François never really liked driving. He loves cars, sure, but the act of driving itself always made him nervous. When we visited Sakaiminato last year—a remote town entirely themed around an old anime—he was already sweating before we’d even made it out of the rental car parking lot. But that short trip through the Japanese countryside gave him enough confidence to try again. Since then, we’ve driven in Tottori, Nagasaki, Shikoku, and even once right here in the city, with a giant Ikea package I’d mistakenly ordered, crammed into the back of the rental.

Like me, François can push past his fears if the pull is strong enough. On his holiday in America he even got to drive a Mustang for a bit. And just two weeks ago, we drove a Suzuki Swift Sport. Now, you might think: that’s quite a downgrade compared to a Mustang—what’s so special about that? But for some reason, this little car has been his favorite for years, and if we had the money and the space, he’d love to own one. A yellow one, preferably. As luck would have it, a Swift Sport was available to rent in Narita, near the airport. Not in yellow, but white would do. So one early morning we hopped on the Narita Express—not to catch a flight, but to go for a drive.

Our first outing with the Swift didn’t exactly go as planned. We had drawn up an ambitious list of places we wanted to visit, but in the end we only made it to one thrift store and an underwater observatory in Katsuura—a sibling of the one we’d seen in Shikoku. What we hadn’t counted on was the crowd. Warm weather, a weekend, and the Obon holiday apparently meant that everyone and their surfboard had decided to flock to the Chiba coast.

On the way to Katsuura I was getting hungrier and hungrier, but François wanted to take the opportunity to eat something special. Something local. Normally this man is perfectly happy with a McDonald’s, but this time we went looking for a surf-style diner. When we finally found one, we missed the exit and had to make a big detour. And once we got there, the wait time turned out to be half an hour. It was about 36 degrees outside, and the little shack had no air-conditioning. We decided to continue driving. Next to the underwater observatory there was supposed to be a restaurant as well. Expensive, but at that point I didn’t care anymore. What we hadn’t counted on was the long line of cars waiting just to get into the parking garage. By the time we finally sat down at the table, I was ready to explode.

That morning on the train, François had suddenly come up with all kinds of extra ideas: “Maybe we can also visit my uncle! Maybe we can go to the aviation museum!” — “You’re stressing me out,” I said. The message didn’t really land. But as we sat in the fancy restaurant eating our paella, it turned out there simply wasn’t time to visit his uncle (or the museum). Even though his uncle doesn’t live far from Narita, with the traffic we wouldn’t even have made it back in time to return the rental car. Luckily that was fixed with one phone call, but by then my head was pounding.

On Monday I was sulking angrily at the office. I felt unseen, unheard, and pushed to constantly force myself past my autism. As if everything always has to be more, as if it can never just be calm. Even driving the Swift Sport couldn’t be calm—every acceleration was too much with my headache and sensory overload. “Can you please drive slowly?!” I snapped at François. That made him sad; after all, he had been dreaming for ten years of racing around in this sports car! I had no idea. “But I told you that, didn’t I?” he said, scrolling back through our chat history, which showed that he maybe hadn’t said it in so many words. Clearly, something had gone wrong in our communication.

“Let’s plan another getaway soon,” François said. “But this time, better.” We decided to make it a two-day trip, and not on the weekend but during the week. François still had two Obon days off, and his ex was available to look after the cats. I only realized it later, but this was exactly how I had always pictured it.

This time, too, we had a list of options—but François assured me they weren’t mandatory. Just ideas. We started with the things that hadn’t worked out the first time: the aviation museum and a visit to his uncle.

I’ve come to realize that François seems to think you can cram about twice as much into a day as humanly possible. Take our first travel day: we had to reach the hotel before 7 p.m. or we’d miss dinner—something we’d already paid for. So when we finally pulled away from his uncle’s place in the late afternoon, with still a good hour and a half to two hours of driving ahead, it dawned on us that we couldn’t also drop by a thrift shop with one of his friends—an idea François had thrown in that very morning.

The difference this time was that we actually talked it through. We simply called his friend to cancel, no drama, no hard feelings. With that settled, we stuck to the plan and headed straight for Tsukuba, where we’d be spending the night.

Mt. Tsukuba is an 877-meter-high mountain with a cable car and a ropeway, and of course the necessary onsen resorts at its base. We chose a hotel with a fantastic open-air rooftop bath and an all-you-can-eat buffet for both breakfast and dinner. Naturally, we also booked a Japanese tatami room, for the full experience.

We arrived right on time. François quickly slipped into the bath before the rooftop onsen switched over to female-only. (Many onsen are single-sex and rotate during the day so everyone can enjoy the baths.) Afterwards, we filled our bellies at the delicious buffet. In the evening I went to the beautiful open-air bath, and later we slept like babies.

The next morning we walked to the cable car station. In just eight minutes the little tram took us up the mountain, but once we got there we quickly decided that was enough. We still had more on our schedule, so we took the same tram right back down.

Throughout our trip we’d noticed we were the only two Western guests around. “And I think you’re the tallest person in this hotel,” François laughed over breakfast. But as we stepped off the tram, we suddenly spotted another foreigner waiting in line to go up.

“Huh,” I said, “he looks a lot like someone I know?!”

We walked down toward the exit.

“I could swear…”

“Do you want to go back and say hi?” François asked. “But what if it’s not him…” I said, hesitating. Still, we turned back. The guy I thought I recognized I’d met a few times before—friends-of-friends, you could say. The last time was on King’s Day. He lives in Japan, but was he also here in Tsukuba?

I checked his Instagram but that didn’t help much. His last post was from Osaka. By now the guests waiting in line were behind a sort of wooden fence, so I couldn’t see him properly. “Is he wearing a brown wristband?” I asked François. “Yep.” I was still unsure.

The cable car pulled back into the station, and the guests moved toward the doors. Finally I got a clear look.

“PACO!”

He turned around, surprised: “Huh! What are you doing here?! Are you going up too?!”

“No, we just came back down!”

The tram was about to depart, so we waved quickly and that was it. Of course I should’ve just walked up to him earlier, but really—who expects something like that?

For our second day we had come up with a few options, but we had also agreed to check in with ourselves each time (or rather, to check in with how I was feeling—François just powers through, lol) before making any decisions. That worked out really well.

On our first day, as we were driving toward the hotel, a gigantic Buddha suddenly appeared before us in the evening sun. I quickly grabbed my phone and shot a video, which I posted on Instagram.

Someone commented: “You really have to go there! You can even go inside the Buddha!” That definitely piqued my interest, so the next morning we decided to follow the commenter’s advice and check out the Buddha from the inside. (But not before making a quick stop at Starbucks and the Book-Off we happened to pass along the way.)

After that I started to get hungry. François knows by now that this is dangerous territory. My hunger usually goes from zero to a hundred in just a few minutes, and then food has to appear—otherwise it’s a full-on drama. He dug out some mini stroopwafels from his bag, which had completely melted in the heat of the car but were all the more delicious for it. After that we headed to McDonald’s. Yes, after the hotel buffet, McDonald’s suddenly seemed perfectly fine. We refueled and discussed our next destination: Love.

The Dutch windmill called De Liefde (Dutch for “Love”) had been on my list for years. It’s in Sakura, Chiba, and I’d even spotted it once from the train. But even though a train line runs nearby, it’s still quite a hike from the station. Now that we had the car, it was the perfect chance to finally visit. Of course we first took a wrong turn (thanks, GPS), which turned it into a race against the clock. But in the end we arrived ten minutes before sunset. And maybe that was just right, because the light was pure love.

Then it was time to return the car, hop on the Narita Express, and collapse into bed. Even the next day I was still completely wiped out, but that’s just part of the deal. This trip was a success. Communication, yay.