It was 11pm and I was roaming the aisles of a hypermarket-sized Japanese pharmacy, looking for a home pregnancy kit. I drove home and did the test. Burst into tears. Raced back, panic-stricken, and bought another one. Did it again. Yup. No mistaking it… a very, very blue line.

In an isolated corner of rural Japan, in a rickety old house nestled among rice paddies and strawberry farms, I had to review my 'inyaka-gaijin' (rice paddy foreigner) status, along with my long-term plans for the rest of my life.

What next? A phone call to my long-term partner, who had recently flown back to Johannesburg after our tropical island holiday on Iriomote-Jima, south of Okinawa: Ring-ring…ring-ring…

He was shopping in Makro. Somewhere between the crockery aisle and the canned asparagus he learned of his impending fatherhood. It was a long, conversation, emotionally laden and a far cry from the gleeful abandon with which we’d cart-wheeled through the field of naturally growing magic mushrooms we’d chanced upon while hitchhiking around rain-forested Iriomote just six weeks before. We’d slept on the beach and marveled at jewel-like phosphorescent algae glittering in the shallow surf at night.

On Kyushu Island, where I lived and taught English, foreigners were an oddity. When I arrived I was half expecting black-pyjama clad people carrying rice baskets, but what I got instead was Kasho-sensei: a skinny, diminutive old man with a lovely grin and a troublesome fondness for the local mampoer. A kind of dissolute, Japanese Graham Green character, also my school supervisor.

"...They bowed. I bowed..."

He fetched me from the airport in a gleaming 4X4 and drove me at breakneck speed to the village. We sped past endless rice paddies while Madonna’s “Get into the Groove” blared from the car sound system. Life got progressively more surreal. A decrepit obasan (old granny) once followed me around the shops to see what groceries I was choosing. Then she spoke to me disapprovingly in Japanese, took my instant noodles and tofu out of the basket and handed me a tuberous vegetable that vaguely resembled a histrionic toilet brush. We bowed and smiled at each other.

I knew maybe 50 Japanese words. Nobody spoke English either, not even Dr Hoshi-hara (Starfield) when I eventually tracked him down. It took some doing. “Good day. I want baby test” I said to a startled nurse behind a dusty glass partition, only realising later that I had been in a clinic for sporting-induced knee problems.

She giggled and disappeared, only to emerge with reinforcements. They bowed. I bowed. I’d come armed with a dictionary, and a few well-rehearsed phrases. They eventually wrote down instructions in beautifully rendered katakana script on how to get to the local ob-gyn. I found him anyway, but I couldn’t have pointed him out to you in a police line-up.

They have a nurse who acts as a go-between — you don’t actually see the doctor at all. A nurse put me into an antique dentist’s chair and reclined it. Then a big green curtain was drawn across my stomach, obscuring the entire room. From somewhere in the recesses of the cramped office, I heard a polite cough, mumbling and the unmistakable snap-snap of surgical gloves being donned. Prodding ensued.

Dr Hoshi-hara, I presume. He stuck his head around the curtain and I think he was smiling behind his surgical mask. He showed me the sonar screen there she was: a floating speck, a little star shining quietly in her own peaceful landscape. Later that day I scanned the sonar into my computer so I could introduce the baby to her dad. My partner and I stared at the picture for hours, and for the rest of the night, discussed our future plans.

For the next five months, while I wrapped up my contractual obligations I would experience well-intentioned gifts of soba noodles and sweet red bean and rice cakes left on my doorstep, quirky obstetrical practices and the ever-popular TV game show: "Ugglibrudda" — a bizarre weekly cultural institution where a neon-clad, shrieking audience votes for the ugliest of two siblings, and the winner gets pelted with "Kawaii" or cutesy soft toys.

So, there I was, with no option of pre-natal testing for foetal abnormalities and the commonly voiced belief that women should clothe themselves in full maternity regalia from day one. Pharmacists dispense the same gritty white powder for all ailments ranging from morning sickness to migraine headaches and probably cancer, too.

"...Japanese translations are often hilarious…"

Several Japanese women I spoke to were horrified at the idea of giving birth with a husband present. Water births are a foreign concept and it’s considered shameful to make any noise during labour. I booked a ticket home.

And as I had a few more months to go before my flight departed, I explored the island in my Noddy car. Japanese translations are often hilarious… I encountered this on a packet of razor blades: "Razor is cultlery. Caution when using against rhinocerous boil."

And canned soda drinks had great names: “Kidsbeer,” “Needs Cheese”, Pocari Sweat, and “Warm Calpis” which was a drink much like warm, fruity Sprite. “God Wind” was a popular T-shirt slogan.

At night I sometimes drove up into the mountains to bathe in an outdoor onsen — volcanic hot springs. Regular immersions are an integral part of Japanese culture, and I took to it like a duck to… well, you know.

Strict rules are observed. You wash and rinse before wallowing — and getting soapy suds in the water is akin to murder. Late at night there was seldom anybody there, and it was peaceful. The rest of my stay was uneventful, except for the Mukade incident. A giant, poisonous centipede, gently caressed my back at 3am after crawling out of the tatami mat in my bedroom. They move fast, but not as fast as I did.

When I got back to SA, I think I cried when the plane landed. My lovely daughter is five now. Her name, 'Danica', means morning star, and she is that: a blazing star, a sweet songbird, mischievous comic, a purveyor of fine hugs and cuddles, her parents’ joy. At some point we still intend to get her a T-shirt that says ‘Made in Japan.’