ouchie

The damage I did a few days ago walking to the Dutch Embassy with unbroken in shiny funeral shows, has taken its toll. further walking around at the TGS has resulted in my blisters getting blisters, and on bboth feet at the same time whch I have to say is a bit of a killer when you consdier how much we have to walk around at the show, and getting to and from stations.
Even with my trainers on, I ended up hobbling around as we tried to find somewhere to eat on our return from the 1st day....both feet look like this

Not my idea of fun.

But the show is going well, we have collected a couple of interesting contacts with universities and with companies, which I hope we can convert into new business dealings between them and NHTV. Its very hard to do sometimes, there is a massive language barrier to over come.

Many Japanese do actually study english and have a basic understanding of it, but almost no practical use, so they can handle a few words, but not a whole sentence or even any confidence to respond in english. Its actually worse than my Dutch, I do understand quite a bit, and can make a good attempt at saying things but no, the Japanese struggle. Thats going to be the single biggest hurdle we have to overcome if we want to attract students to us.

Today I've been given a free day for my feet to recover, our stand is very small and after the 1st day its clear we don't need all of us there even if we were doing rotation shifts. So each has taken 1 of teh days to chill and regroup.

Here's a video I did of a quick tour of the halls on day 1, which is a business day and not as crowded as it will be at the weekend.

Ahthankyew