The other night, after I had arrived back from one month drive around France, I was invited to dinner in Normandy at a friend’s house. Amongst the guests were four people who spoke Japanese and none of them were were from Japan.
There was a couple from Canada, one man from Holland, and myself, in addition to the French hosts, my mother, and another French woman who was a friend of the hosts.
Suddenly, in the garden of a house in Normandy the talk turned to Japan. The couple had lived in Japan for 30 years.
When they wanted to say something to each other which they did not want others to understand, they said it in Japanese. All through dinner the French and English conversation was peppered with ‘naruhodo-ne’ and ‘ongaku wa chotto urusai desu ne’.
Hilltop village
(more…)
I am currently in the south-west of France. I wrote the following email about my trip to Ireland last month earlier but had no time to send it. Finally I have a internet connection for my laptop, so I am sending it now.
Just days after coming back from Greece, and with a dark suntan, I headed to Belfast from Paris. As I arrived we descended through grey clouds to land on a rain-soaked runway. The airplane crew huddled inside as the passengers walked down the steps and across the runway in the wind and the rain.
I met my father in the airport, who had flown from London, and we rented a car and drove to the Ards Peninsula, which lies to the south of Belfast on the Irish Sea. The small village of Ballywalter is where my father grew up, and my grandmother lived all her life. I spent my childhood coming up here several times a year, and it is a magical place for me. The sandy beach goes way out when the tide is out, and on a clear day you can see the coast of Scotland and the Isle of Man. Small outcroppings of rocks appear up and down the beach where my father, grandfather and I used to search for crabs.
Now my aunt Mandy lives in my grandmother’s house with her husband Graham, and my uncle Karl lives two houses away. My father and I bought the house in between two years ago, so we stayed there. It was my first time to visit the house since buying it, as I was in Japan when the purchase went through. It’s a 4 bedroom house, with a large lawn leading down to the beach. The views from the house out to sea are wonderful, and I was so tempted to look for a job and stay there.
(more…)