What a wonderful world

I forgot to mention what a great time we had on Friday. One of our first students, Junko, invited us to her mother's place who was having a party for 20 foreign university students over here on an exchange programme. Our daughters put on their best party frocks and we set off down the road in Junko's classmate's car. As a special treat, Junko's classmate, Miwa, tuned in to the American Services radio and in between military-approved news items, Cheryl Crow blared out "If it makes you happy..." The evening certainly did that. We met folk from Norway, Sweden, Uganda and the States - a lively lady called Faith from Chicago who, can you believe, actually preferred Hillary to Obama. There were perhaps 30 people in the room eating a feast of tempura, yaki soba, and fried chicken... and the wine, beer and sake flowed (thanks Miwa!). Even a magnitude three earthquake, which shook the building for an ominous 15 seconds or so, failed to stop the conversations. We all had a great time and Yoshie said it was like being in a foreign country. There were perhaps people from 15 or so different nations, but the common language was English, even among the older Japanese folks there. There's a lesson for you.