
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Today is the last NIGHT of summer CAMP. We went TO DRINKING AND DANCING.
It was TWO O'CLOCK in the MORNING. SO, we took three TAXIES TO get BACK.
ONE of my friends asked DRIVERS to drive faster. They started TO chase ONE anoather.
POLICE found us AND stopped us. He got ANGRY AND asked them TO show DRIVER'S LICENCE.
Also they asked them TO pay a fine. It is the first TIME TO have such an experience in my life.