a very hot appointment

on thursday i was asked to help do some more interpreting for a Rotary GSE team from Turkey who was visiting Ibaraki. I had been with one of them to the Hitachinaka Port last week and this week it was off to the steel works of Sumitomo Metal Industries in Kashima, about a 1.5 hour drive from Mito.

I dont know if i was much help in the interpreting because there were too many technical words and numbers (i hate numbers in japanese) but i dont think the GSE people knew much about it anyway so i was able to bluff my way through it a bit.

However, the tour we were taken on was pretty cool. i have never been anywhere like that before. We were not allowed to take photos, but i found a similar shot on their website. Isnt it cool? or should i say hot? I think the temperature is about 1200 degrees celcius. You could feel the heat from about 30 metres away, where we were standing.