Tchou Tchou Train and Language School

This morning we took a ninety minute tour on the Tchou Tchou train. Our guide Lida shared a lot of history about New Caledonia.  We discovered that it has a similar history to Australia, being a convict colony for a long time, with the main difference being that only 40 convicts stayed after their terms finished. 

The open carriages were a lot of fun.

Keep your arms and legs in the car, Issy!!!

We visited a government sponsored graffiti wall,where people are paid by the government to do graffiti. The designs were done by spray only. Eat your hearts out, SACS stairwell dwellers!!!!

This is the view from a memorial to the American soldiers who lived in New Caledonia in the period around WWII. The anchor to the USS Missouri is just near the harbour of Noumea. We got to see many old colonial houses, though the kids did not get too thrilled about these!!!

Below is the view of our hotel and the beach beyond. Our building is the grey one in the middle of the picture, though our rooms were on the first floor and lookinwards towards the pool rather than to the beach.

After lunch we visited language school (Creipac) and participated in a three hour French language lesson, mainly basd on conversation.

Ivry: Our teacher helped us with confidence in speech, which is the basis for good French. 

Nick: it made it really easy to understand and we processed the language well.

Olivia: it was really inclusive and focused on speaking which was great.

Issy: it was on the spot - you had to answer the teacher quickly without time to think.

Tia: The teachers were very tolerant and didn't get cranky if you were slow to understand. It was very helpful.

The SACS students really enjoyed the experience and are looking forward to two more sessions during the week.

In talking with the students, they commented on their knowledge of grammar (which was good) and how helpful it was to engage in the conversational side of French. 

For dinner we visited La Dolce Vita, about 15 minutes walk from La Pacifique and enjoyed individual pizzas. The kids are proving a great group, though if parents will agree not to believe anything they say about the teachers, I promise not to believe what they tell us about their families. 😄

Below is a picture of a tasty morsel we came across on the way home. Jess' hand gives perspective to the huge size of the grasshopper.