Martyn, Lynn and I visited his parents in Nottingham, which was a seven-hour round trip. I felt bad for Martyn since he had to drive us again.

Since it was such a long drive, we joked around and laughed a lot, making the trip fun. We created a game to find female lorry (truck) drivers. Every time we saw a lorry, we checked the driver. When we finally found one, we were so excited!

I've known Martyn for over18 years and I've heard so much about his parents. My daughter stayed at his parents' house when she visited Martyn, but it was my first time meeting them in person, so I was thrilled. His parents were lovely, and his dad even greeted me in Japanese, "Konnichiwa!"

Martyn cooked some vegetables for lunch, and we enjoyed them with pies he'd bought in Southwold. Everything was delicious.

After lunch, Martyn wanted to make a blackberry crumble, so Martyn, his dad and I went to a grocery store to get some ingredients. I was surprised to find Japanese beer there!

Since I wanted to know how to make it, I helped him out in the kitchen. It reminded me a lot of cobbler from the States. I've had cobbler with ice cream many times there, and it's my favorite dessert. I was very keen on learning how to make the crumble. Martyn made both the crumble and the custard.

I enjoyed the homemade blackberry crumble with custard. Martyn is certainly a good cook. Since it's easy for me to find the recipe, I'd love to make it for my family sometime.

Visiting his parents was such a great experience! They gave me a tour of their house, and I enjoyed looking through their family albums, with Lynn explaining each one. His mom showed me her beautiful Noritake china. We talked about all sort of things such as Japan, Japanese culture, the Suzuki method, animals, my art, my travels in the States, and more. I was surprised how much his dad knew about the Suzuki method. When his dad told me I'm a very international person, I took it as a big compliment.

On the way home, Martyn asked me how much of their conversations I understood. He knows that communicating with elderly people in a second language is challenging. I remembered how he struggled to communicate with my parents because they speak Japanese with a Kansai dialect. I told him that their accent sounded pretty much same as his, so when they talked about general topics, I could catch up with them. However, when they started taking about their personal topics like family members, I had no idea.

As a language learner, I believe that meeting different people and hearing various accents improve our listening skills and communicating skills at the same time. I'm glad I got such an opportunity.

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