So it begins. An unlikely journey towards living in Japan.

Unlike, it seems, almost everyone else who moves to Japan I didn’t go because I was already interested in some aspect of Japan.

I wasn’t interested in Japanese animation. I didn’t have an interest in Japanese music. I didn’t have an interest in Japanese food, history or martial arts. I hadn’t studied Japanese in school. In fact, I had no specific interest in Japan at all.

I had a couple of friends who had watched some anime. I had even been with them one time when we were thirteen or fourteen as they watched some anime, but I had such a lack of interest I hadn’t even watched with them.

In High School Japan had come up a couple of times in History and Geography.

As far as I was concerned Japan was neither above nor below other countries as far as my level of interest was concerned.

No, I had no specific interest in Japan, I was interested in the world. More specifically, I was interested in the world I hadn’t been to. When I was seven or eight years old I had been given a book called Wild Places for a birthday or Christmas. I had read this book so much that it was getting worn out. I watched travel shows. I had a yearning for exploration and discovery. I’ve always loved going to new places. I was lucky as a child to go on family holidays through different areas of Australia, from the desert to the beach. Beyond this, the wider world beckoned.

My desire to discover and explore places further afield, and far different than the country I had grown up in, continued to grow through high school, and then through University. After graduating I applied for a number of positions related to my studies, and while searching for jobs happened to see an advertisement for a job in Japan. I applied.

I soon found myself doing an in person interview at the company’s office (in Melbourne CBD), passing that, and before I knew it handing in my Visa application at the Japanese embassy on Elizabeth Street, and then purchasing flights with Singapore Airlines to Osaka.