The first taxi driver really didn't have a clue, going as far as to suggest that the address given him was a fabrication. The second driver, with the aid of a car navigation device, had more luck in finding the Fukuoka apartment of Dutch writer Hans Brinckmann.
"You should have mentioned the name Sadaharu Oh," Brinckmann advised, referring to the baseball legend and onetime manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. "He lived here at one time and most of the cabbies know that."
A successful banker for the greater part of his life, Brinckmann claims to have always wanted to be a writer but met early opposition from his stepfather, a pragmatist who, like many a parent, could not imagine a living being made from writing. "He thought it was a very bad idea. That communism was expanding; Western Europe might become overrun. That it was best to get out of the Netherlands."