Great Moments in Life: Kids on the Bus

On the morning bus recently here in Kyoto, I sat down next to a bunch of elementary school boys. They all looked at me suspiciously, and then start saying to each other "You go talk to him in English!"

After it was determined that one of the boys could speak English better than the others, the one boy looks at me and says "hello!"

We then started to have a discussion with each other mostly in Japanese but with a bunch of English words thrown in. We talked about our favorite foods and our favorite baseball teams.

As we got to more bus stops, the bus fills up, including with some more of their friends. Unsuspecting little kids are grabbed by the shoulders by their friends and pushed in front of me with their friends urging them to "speak English!"

So now there was a full gaggle of kids rambling away in English and Japanese and having an overall good time, -- as opposed to the usual stone cold silence of Japanese public transportation.

As I got off the bus at the train station, there was a large chorus of "see you!"

And then I was back into the world of not so fun adults.

Life is a series of moments, and I had just had a few very good ones.