Youth Talk: My Summer Holiday

By Alice Kraszlan, Year 8 Student at Yew Chung International School Shanghai

When you hear the words ‘culture shock’, it usually means that when you leave your home and go to another country you are shocked about how different things are. But this time I’m pretty sure I got reverse culture shock. This summer I left Shanghai, where I go to international school, and went back to Australia, and boy was I surprised by how different things now are! We went to Bendigo, which is a small town (well, everything is small compared to Shanghai), and when I went out for a walk with my mum people just came up to us and started a conversation. It was interesting that everyone seemed so open and friendly, something that I’d never been fully conscious of before! 

After visiting Bendigo and Melbourne, we headed up to Port Douglas, Queensland. We went to a bird sanctuary where we saw cassowaries (a large bird like an emu with a colourful head) and some other really cool birds. 

We also went to the Daintree Rainforest, one of the oldest forests in the world, where we saw raging waterfalls, ancient aboriginal markers and a couple of scary crocodiles that looked very well fed. We rented a car and headed inland on a trip to see what other cool stuff we could find and also found a chocolate factory which we didn’t want to leave, we all could have stayed there all day! 

But my favourite place was a place we found along the way called Wallaby Rock, where we got to hand feed some wild wallabies. 

The last day we went on an hour long boat ride to the Great Barrier Reef and did some snorkeling there. We sure saw a lot of fish! There were clownfish, giant clams and even some sharks! 

Now I’m back in Shanghai, doing the normal holiday stuff before school starts. Although the holidays have been fun, I can’t wait to go back to school and see all my friends!