Murakami. Hokusai. Sushi. Samurai. Ghibli. Kurosawa. Japan had always been my dream destination. My fascination in the country and culture started in slightly an unusual way - sifting through my Van Gogh print book aged 11, I saw Vincent's Japanese art work, The Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige) and was rather taken by the image. On further inspection, I learnt of the original by Hiroshige and how Vincent had been influenced by the ukiyo-e prints. I had no conscious awareness of the why, but I just knew the style ticked a certain box within my sense of order. As I got older, the more I delved into Japanese culture, the more obsessed I became. I read the Pillow book of Sei Shonagon. I watched all the Kurosawa films I could get on VHS from the library (I've been concocting a whole blog post dedicated to my love affair with Ikuru for months), I bought all the Murakami I could afford (I remember trying to explain to a friend once why I loved his books "He writes what...