On Friday, my spouse visa arrived. I only submitted my application a little over a week before that. Yep, I got my visa in less than a couple of weeks, and if you ask me that would have to be a record for Japan. My last working visa took about 6 months! Anyway, I am NOT complaining. Infact, we are totally over the moon! Now we don't have to worry about me needing to leave the country every few months coming back on holiday visas, and I can legally get paid by the Japanese magazines I work for without getting arrested, deported and shipped back home to Oz.

One of my dear friends who came to Japan at the same time as me 3 years ago on the JET program just found out that he will have a baby with his Japanese girlfriend.  Under the cherry blossoms and over a few beers last week we were joking of how much this country has changed our lives!  When we first came here we were 2 confused, party hungry south african and south australian fresh uni graduates, looking for something in this country and i think we both found more than we ever imagined!  

I now use Japanese GPS on my mobile phone to guide me through the concrete jungle that is Tokyo's highways, I argue with my husband that we should go to a sushi restaurant instead of getting burgers, I eat anko in just about everything and my last name is 'huge wave'.....

Japan is not a country, it's another world.  It's changed me in so many good ways-now I am able to take the best of my own Aussie culture and combine that with the best of Japan's culture, and together that makes for a pretty incredible way of life.

I can proudly say, however, that happ-shu fake beer is a load of shit, and no matter how desperate i am for money in my life i will never drink that horrid crap! Give me a coopers pale ale any day of week, and if i have to settle for anything less it would have to be along the lines of a Kirin Draft....