The last time I came to Japan, in 2009, one of the most important things I did was go to Utsunomiya to visit an old family friend of mine. Back when I was 13, I went to school near a Honda factory and so many of the employees sent their children to my school. Many of my friends were Japanese and it started a lifelong love of foreign languages for me. One family were the Toyodas – their daughter was the year above me and their son was four years above me. We would always talk with the mother as she was always at the school gates, and also volunteered at the school and helped with some cultural sessions. In 2009 I went to visit with her and stayed at her family home for a week, and also experienced my first earthquake while there(!), so I was very excited to return and see her again and this time with my mum.

We started the morning with breakfast at the hotel, I had washoku (Japanese style) whereas mum went for the western option – I’ve never seen a fry up served with mashed potato before!

We caught the Shinkansen at 10.30 am to Utsunomiya, a quick journey of less than an hour, and immediately on arriving we could see Mayumi waiting to greet us from behind the ticket barrier 😊 The station has changed a lot, it’s a lot bigger now, more shops and the area around the station is more developed now as well! We jumped in her car and went to a Starbucks for a drink and a cake, as well as a catch up – my spoken Japanese is pretty poor and her English was nearly non-existent, so we made use of my dictionary and also tried out the google translate voice translation feature, which wasn’t too bad and helped my mum to speak directly with Mayumi!

Mayumi then took us back to her home, which hasn’t changed at all in the last 7 years.  Mr Toyoda was there, and it was lovely to see him as well. We discussed families, changes in respective countries, and Mr Toyoda subtly tried to set me up with his son(!) – I think I’ll take that as a compliment 😛

We spent a happy couple of hours together, had an ice cream, before getting on the train back to Tokyo. Was so nice to see them – hopefully won’t have to wait another 7 years before seeing them again!