Lisa is our mutual acquaintance. After deciding we quite wanted to go to Japan, we sent her a facebook message, the first communication since leaving the same school four years ago, and about as much as we exchanged in our six years there. Did she have any friends who might want to come and stay with us in England and in return could host us in Tokyo? A “life swap”, we called it. A cheaper alternative to regular travelling, with the additional, integral bonus of providing a genuine insight into the others’ culture and family life, the food, the manners and mores, the idiosyncrasies. Mayu was her answer.