Instincts gave him sense she was someone special

Stuart & Mariko

Sometimes the best things in life emerge from the worst experiences, and often all we need to do to discover them is to look. But looking was exactly what Stuart, a New Zealander, was not doing when he first set eyes on his future wife Mariko at a house party in Oakland, California in November 2000.

"I had just come out of a previous relationship that had turned sour and had vowed never to jump into another," Stuart says. But after a few drinks, Stuart decided to approach her and after chatting, the pair soon found they had quite a few things in common. "While I hadn't come to that party looking to meet someone, let alone start a new relationship, my instincts told me that there was something special about us meeting that night," Stuart recalls.

When Mariko's visa ran out she returned to Tokyo while Stuart went traveling around Europe. But love had touched them and Stuart came to live in Tokyo three months latter on his birthday in July 2001.

One of the more interesting times in the couple's relationship occurred after they had moved to Japan. "We were both quite drunk at the time so I didn't hold any punches when she sweetly told me she had something important to ask, and then asked, "Will you marry me?' I replied quite aggressively, 'How can you ask me that question? like this!? right now!?' Of course I felt like an asshole the next day and she was pretty shattered. But I guess apart from just not being ready for marriage at that time in my life, my clairvoyant intuition must have known that my financial future was not too secure and I was about to get screwed over by my employer at the time."

Then, three months after Mariko's proposal, Stuart decided to turn the tables and ask her the same question. She said yes. But that was just the beginning of the baptism of fire. Two weeks after Stuart's marriage proposal, the company he was working for at the time, went bankrupt and left him with no money. One week after they had signed their marriage documents, Stuart took off to live and work as a white water rafting guide in Hokkaido for six months while Mariko lived and worked in Tokyo. "When I saw an advert for the job I was tempted by memories of similar jobs in the past," he says. "And although living apart from Mariko was a challenging idea, I had no regrets."

The biggest challenge Mariko faced was helping Stuart settle in. "Moving back to Japan in April 2001 was a smooth transition because I was already familiar with my own culture. It was only when Stuart came to live in Tokyo a few months later in July that I realized all the difficulties that foreigners can experience while trying to set up a life and work here, not to mention how inflexible Japanese culture can be for them. I found myself becoming a problem solver and translator which were very stressful at first."

How did she overcome these difficulties? "I talked a lot with my friends who had had similar experiences with their foreign boyfriends or husbands. And as well as feeling relieved that I wasn't the only one experiencing those problems, I received a lot of good advice about how to find solutions."

In March 2004 they had a wedding ceremony in New Zealand.