The question was how to achieve it. First, get a position somewhere overseas. Then move there and work for a while, hopefully accumulating new language skills and a few mementos along the way. I envisioned Japanese fans and kimonos, German steins and lederhosen, Russian hats and empty casks of vodka decorating my future home.

As it happened, the job came to me instead of me going to it. I am fanatical about reading the newspaper; for some reason I have to read it cover-to-cover daily or I worry that a disease that I had no previous knowledge of will come and wipe out my life. A bus I was riding, owned by a company that I didnt realize had a really bad maintenance reputation and record, would lose its brakes and Id find myself doing a header off the Fremont Bridge.

So, reading the paper one day in a local coffee shop, I saw it. An ad for English teachers in Japan. After applying, suiting up and teaching mock English lessons for three students in a dead classroom, and lying to overly-intrusive questions about my abilities to be a workaholic in a foreign country, I had the job.

So: how to get there Do I hire some international moving company and transfer my entire life? Or do I sell everything and start over in a new place, trying to interpret sizes on clothes and shoes and developing new, weird tastes in furniture? I had some money to invest in this, and a deadline that I could live with, which was a blessing.

I decided on going the international moving company route, getting out of Dodge with my stuff intact. I prefer to have some semblance of continuity in life, if its achievable. But here is where enthusiasm and optimism came to a shuddering, crunching crash with reality. The money kind, that is.

International moving companies are few. They are expensive. And they live for liability. Fortunately, they also are very careful if they want to preserve their reputations and businesses. So, after extensive review of the web sites I found and testimonials I read, I hired an international moving company of some repute. I signed on every dotted line, massaging my hand at the end.

Worth the money? Every penny! I couldnt believe this operation. They came into my world and boxed it in two days. They even wrapped my teaspoons in bubble wrap and taped them together. Getting everything to Japan wasnt a problem. Getting everything untapped, unrolled, and unpacked took about three weeks.

Because of the efforts of the international moving company I flew to Japan in peace, lived two years in constant wonder at my surroundings, and came home after a hard days work to an environment I recognized as home.