Palm Cove Treasure Hunt

What is a treasure hunt? Is it a pirate’s hobbies? Is it a gymkhana? No, it is the game you can play with friends in an open area or wherever you want.

Firstly, the game master gives some information in a map or a paper to the teams to know how to find the treasures. The first team who finds these items is the winning team.

Two weeks ago we played this game in Palm Cove. The sun was shining and the weather was so warm.

 We started the game with three teams:

 1- Robin, Tran.

 2- Kyoko, Elaine, Yujung

 3- Ibrahim, Antonio

The prize was an Australian sun hat.

In the beginning of the game all the teams were equal and each team was trying to do his best to find the treasure first.

In the middle of the game team number three    started to find treasures faster than the other teams. Team number two were trying to catch up with the other teams every one was asking people trying to find the treasure as fast as possible. In the end of the game the champions teams was the team number two .

CONGRATULATIONS !!!

 

Beginning

Hold on, I need take a break

Team 2

Are walking in the beach

The champions... Congratulations

Sport Facilities at JCU

by Robin and Tran


In this post, we want to help students learn about all the JCU sport facilities that can be used during their stay at James Cook English Language Centre.


First, we want to talk about the Oval where you can play soccer, basketball and rugby. There are two separate areas, one field for palying Rugby and Soccer, and one court for playing Basketball.The Oval is about 5 mins walk past the Dentistry Building. This sport facility is free. The university students usually play soccer on Wednesday and friday evenings. Why not come and join them for a great game of soccer???











Now let's talk about the gym.
There is only a small gym, where you can train. It is next to the Oval. If you want to train at the gym for a year, you have to pay about Aus$200. But if you are here for a short time, the daily rate is only $2. In the gym, you can use equipment such as dumb-bells, tread-mills, weights, exercise bikes and others.


Gym Opening hours
Monday 6am – 8am, 2pm - 5pm
Tuesday 6am - 8am, 12pm - 5pm
Wednesday 6am - 8am, 12pm - 5pm
Thursday 6am – 8am, 2:15pm – 5:15pm
Friday 6am - 8am, 12pm - 5pm, 5:15pm~7:15pm

Saturday and Sunday Closed

Tips and Advice for living at Cairns

I came to Cairns from Japan four months ago. Although my life here hasn’t been so long, I will share some tips or advice to live here.

If you walk around a city, you will find some rubbish bins along side walk ways (Figure 1). There are two colour lids. One of them is yellow-coloured and the other is green-coloured. These are for the different usages. The yellow-coloured lid bin is for recycling rubbish, such as empty plastic bottles for milk or juice, tin cans and glass bottles and so on. The green-coloured lid bin is just for other rubbish. When you throw away your rubbish, don’t forget this rule.

I’ll share a traffic rule next. When you drive a car on the high ways, especially at cross sections in Australia, you will find an odd traffic sign which is shown in fig 2. That is called a roundabout. There are many roundabouts at cross sections on the highway instead of traffic signals. When you approach this roundabout, you must be careful because you have to give way to the cars on your right. If a car is coming from the right in the roundabout, you must stop at the roundabout. The right-hand car has higher priority. If no car is coming from your right-hand, you can enter into the roundabout without stopping. Don’t forget this rule. If you make a mistake, you will have a traffic accident.

You know Cairns is in the tropical zone. So you can swim in the sea through all seasons. There are several beautiful beaches near Cairns. But you must be careful when you swim at some beach. You can find a warning sign at the beach (Figure 3). That sign shows there might be a crocodile and jelly fish in the sea. Many jelly fish are in the sea in November through May. If you want to swim in these months, you must swim inside of the designated sea-zone where it is fenced by nets.

There is more other advice. I’ll tell you them next time If I have a chance. Enjoy your life in Cairns!

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Dumpling is my favorite food at all times.
And it is a traditional food in Taiwan. We often eat them in New Year. I will show you how to cook dumpling.
















Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups (500 g) flour, sifted
10 1/2 oz (300 g) lean boneless pork or mutton, minced
1 tsp salt, or to taste
6 1/2 tbsp (100 g) scallions, chopped
2 tsp ginger, chopped
1/8 tsp five-spice powder
1/2 tsp msg (optional)

Directions:
1. Mix the flour with 3 1/2 oz (100 ml) of water to make a dough. Knead until smooth and let stand for 30 minutes.
2. To prepare the filling, mix the pork or mutton with 7 oz (200 ml) of water and the salt. Stir in one direction until it becomes a paste. Add the scallions and blend well. Divide filling into 100 portions.
3. Divide the dough into 4 portions and roll into long rolls. Cut each into 25 pieces. Flatten each piece and roll into 2 inches (5 cm) circles. Place 1 portion of filling in the centre of each wrapper and fold the dough over it, making a bonnet-shaped pouch. Pinch the edges together to seal the dumpling. Repeat until all the dough and filling are used.
4. Bring 8 cups (2 litres) of water to a boil over high heat, add half the dumplings. Stir them around gently with a ladle, and let the water return to a boil. Add enough cold water to stop the boiling, and then bring back to a boil. When the water boils again, add more cold water and bring to a boil a third time. The dumplings will be done when they float to the surface. Remove, drain well, and serve.

Sky Diving in Cairns

OKONOMIYAKI

A recipe by Kyoko Haibara

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Total cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
2 cup all purpose flour (okonomiyaki flour)
1 1/4 cup dashi soup stock or water
4-6 eggs
1 cabbage
6 tbsps chopped green onion
2/3 cup tenkasu (tempura flakes)
12 - 18 strips of thinly sliced pork or beef

For toppings:
Green seaweed
Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
Mayonnaise

Preparation:
Pour dashi soup stock in a bowl. Mix the flour in the soup stock.
Rest the batter for an hour in the refrigerator. Chop cabbage finely.
Take about 1/2 cup of the batter
(to make one batch of okonimiyaki) in another bowl.
Mix chopped cabbage (about 1/4 lb), chopped
green onion (about 1 tbsp), and tempura flakes
(about 2 tbsps) in the batter.

Make a hole in the middle of the batter and add an egg in the hole.
Stir the batter.
Heat an electric pan and oil slightly.
Pour the batter into the pan. Fry meat or your choice of toppings on the side.
Cook for 5-7 minutes and place meat (toppings) on top of the okonomiyaki.
Flip the okonomiyaki and cook for 5-7 more minutes.
Flip the okonomiyaki again and spread okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise on top.

Sprinkle green seaweed over the sauce.
Sprinkle dried bonito (bonito flakes) and beni-shoga (red ginger) (optional)
Serve.

Itadaki maasu!

Made in Dagenham (Movie review)

“Made in Dagenham” is the drama based on a true story in 1960’s. It is about a group of women who works for the huge Ford Company where they do not have appropriate working conditions and go on strike to have an equal pay as men have. The main characters Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins) and Connie (Geraldine James) change the story of their lives between their household life and the battle with their employers.

The girls work in a tight place where they are responsible to make the car seats. One day Rita and Connie join Albert to have a meeting with Ford’s representatives to discuss the woman’s salary. The result of the discussion is unsuccessful; as a consequence the girls make a boycott that means stopping the manufacture affecting all the process to car assembly. From this moment they start to have a lot of important protests reaching their objective, an increment of their salary. Their efforts help to get equal conditions in UK.

We would recommend this film to all cinema goers because of its well-made quality. It shows a real history about the development of the women in the UK society and how important to listen to our heart, follow our dreams making effort to succeed.

Written by Anastasia, Andrea, Mitsugi.

Welcome to the James Cook English Language Centre's blog!

This is a space for you, James Cook ELC students to share your news and views on life in Cairns, life as an ESL student (in Cairns!), reviews of past events, books, movies, shows etc., a listing of upcoming events, latest tips on...anything! This is your space to let others stay up-to-date with student life at James Cook ELC. 

I would love to see some international recipes posted here. We have so many wonderful, impromptu international lunches when we all go 'mmmmmmm!' repeatedly, while tasting the many different dishes on offer from diverse countries. So, let's have them please!

Below I have posted some photos of Miyuki's delicious sushi which she prepared for her graduation day lunch.