Wow, that sounds familiar... I lived in England for two years while studying at Oxford. Before going there, I always thought I'd jump at the chance to live there all my life. At the end of two years, though I loved my time there, I was eager to go "home."

I really admire people who successfully manage to settle permanently in another country -- above all else, no matter what the personal rewards, it's exhausting. Being treated like an outsider (even by the nicest people), struggling to get culture-specific jokes, missing stuff from home, all that. I can imagine there being excellent personal or business reasons to choose to emigrate, but I'm sort of grateful not to have had to make the choice. So far, anyway.

Hope you meet your goal one day! Is your novel in Japanese or English?

PS. And after 14 years, I STILL miss proper fish and chips.