Flew up to Tokyo this morning, the first time this year. One new thing was that the trains were running late! This never used to happen in Japan, but now with all the terrorist warnings it’s making things seem more like back home. So my first meeting was a bit late but a good chat about future Genki English products and people asking me to look at learning materials for adults – could be good! It’s was also great to get a free lunch!

Then I went to Sophia university to chat with Yoshida Sensei about Elementary School English. He’s one of the big names in the field, and although we had met very briefly before, it was the first time I had to chat with him. That was really good, especially how the word amongst the “powers that be” is not as much concerned with the idea of elementary school English ( e.g. a few years back people were dead against the whole thing!), now it’s more practical problems of how to teach, what to teach and how to improve the Junior High system later. Which is all pretty good news as the practical aspects can be pretty much solved with Genki English!

Then another meeting with one of the bookstore people. That was great, getting feedback on lots of stuff. We also ordered a few too many beers, but that was cool as we got talking about loads of things, like music producing and motivation stuff. Motivation things are something I really want to move in to, and the music production side of things could fit in very well with making materials for the adult market. The cool thing was that this guy was talking about how he’d been at recording sessions at Abbey Road and stuff, all from his life before the bookstores!