Time with friends

A couple of months or so after we arrived in Sapporo for language study in July 1998, Lorna was in a park with our two (at that time little) boys and met a mother with her two girls. A conversation turned into a friendship with the Watanabe family which has lasted twelve years. Today they came to visit us and we all enjoyed spending time together. Yuji (the father) is an English teacher (which was very helpful for us in our early days here), Rei (the mother) also likes English and they have two girls of similar age to our two older boys. It has been great to have friends with whom we can go camping, skiing and just spend time together with. Apart from our first two years we have not lived near each other but still make time to meet up at least two or three times a year. We can talk about all sorts of things and have learned so much from them. It is a joy that we have had this family as friends through all our time here. And it all started with a 'chance' meeting in the park.