It is not unusual for young Japanese to go abroad to study English. But where they choose to go for their studies can change their destiny.
Haruna, whose surname then was Iida, planned to go to New York in summer 2001. But the 31-year-old Gifu Prefecture native, who moved to Tokyo after graduating from college in Nagoya, changed her mind after Sept. 11.
In February 2002, she instead went to study English at her second choice, Vancouver, British Columbia, where she ended up meeting her future husband, Tyler Harder, 30. After a breakup and later long-distance relationship, the pair married in April 2007.