I first went to Japan in 1990 with my best friend Michelle, taking Japanese textbooks from the evening language classes I'd been attending for 6 months, and little else. We had jobs as golf caddies (no golfing knowledge or ability required) and planned to stay a year.
I didn't stay for a year in the end. After an eventful 6 months, including quitting caddying, teaching English in Kyoto, practising my basic but functional Japanese, sightseeing, travelling around Honshu and Kyushu and getting engaged, I returned to Melbourne to marry Tony, who I had met in the Japanese classes I mentioned earlier. Michelle stayed 3 years, and then on her return to Melbourne became a Japanese teacher in a secondary school - where she met her partner and father of her 3 kids. So it turned out to be a life-changing trip for both of us.
24 years and 3 kids later, I'm finally returning to Japan, with Tony and our youngest daughter Imo, in a week's time. Will it have changed as much as I have in the intervening period?
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