When I first started studying Japanese five years ago, my Dad, a slightly sceptical man, started funneling funds into a ‘just-in-case-he-doesn’t-give-up’ piggy bank. As the years passed, and it became clear I really might spend a year in Tokyo, that safety fund turned from fever dream into wise preparation. The other thing I remember about those days, discussing for the first time the possibility that he would visit Japan, was his sole, single, and only demand. A demand that we would spend some time off, relaxing somewhere with beaches.

I had understood the assignment. Last month, when Dad and Sis visited, I got their minds well and truly overstimulated with all the sounds and lights of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, while simultaneously exhausting their legs in the valleys of the Japanese Alps. Every day filled to the brim, balanced just before the breaking point. The regular servings of delicious Japanese cuisine and the occasional cocktails made sure both Sis and Dad remained alive, although skirting the edge.

All of this by design of course, designed by the evil machinations of my mind. Because as Cervantes once wrote, ‘hunger is the best sauce’, I convinced myself that ‘a full schedule makes for the best relaxation.’ This might sound counter-intuitive, so let me clear up any confusion. The last stop I had prepared for our tour de force in Japan was a visit to the tropical, always sunny, jungle-covered Yaeyama Islands. Plenty of beaches there. Doubly relaxing, after such a whirlwind of a trip.

And so of course there was a day of decompressing in the warm ocean currents, lying in the sun, then hiding in the shade to keep from burning to a crisp. Pale bits of coral littered the sand and bit into our bare feet, while the thick jungle behind us throbbed with the monotonous song of cicadas. Against that constant chorus, the waves breathed rhythmically on the shore. Later came the fruity drinks, countless platters of steamed fish, grilled beef, unfamiliar vegetables, and of course generous servings of dessert, all brought out with the easy smiles of islanders who seemed happy just to have us there.

An hour or two of relaxing is more than plenty for me. I simply suffer from an inability to sit still. So the next day I had arranged for us to go snorkeling in the Pacific off the coast of Ishigaki. I’d grown up on Dad’s stories about the colourful scenery off the Maldives atolls, the enormous and slightly silly moonfish, frightening troops of sharks, disinterestedly eyeing the bright schools of glittery fish. He’d come back with the vain hope of one day spotting a manta ray in the wild. Because, as he told me so vividly, every day divers would set out from the paradisiacal atoll, plenty of experience and no lack of optimism, but almost always returning without results. Once, only once, did a group of three return triumphantly one evening, after spotting the elegant, weightless glide of an enormous manta ray.

And then, five years after my choice of study, he found himself in the bay of Ishigaki, surrounded by four majestic manta rays.