Today, I went to Nara to meet a friend from Kyushu, and I'd like to share something that happened on the train.

This March, I met one of my closest university friends for the first time in over thirty years. I've already posted about the article here if you are interested. When we met, we promised to see each other again. So, this time she came all the way from Kyushu to visit me, and she's been staying at my house.

On the way to Nara, I was sitting on the train next to a foreign couple. When a Japanese elderly woman came in the train and stood just in front of them, the man from the couple offered his seat to the woman. Then, I heard beautiful English from her. Her English sounded much better mine. She started chatting with the couple, and I overheard their conversations.

She first asked them where they were from, and they responded that they were from Australia. Since their English sounded very similar as American English, she seemed to be a bit surprised. I also thought they were from the U.S. Probably, they are from Sidney. Once she knew they are Australians, she started talking about her daughter and her granddaughter. She used to live with them and they've still lived there. She also mentioned how much she loves Australia and miss there. She shared the stories about the places where she used to live, visit, and so on. She has also a Japanese accent like I do, but she used much more advance words. I was really impressed by her English. I'd never seen an around 80's Japanese woman speak English like that.

Then, I realized that she was holding a bag printed JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching), and I was very curious about what it was. While listening to their conversation, I looked it up on my sell phone. I figured out it's an academic society for language teaching, and most of the members are professors of universities. That really made seance to me. While listening to her English, I thought I'd love to be able to speak like her someday. Her English truly inspired and motivated me up.

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