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Being married for almost four years to a Japanese girl had certainly been an eye opener. You thought you knew so much after almost ten years here; however marriage showed you just how little you'd scratched the surface. But it must be harder for her – remember the microwave incident. Her jumping out of her skin in shock, dead certain the glass was going to explode and her amazement when you safely retrieved her now warm glass of tea. It's – she's - worth it though, worth the two year wait, worth the daily hardships, worth all the study of Japanese so you could communicate, still not perfect, but good enough, maybe just right as the language barrier prevents you from getting into those useless couple-debates that do far more harm than good. And when little Mari-Cristine came along your luck doubled. She'll be three soon, and she won't be an only child anymore. Can two kids really be twice the work of one? Or is it more?

Such an old-timer now, he thought. I sound just like all those guys I resented when I first got here, but I suppose that's inevitable. At least I'm still here, and still happy. More than I can say for a lot. We have the place in Nagano now, and to me it was such a steal. Back at the English school I could never have imagined that I'd think $50000 was cheap, but for our own retreat in the mountains it now seemed like a bargain. Speaking of which, I've been daydreaming too much while driving, I can't remember anything from the last ten minutes. I better pay attention, the Chuo isn't really built like a highway, and that blackspot is just coming up. Almost a quarter of the way there already, though, it's funny how the locals are so rooted to the one town they can barely imagine driving two hours up the highway for a weekend. More luck for me, I guess, said aloud and meaning it.