I Love Paris

I promised to write another article, this time about a trip to Paris. So, let me tell you about it. I’d already been there before however, decided to go to such a beautiful city once more again, this time by Eurostar.

A Parisian, Jean-Philippe, who used to be my classmate, put me up. When I got to the station where we arranged to meet, he was waiting there for me. It was after 10o’clock in the evening but thankfully I was able to have dinner with his family. Then, while we were having a conversation, I gave him an English book : Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, who was an English. I hoped the novel would be helpful to keep up his English. Fortunately he looked very pleased to be given it so I was also as happy as him.

The very next day, my tour began. Each picture is showing you me in Orsay Museum and Louvre Museum. Frankly, it wasn’t important to be there. Being with Jean-Philippe was much more important to me.

On Saturday morning, I had a typical French breakfast with Fresh croissant which he bought that morning even though it was raining. In the afternoon, we went to Gallery Lafayette. In there, I tried to find some French berets, like the one Jean-Philippe wore almost everyday while he was in Hastings. However, I couldn’t find any so I had to ask him where they were. In the end he bought one and gave it to me as a present. Actually I was over the moon but I was too shy to say how I was happy at that time.

In This picture, we are wearing a beret each but it’s a pity without Carl who is his son. That evening, he gave a party to his close neighbours. I tried French Fondue.

This picture shows, from left, Jean-Philippe, Patrick, me, Delphine and Christelle, who is his wife by Carl, who is his son.

On Sunday, he gave me a lift by motorbike which he had made to the station. The motorbike was in a magazine with him. It was all so exciting because it was the first time I rode a motorbike. Moreover, who can ride a motorbike in a foreign city such as Paris. Unfortunately, that emotion lasted only a minute. The time which we had to say goodbye again was coming. I was so sad that I was weeping at the station. He said “Never mind. We can keep in touch forever, can’t we?” Yes, I hope so. I wish I could see him and his family some day in Seoul.

Ah Young - South Korea

We Will Rock You

I think all of you should know ‘we will rock you song by Queen’. But, have you heard about ‘we will rock you’ as a musical title? Yes, the musical ‘we will rock you’ is mad about Queen’s popular songs. I watched it last Wed when we had an afternoon-off. I booked the ticket, costing ₤25 instead of the original price of ₤55, in advance through Discovery Tours I was totally satisfied with the seat located in the front and centre except for the big man who sat in front of me.
The musical was absolutely superb!

Basically the plot is a boy is looking for the ‘real rock’ with a girl who he is falling in love with although they suffer from a man and his mother they eventually find a guitar which is the symbol of the real rock.

Every time the performers were singing, lots of the audience, including me, sang with them. The audiences often laughed unfortunately I couldn’t as much as they did. I guess, the reason is that firstly my English listening ability isn’t the same as the other native audience and secondly the musical includes a few episodes which are relative to their own recent culture.

Ah Young - Korea

Go to the official website at http://www.wewillrockyou.co.uk/

Beatriz from Spain says hello

Beatriz was at HELC in January this year, she is on the right in this class picture with teacher Danny. She is a staff sergeant in the Spanish cavalry.

Here is Beatriz at work. She is the commander of this vehicle on operations with the Spanish army as part of a KFOR peacekeeping mission. Beatriz is the one on the phone.

A New Student ?

L-R Tomas, Hsin Lan (Veda), Jee Eun (Lucy), Jae Eun (Jay), Danilo, Marco and Taku welcome a new student to HELC. I don' think she will be staying long though.

February 14th 2010

Saint Valentine's Day (commonly shortened to Valentine's Day) is on February 14 and it celebrates love and affection. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards.

Asian New Year February 14th

Happy New Year from all our Asian students.

L-R: Taku Japan) - Bo Kyong (Korea) - Nam Kyoung (Korea) - Ah Young (Korea) - Hsin Lan (Taiwan) - Hsieh Lin (China) - Jee Eun (Korea) - Jae Eun (Korea) - Dae Yong (Korea)

Yoko from Japan writes...

Ian, I'm happy you still remember me;-)! You bring back memory of wonderful time in Hastings. How is HELC right now? Do you have any Japanese students?

I still keep on contact some of friends of HELC. Chiara from Italy came to Japan last summer for a week. I'm very happy that my friend is interested in Japan and visiting me. We had good time in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka.

Yoko

Intrepid Polar Explorers

Great Britain is famous for its explorers, especially its polar explorers who brave the cold winds, the ice and the snow to get where they want to go, though not always succeeding.

First there was Robert Falcon Scott and his companions, who were beaten to the South Pole by the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen but then, unfortunately, they died on the way back to their ship.

After that came Sir Ernest Shackleton, who took an expedition to the South Pole where his ship became locked in the ice and then sank. Shackleton and his men survived for almost 500 days before being rescued.

And today, we have Danny Thornton and Ania Wiggins (two of our teachers) who set out at three o'clock today to trek through the ice and snow from HELC to St. Leonards. At the time of writing this report we have had no further news of them.

Describe your Home Town or Region

My class is working at pre-intermediate level and after a lesson on the vocabulary of natural landscape features and adjectives to describe places, they wrote up these descriptions of their home towns or regions.

Suwon

Hwaseong Fortress was constructed over 34 months in Suwon, south of Seoul, in 1796. The fortress incorporated the very latest construction technolology, theories of military defense and aesthetic principles.

It stretched over mountainous terrain, arround an urban center and through flatland and included four major and several minor gates, command posts, observation towers, battlements, guard posts and bunkers. Most of the 5,743 meter exterior fortress wall still remains.

Dae Yong - Korea

Decin
Decin is located in the north of Bohemia in the Czech Republic, on a confluence of the rivers Labe and Ploucnice. Decin is a significant river port.

From the first of July 2006 Decin has been the state capital. The city area is 118km2. Decin has about 53,000 people.

In history, Decin consisted of two independent cities, Decin and Podmokly. In the year 1942 these cities combined.

Decin has a symbol of a Royal City – on the red background is the Czech two-tailed lion with a crown holding a Parma, a fish.

Decin is the lowest lying city in the Czech Republic. Its centre has an altitude of 135m. Large parts of the city pertain to the Protected Landscape Area, Labske Piskovce. Decin is famous for its palace – Decin palace. This palace is on the rock by the river. Opposite of Decin palace is a second smaller palace on the rock. In this palace is a restaurant and people can see a fantastic view. On this rock is also a Zoo.

The embankment of the city is one of the most beautiful from the north of Bohemia. This place is very romantic and good for walking.

Decin has a lot of churches and cathedrals. Many people can visit these beautiful places. The most of popular church is the baroque Church St. Vaclav and Blazej.

There is a lot of wall rocks for climbing. This sport is very popular in my city.

Vladimira - Czech Republic

Sendai

My home town is Sendai city in Miyagi prefecture.

Sendai is located in the norttheast of Japan and Sendai is a long way from Tokyo. It takes about 6 hours by train. Sendai is the centre of commerce in the region of the northeast of Japan.

There is Aoba castle and many high buildings in Sendai. This town is famous for Date Masamune, who is a Samurai in old Japan. The Aoba castle was built by him. He was the most powerful man in the northeast region of Japan. Sendai is famous for Zuihouji, which is an old temple of Japan. There is a grave of Date Masamune.

Our springs are warm and comfortable. Our summers are hot and humid and then we have the rainy season. Our autumn is cooler than spring. Our winters are cold and it often snows.

Taku - Japan

Trebic
Trebic is about 150km south of the capital city, Prague.
Trebic has about 45,000 people and this a middle-size town in the Czech Republic, it is a regional city.


This is a very nice region
There is a blue nice river and a very nice old town.
In Trebic we have many Unesco architect sights for example: St. Prokop Basilik, a Jewish cemetery, a hospital and
a Poorhouse.
The old town is more than 600 years old.

The Czech Republic has four seasons.
If you want to go skiing, you can because next to Trebic is lot of small mountains.
The summers are quite hot with temperatures of around 26 – 32 celsius and about Trebic is very many lakes for swimming. 
We have in Trebic many pubs and night clubs too.

Tomas Brinek - Czech Republic

KOTOR
Kotor is located in the Gulf of Kotor.The town has a population about of 20,000 people. Kotor is one of the major tourist destinations in Montenegro. It has one of the best preserved medieval old towns in the Adriatic sea and it is a UNESCO heritage site.

It has numerous other sights, such as the Maritime museum, the Old Castle, the Church of San Nikola, the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon in the old town (built 1166) and walls which stretch 4.5 km around city.

Summer events,sutch as summer Carnival or Bokeljska noc, are visited by thousands of tourists. Kotor, with Budva, hosted the Federation of European Carnival Cities (FECC) World Carnivals city Congress in May 2009.
Ljubomir - Montenegro

Moravsko-slezky Kraj

The region where I live is called Moravsko-slezky kraj.It is in the north east of the Czech republic. It is as industrial region, but it has very nice nature, a rich history and many interesting sights.

It is a beautiful region in my country. There is a wonderful mountain range-Beskydy. It isn’t high, but it is a fascinating place. There is the highest mountain- Lysa hora. It is 1323 m high. There is a nice view of the all region. I have gone very often there.

In Beskydy is a beautiful open air museum in Roznov pod Radhostem. There are many old wooden folk buildings and very nice decorative carvings. Old school, post, mill, church, blacksmith’s workshop. Everything is very functional. We can see, how life was in the mountains, very hard.

Daniel - Czech Republic

Seoul
Seoul is the capital of South Korea.There are lovely mountains and nice river. The mountains are around Seoul so we call them “The Guard of Seoul.” In the centre of Seoul is Nam mountain and if you climb it you will see around the whole of Seoul and a beautiful night view too. The important river's name is the Han river. The Han river runs through Seoul and it provides Seoul citizen`s with water.

Korea has four seasons. Our springs are warm, summers are quite hot, autumns are fresh and cool, and winters are so cold. Korea`s popular sports are football and baseball. We have a lot of sports activity places. Many Koreans like doing sports and watching sports. The Seoul transport system is very comfortable and cheap, you need just around 50p. If you want to travel to Seoul, you will find the location easily.
Jee Eun - S. Korea

FCE Results

We received the results for the December Cambridge First Certificate exam this week and are pleased to offer our congratulations to Nathalie and Michael from Switzerland and to Josh from Korea. Well done, we hope you are pleased with the results.

dot com English

My class in room 23, practising telling each other their email, facebook and website addresses using vocabulary like dot, at, hyphen, slash, all-one-word, underscore, colon - as well as spelling words using the English pronunciation of letters.

So, if you want to email me, please address your email to ian dot southan at virgin dot net and don't forget to tell your friends that our blog address is w w w dot enjoy english in hastings all one word, dot blogspot dot com

L - R: Hsin Lan - Philip - Martin - Ljubor - Tomas - Vladamira - Jee Eun - Daniel

Pictionary

After the meal was finished, Lorraine set up a game of Pictionary. Four teams of teachers and students trying to explain a word by drawing it. Loud and chaotic. The game that is, not Lorraine.

Hsin Lan / Veda from Taiwan

Salem from Libya

Jae Young / Jay from South Korea

International Food Night

Preparing the food and laying the table.

Philip from Switzerland

Jee Eun / Lucy from South Korea.

Hello! My name is Jee Eun Lee (or Lucy) and I'm from Korea. I`m staying in Hastings about 1 month. HELC students had international food party in school. I prepared Korean food. The name is riceball. I made the riceball, used sticky rice and tuna. Red colour ball is used Korean hot pepper paste. And, riceball rolled in a piece of laver (seaweed).

When I came Hastings, I took good quality Korean laver (hahaha). Do you see my riceball? I am good at reckoning so, all riceballs have same shape and same weight. (just fun, I have studied Mathematics.)

The internatinal food party was interesting. Dishes were extremely diverse. How would you enjoy Korean food or international food party with me?

Ying Jie / Grace from China

My name is Grace.i'm from China. I've had three brilliant months at HELC. I've met a lot of friends and some good teachers.

Last Thursday I went to an "international cooking party" at the school. I cooked fried rice which was popular with everybody,so I'm very happy.

In China if the family does't have enough time for cooking, they usually cook "fried rice" because it's very simple. They only mix rice and some vegetables and meat.

Delicious dishes from Korea, Taiwan, China, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy and England.

Thursday, we had an “International Food Night” in HELC. The teachers and students were asked to prepare their country food to the school at PM7:00, of course, school had already prepared some drink as beer and wine.

Even though it was only 45 minutes past 6, so many kinds of food coming from different countries had already appeared on the table in the school. Korean cooked pancakes and rice balls, Taiwanese cooked chicken stewed in soy sauce, Chinese cooked fried rice and decorated pineapple on the fridge of plate, Spain cooked pancakes, Switzerland cooked chocolate pot and vegetable soup, Czech Republic cooked soup , spaghetti, cookies and dessert…etc. There were so many delicious foods which made us very hungry.

Hsin Lan from Taiwan

Dee brings a cake for Philip, Daniel and..... Ljubor.

Happy Birthdays

Three students in my class had birthdays this week. On the left, Ljubomir from Montenegro on the 5th of February. Philip from Switzerland, in the centre, on the 4th and Daniel from the Czech Republic on the 6th. Happy birthdays to each of them.

Ah Young's Adventures continue

Hi.I’m glad to write another article again. I was in Barcelona last weekend. I came back to Hastings on Sunday safely. I’d like to tell you about my latest trip.

People were much more friendly than I expected. I had heard Spain is infamous for pickpocketing, but it isn't true. I liked the Spanish because I have met some nice Spanish friends while I’ve been studying in HELC. Now I like the Spanish so much, even more than before going. I was alone but I never felt lonely.

When I was in Park Guell, I met a Barcelona inhabitant who was going for a walk about the park with his 3 dogs. When we faced each other, I said “Hola.” then he replied “Hola” as well. Unexpectedly, he started talking to me. He couldn’t speak English, it didn’t matter to us. I couldn’t understand Spanish but I managed to understand the meaning of what he was saying.

“It is very nice. You can go to Gaudi Museum this way.”

“Oh! It is a very good place to take a picture. I’ll take it for you. Give me your camera.”

He recommended me to visit Sagrada Famila and, he guided me. We exchanged our names and he told me his dogs’ names.

I took this when I was in the park which is located in front of Sagrada Famila. Owing to beautiful weather, I had lunch in the park. The temperature, which was between 10 and 15 degrees, was fantastic! It was like the middle of March in Korea. In the cathedral, I joined an English guide tour. She said “It has been in the process of being built for over 100 years. We are trying to finish it by 2026 because Gaudi who was an architect and designed it, died in 1926.”
It means I’ll be able to see it complete one day. Frankly, the inside has been almost empty until now. I’d love to visit again someday in the future.

Most of all, I was very happy while I was phoning Estrella, who is Spanish, had been studying with me for more 10 weeks. We couldn’t meet because Barcelona was too far for her to travel. However, I had asked her for her mobile number before leaving. So I called her. She was very well and her family as well. In this picture, she is sitting next to me. It was in October.

Barcelona is a very interesting city. I'd love to go there at least once more. Next, I’ll go not only to Barcelona but also Madrid, Valencia, Malaga and so on.

Ah Young Kim from Korea