Noticed today that in my local ASDA, theres a Welsh language option on the self checkout - I live in Leicester!
This got me thinking about where else I had come across the Welsh language unexpectedly.
The only time that springs to mind is many years ago I bumped into a group of Welsh speakers in the suburbs of Tallinn.
Anybody else got an interesting or amusing occasion where they’ve come across the language when or where they didn’t expect to?
Kochi city, Shikoku island in Japan, 2017. Although it was planned. A young woman who happened to grow up about 4 miles from where I live. I met her twice on my trip when she looked after some belongings for a few weeks before and after my pilgrimage around the island.
Wow thats really cool. A bit more exciting than the local supermarket!
I’d met Hannah at a book signing in Cardiff the previous year. She spent a couple of years teaching English in Japan before going to S Korea, and then back to the UK. All our conversation in Japan was in Welsh which she was kind enough to say was very good.
In the south east of England I used a McDonalds self-service till in Welsh the other day to order… it did help the it has pictures of the food too 
Fun practise tho!
Mac Fawr diolch?
One Christmas, a few years ago when I was staying in London, I was walking through a park and there were two gents sitting on a seat talking to each other. Out of the blue I said to them “Nadolig Llawen”. Both of them replied “Nadolig Llawen”. I was taken aback and we had a bit of a conversation and they had both come from Swansea originally, but now living in London.
It’s a small world!
An exciting update on this! I say exciting, I was in an ASDA on a Friday evening…
Not only do the self checkouts in Leicester display in Welsh, they’ve started to talk - rather loudly.
Got a bit of a shock when it shouted CROESO at me. And yes its just as impatient as the English version. “Cymryd eich eitemau” eto, ac eto, ac eto.
Ap fawr, Shirley? 
Haha, that took me a moment to get!
One of my favourite places in the little village of Uralla, where I live, is the brewery.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be ordering beers in Welsh until one day just before Christmas I met the new barkeeper, a young man named Carwyn, from Cricieth. A fair bit of Welsh ensued, and the locals even wanted us to speak Welsh for them so they could hear what spoken Welsh sounds like. Unfortunately, Carwyn has moved on now.
Thats amazing!
