I wanna become a teacher and then teach in another country, an eight-year-old Canadian girl decided.

By the age of twenty-five, she had checked this-her main goal in life-off her bucket list.

In March 1992, Lorna Stuber stepped off an Air Canada plane in Tokyo, and embarked on a three-year adventure in a country she had never even thought about visiting until six months prior. Teaching ESL in a suburb of Tokyo-sometimes charging her way ahead, at other times stepping meekly forward-she fumbled through linguistic and cultural hiccups such as eating sushi so fresh it was still twitching and getting attacked by a high-tech toilet.

While battling intense homesickness, adjusting to Japanese culture, and exploring Japan’s beautiful mountains and coasts, Lorna learned to laugh at herself and open her mind to other cultures. Japan set her forth on a path that has continued to lead to opportunities she otherwise would have never known existed.

Everyone should live in another culture for at least a year. Not only do you learn about the world that is bigger than your own culture, but you learn aspects about yourself than you never would otherwise.