For a woman who barely cheated death earlier this year and who has since spent months recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Nahoko Takato looks in remarkably fine fettle.
Animated and chatty, she radiates the energy of someone who has rediscovered her zest for life.
In April this year, the 34-year-old children's aid worker briefly became one of the most famous faces in the world when Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast harrowing footage of her and two other Japanese hostages with swords at their throats.