Kim’s mother is Japanese, and I’ve wanted to live in Japan since I was thirteen, living in upstate New York.  The country resonates with us; we love the land, the architecture, the traditional crafts, the food, and the society with roots stretching back more than a thousand years.  There are families in Japan that have been around for fourteen generations, cake shops older than the United States, and buildings, still in use, dating from the 1600s.  It’s not for everyone, but it suits us just fine.