On a weekday evening I might run along Bondi Beach a few times for aerobic exercise, or head down to the pavilion to take a karate lesson. Other Saturdays I might head up to Paddington Markets to browse in the sunshine for an hour or so. At the end of the day, the Japanese trinket dealers would congregate, along with various young people mostly staying in the country on working holiday visas, at a pub and drink until the company faded away into the night, sometimes kicking on at a party.

It was at one of these parties that I met Yukiko. And again, later, we started talking at the back of the pub on the corner of Jersey Road as the front room filled with noisy refugees from the day's football match or the cricket.

The year following marriage in 1991, I relocate to Yokohama with my family, which includes young Adelaide now. We have a second ceremony in Tokyo for Japanese family.

In late 1992 I start working for Yamatake-Honeywell, a joint venture whose Japanese owners would eventually buy out Honeywell's holdings to become wholly Japanese-owned in 1997. In 1995, among other things I do at the small publishing unit including DTP, feature writing, photography, news reporting, press releases, tech documents, I am asked to design covers for the corporate English-language magazine, Savemation.

That year also, my son Vivian arrives at the new apartment we rent in a nice part of the City of Yokohama. Many weekends, we visit my wife's family in a nearby suburb. These photos illustrate what to do with left-over wedding cake. More often we eat cold soba and drink hot green tea. I sometimes take photos of the streets of Tokyo, a really busy place where it takes some effort to find solitude.

The daily commute to my office in Shibuya is about 40 minutes. From the commuter overpass spanning Route 246 I can see Mount Fuji on clear days rising in the far distance, serene and untroubled by the city's hubbub and the routine business of the Kanto Plain.

While in Japan, me and my work team visit Kobe in central Japan for a work trip related to our corporate communications activities. But the trip coincides with the aftermath of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, during which much of the town was destroyed.

I also get to go to other countries occasionally. In 1997, for example, while on business in Shanghai, I witness celebrations for the British handover of Hong Kong to the Communist regime.

In 1999, I move out of the family home into an 'apaato' (flat) in a nearby suburb. In 2000, I write a number of poems. After separating from my family and finding life in Japan too burdensome, I return to Australia.

A graph shows publication dates of books in my library, which numbered about 1300 at the time of making this page. The dip in the 1990s shows reading taking a back seat as I work on my language skills with TV.

In 1998, my cousin, Julie Isabel Bishop (b. 1956) is elected to the House of Representatives as member for Curtin in Western Australia.