I arranged to meet up with Tomoko for coffee again after school yesterday :) She lives right out in the true boondocks of Ako (out my way but at least twice as far from the city centre) so we organised to meet at a little coffee shop called called 'Gusto' on the edge of town, about half way between our houses. It was awesome to catch up with her again as I feel that I've really been able to connect with her as a friend - something that's extremely rare for me in Ako. I suppose the fact she speaks fairly fluent English is a big part of that, for sure, but we also seem to have a similar way of thinking regarding many things and have had many common experiences. For example, she's going to be an English teacher and has similar ideas for and a passion for teaching English that mirror my own, she agrees how important it is for people (especially those learning a foreign language) to travel overseas, and she also understands how hard it is to learn a foreign language and to live in a foreign country. I don't meet people like that in Japan very often, let alone in Ako!

Also, catching up gives us the fantastic side-benefit of Tomoko being able to practise her English and me being able to practise my Japanese. Tomoko's English is much better than my Japanese - which figures, given that she's been studying it for 9 years, hehe - but I still try to speak as much Japanese as I can. I think I manage to carry a fairly decent conversation :) If I can't quite communicate something then we just revert to English so that I can explain properly and she can tell me how to say it naturally using Japanese. It's really good practise as each time I meet her is probably worth several hours of me at my books, not to mention the fact that I probably use as much 'normal' Japanese over one afternoon of coffee with her as I would in a week otherwise. I try to do the same to help her with her English too, and she said it's great because she doesn't know that many native English speakers. So, I'm really, really grateful that I've not only made a new friend, but that we're able to help each other with language too. I'm hoping to catch up with her at least once a week :)