It’s our 3 month anniversary today. Wow, only 3 months? We were just marvelling at it while chatting on MSN. It feels much, much longer than that, to both of us.

You can sort of understand why it feels longer though – in the space of 3 months, we have developed and cemented our relationship to one that is strong and that has already survived a couple of tough times.

For those who don’t know – I’ll give you a little snapshot of who we are. I am Ben, I’ve just turned 30 years old, and I’m from Brisbane, Australia. Satomi has just turned 33 and is originally from Inami, Japan. We met on cyberspace just briefly through my best mate, Steve, who lived in Japan for 3 years. Satomi decided to study English in Australia, choosing Brisbane to be close to her best mate Catherine. Steve introduced us and suggested Satomi move into my spare room for the 10 months or so she was planning to be here.

So April 2006 came, and Satomi became a co-lover in the Albion Love Den (my place – long story), along with my large-headed cat Potsie. The first few months saw us bond over food, crappy 80s music and long drunken talk fests in the Love Den. The cultural and social difficulties meant we surfed a ‘tolerance’ friendship, which developed in time to a deep, close connection. Pretty soon, our social lives became entwined, with each of us being the ‘plus one’ for the others’ parties, barbecues and drinking sessions. It was inevitable, but I developed a crush on her.


I tried to suppress the feeling, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable in her short time in Brisbane. One day, she began to tell me about a couple of dates she’d been on recently… and it was hurting me to hear about them. It was then that I realised my ‘crush’ was something more. A period of trying to deny my feelings followed, before I could hold it in no longer and told her how I felt. It wasn’t immediately reciprocated, but within a couple of weeks, we were going out on a ‘date’ (how do you go out on a date when you live together already?). While the period afterwards was a bit of a blur of stolen glances, meaningful gestures and trying to also be ‘normal’ flatmates, we decided that November 17 would be the official beginning of our relationship.

We knew each other so well, and connected so deeply right from the start, that it was a matter of weeks before we recognised that we were actually in love with each other. That quickly developed into a realisation that we were each other’s ‘one’. We knew we felt the same about life, about the world, about where we wanted to go in life. And, after a couple of blissful months, I proposed. She accepted, gleefully, and we set about planning the rest of our lives together.



Everything would be perfect now, apart from one small problem. Her student visa expired on January 22, 2007. She had to go back to Japan! And 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I watched her beauty disappear down the escalator at the Brisbane International Airport, and out of my life (physically) for the next 8 months. We decided that the time spent apart would be spent focussing on her coming back – applying for a Prospect to Marry Visa.



The timeline is long and involved, but essentially Satomi will be back in Australia in September 2007, and we will be married early in 2008. The time between now and then is spent developing a long distance relationship – thanks to email, MSN chat, webcams and internet phones (so cheap!). While we’re sort of getting used to it now, the initial couple of days were, as you can expect, absolute torture – I’ll let Satomi take up the story for the 2 days immediately after her departure…

Ben
17 February, 2007.

The parting - Satomi's travel diary

21st January 07

Woke up the 10th morning as fiancée, and it was the day I had to leave my fiancé behind.

I had a kind of strange, complicated feeling which couldn’t describe properly. Finally the day was here – but I didn’t want to get up from the warm bed. At 6:30 I was up - took shower, put my make-up on, dried my hair, and packed everything (eventually). Steve showed up, Blair was the driver to the airport. I was hoping my suitcase was less than 20kg and said a temporary ‘good bye’ to the Albion Love Den.
“Thanks for having me for almost 9 months.”



Surprisingly, it only took me 20 minutes to get to the check-in counter. Catherine rang me that they are coming to see me off at the airport soon. Dragging my luggage to the counter, it was 19.4kg… phew! Ben walked back towards me with the Cosmo magazine in his hand, and a card was inside it…sweet. I knew that I’d be reading it with tears in my eyes. Catherine and Mao che arrived at the airport, and she gave me a beautiful present.

Then over the loud speaker came the boarding call for CI0054. At last, finally, it was time to say: “see you later for a while”, I “much appreciated” everyone there, and after a big hug and kiss to Ben, I had to go downstairs and through the Customs and security check. Gate 81 was right there, so I decided to sit in front of it and opened the gift from Catherine - a book about weddings, with a lovely message. Then I unsealed a silver envelope and opened a card - as soon as I looked at his handwriting, I felt it was full of love from all his heart. I had to stop reading to wipe my eyes once before finishing reading. We know we are so important to each other for the rest of our lives, which makes me step forward strongly and feel that I’m doing right thing.

Unfortunately the flight was delayed almost an hour. Eventually I got on the plane and found my seat next a lovely lady who was going on a holiday to the Philippines. On the plane were personal screens right in front of everyone’s seats, and it was quite high-tech - it took me a while to figure out how to use it. I watched half of “The Queen”, slept and started “Umi zaru”; Japanese one, arriving in Taipei halfway through “Superman Returns”.

It was raining and already dim at 5:30pm. The lady sitting next to me and I decided to go to the hotel together. We both wanted to go to the city - she wanted to shop, I wanted to meet up with my friends. But the hotel ( Miramar Golf Country Club) was a long way from the city and public transport, and a taxi was too expensive. Moreover, there was no internet connection and phone line as they said they were under construction, so that I couldn’t contact my Taiwanese friend, Jerry. As a result, we had a dinner at the hotel restaurant which was included the plane ticket.

After dinner, I went back to my huge quiet twin room, tried to call my fiancé, obviously it didn’t work. As the night became a bit chilly, I had a hot bubble bath to make me warm and relax, which was really good. But I wasn’t that tired or sleepy, so I turned my computer to play some music.

I went to sleep into a double-size cold bed at about mid night, hoped to dream about my great love, who is thousands of kilometers away from where I was.


22nd January 07

When I woke up for toilet, it was 20 minutes before the wake up call I’d booked. The call came and I was told to come down for a bus, which leaves for the airport at 6:30! I tried to have a quick shower, but the hot water came from an old shower head and it was hitting me hard. I wanted to have the breakfast which was also included; I ate a bread roll, scrambled egg and bacon with orange juice. I was the last person to jump on the mini-bus from the hotel - everyone was waiting for me!

We arrived at Terminal 1 in Taipei International Airport at 7ish. I looked for my flight on the departure-notice board thing (I don’t know what it’s called - the huge board), but I couldn’t find it. I asked at information desk, then found out CI 0156 to Osaka leaves from Terminal 2 and I have to take a shuttle bus there.

Then I thought I had enough time to make a phone call to my fiancé in Brisbane, coz I hadn’t talked to him for so long. I had to buy a new phone card, since I lost the one I bought the previous night. I pressed his mobile number – no answer. Then I realized that I didn’t note his landline number! Finally, I found it on my computer and I was able to reach him. I felt so relieved and really wanted to hear his voice - I missed him so much… I talked to him with tears in my voice. After a quick 3min talk, I had to rush to get to Terminal 2 - it was nearly 7:55am. My flight was 8:55am, hurried to check in and left my suitcase, I ran to Gate D4.

As I promised to call Ben back earlier, I spoke to him a little longer again, then I rang to apologize to Jerry, who was expecting to see me the night before. As soon as I got on the plane, I was asked to change my seat twice! Anyway, the flight to Osaka was only one hour and fifty minutes. I had chicken pasta with Heineken while I was watching “Superman Returns” which I couldn’t finish at the 1st flight. We arrived in Osaka to sunny weather (but a bit chilly). Surprisingly, I didn’t have any strange feeling coming back to Japan, I felt like I was coming back from a holiday. I sat down on the bench taking out a green jacket from my suitcase; in addition, turned on the computer to see if Ben was online. Although it showed him on line, he didn’t respond on MSN. On the other hand, I saw 2 unopened emails from him, the one he wrote was when he got back from the airport, the other one was written about the 1st morning waking up without me. It was very hard to hide my tears in public, so I read them quickly, and closed them. I decided to email my sister, Asami, telling her what time I would arrive in Kanazawa instead of leaving a message on her mobile.

The express train ‘Haruka’ left at 1:46pm from Kansai Airport station, then I had to catch another train from Shin-Osaka station at 2:46pm - it was a smooth transfer train to train. The train travel to Kanazawa wasn’t too bad, which took just over 2.5 hours; it is kind of a wobbly local railway that gives me motion sickness. The train stopped at Kanazawa station at about 7:30, I was happy to see my sis waiting outside of the ticket gate. Putting my luggage into her red car, we drove away from the station and headed home.

After an hour drive, I saw my dad at the front door - smiling. The house hasn’t changed much, except for a tall sliver shiny stylish fridge and pearl-white less-used microwave in the kitchen. My mum came back in half an hour; she had already order take-way sushi for dinner; she cooked some warm soup, and we began the dinner without my brother (who went out for socializing with work people). We ate and talked - catching up on things; they liked their souvenirs. I ate a lot of sushi and had a Sapporo beer. After dinner, I tried to connect internet in my room, but it didn’t work; used a cable in the living room, it was connected with no problems. Finally, I caught Ben online started chatting and I couldn’t get it enough messaging him on MSN. I wanted to hear his voice, so we changed to talking on the phone, which was much better even though his voice sounded differently - not as sexy as his usual voice, but I still loved talking to him. The time talking to your lover flies so quickly, he had to go to bed soon. I hate the moment that I have to hang up the phone or finish talking with him. This was the first night I came home to Toyama. I just keep on thinking there are (only) another 8 months until I get to see my fiancé and to be in his arms.

Satomi