where his civilizations, including our own

I went to Japan to teach English at a high school for a year straight after I finished high school, staying with host families. I'd studied Japanese in school (my school was so small as to only have one language option!) and my school had a sister school, in Okazaki, near Nagoya. Then I studied more Japanese at uni, and part of the course was an exchange to Tokyo University for a year, which was awesome fun. Both times, though, I ended up with a lot of books! In fact, some of the larger Japanese bookshopss had better English language selections than Australian bookshops, especially in the SF/F range.