The Place of Happiness.

I figured my crazy day with the Japanese deserved an entry, so here it is.

My Japanese teacher, Kinue, asked me to show her nephew around town when he came to visit, so I agreed as having a variety of activities to do does really good for me and the state of mind I've been in lately. So, on that day I was waiting for them in town and when they arrived, Kinue just pushed her nephew towards me and said "He doesn't speak much English, gomenasai, I'm going shopping" then left. Haha, bless her.

He says: I'm sorry, my English is not very good...

My thoughts: OMG, someone who speaks English like Nana! KAWAII!

So there I was, with my not so conversational Japanese, with a Japanese guy who didn't really speak English. It was very awkward at first, but then I managed to make him feel more comfortable with talking in English so we made it through the day using an awesome mixture of English and Japanese. :) We walked all over the place, anywhere I could think of, as there really is not that much to see here. I told him I like Mizuki Nana and he exclaimed "Shin Ai, Discotheque! I know those songs!" and then he said that she is very cute. It was funny later then when Kinue called me and Discotheque started playing, as it's my default ring tone, and he was like "Ha". He asked me what song of hers is my favorite and I told him it's Eternal Blaze and he asked if that was in an anime and I told him it was in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and that my other favorite, Dancing in the velvet moon, was in Rosario+Vampire and he was very amazed that I had seen the animes as they're not the most popular.  We also talked about anime in general and he was very impressed that I knew all the ones he mentioned. We even talked about Arakawa Under the Bridge and how Maria kicks ass. >:D I also told him to watch Darker than BLACK since he hadn't yet, muahaha.

I was thinking of going home after I walked him to Kinue's house, but somehow I got caught up in operation Fish&Chips and ended up having dinner with the whole Snookes family. Kinue's husband Paul, who's an English teacher, asked me lots of things, like for example, if it was true that Finnish and Japanese are similar  languages and why might that be - to which Kinue replied that "We look very alike don't we?!" and leaned toward me. Haha yes, indeed we do...... not. 

Again, I was prepared to head home after eating, but nope, this time I was pushed into the living room to play Wii with the kids and  the nephew. We played a good few hours and it was really fun. After that the nephew wanted to take a picture with me and I got a lift home from Paul and Kinue. Kinue told me on the way that her nephew had told her that it's only a bit over an hour from where he lives to Tokyo with the shinkansen, so apparently he's already thinking that I could go see him or he can come see me when I live in Tokyo. Really awesome to already have a friend in Japan.

But yes, one of the best days I've had for a while. It sort of made me feel like I have family over here in the UK as well. Not that that's really the case, but the feeling was very nice nonetheless. Something I definitely needed - thank you Kinue and Keisuke. <3