About Us

The Walkers have lived in Japan since 2004.

We came to fulfill a life-long dream, and in the process have survived three years of yochien, searched for a million dollar toilet, been stalked by a bank, attended a wedding and a funeral, grown to love a wide variety of foods with highly suspicious textures, and most recently, experienced one of the five largest earthquakes in recorded history. With such craziness, what’s not to love? We hope you enjoy reading about our adventures…and misadventures…as well as some random thoughts on a wide variety of topics.

On March 11th, 2011, the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck off the East coast of the island of Honshu, Japan.  Although a couple hundred miles from the epicenter, we were well shaken…shaken in a manner in which we hope never to be shaken again.  As you know, this was followed by a devastating tsunami. And the nuclear meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.  Pam would end up walking down and up and then back down the 19 floors of her office building, before walking two miles over to get Samantha from school.  A few hours later they would leave for a several hours long drive across Tokyo (a drive that can usually be made in under an hour) to get home at 2 am.  A few days later we took to the skies (aka becoming briefly “fly-jin” a play on the Japanese word for foreigners, “gaijin.”)  We would stay in the states for two weeks before returning to Tokyo.

We remain part of an ever shrinking percentage of gaijin who remain.  We still call Tokyo home, with no immediate plans for that to change.  We have after all now lived here longer than Pam or I have ever lived any one single place since we were in high school.

We would love to hear from you, so please drop us a line or leave a comment.