To my relief, I soon learned that the volcano was more or less dormant, last caught puffing out a mediocre quantity of smoke in 1974. Rather than imparting dread, the sleeping giant of Mount Chokai would quickly become a daily reminder of how lucky I was to live in such a magnificently exotic landscape.

The Shonai plain was sandwiched between the Sea of Japan in the west and the Ou mountains in the east, making it quite the dramatic landscape. It couldn’t have been more different to the chaotically carved-out fields and rolling hills of the British countryside.

Here, there was a sense of order, as if each field had been painstakingly measured out into rectangles, and the plain itself was perfectly flat, before abruptly giving way to towering mountains. The contrast between the turquoise sea, the vivid green rice fields and the hazy blue mountaintops was an incredible sight to witness for the first time. Though I’d never recommend visiting Japan in August unless you want to experience what it feels like to be a rotisserie chicken, there’s no doubt it’s at its most visually striking at the height of summer.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be arriving at Shonai airport. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for landing.’

I stuffed the letter into my pocket and quickly did up my top button. I was dressed in smart work clothes, as I’d been warned I’d be taken directly from the airport to meet the school principal: effectively, it would be my first day on the job.

By this point, I was a dishevelled wreck. The nerves churning in my stomach combined with the jet lag to induce a brain fog that rendered me incapable of coherent speech. The idea of conversing with anyone of importance in English, let alone in broken Japanese, filled me with fear. I suspected I was about to become the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan’s history.