Welcome to my site, where I’ll post photographs and record my experiences of living in Canada and Japan, looking for sustainable lifestyle shifts to help us coexist peacefully with the planet.
Initially, I started this site with the intention of writing about design theory, however after much introspection, I’ve decided instead to keep this as a lifestyle blog exploring the smaller details of local living – in rural Alberta and rural Hokkaido!
Let me show you the beauty of the local flora and fauna around me, and I’ll tell you about the interesting ways people live within their environments around the world.
You’ll enjoy your time here if you’re interested in:
- Sustainability in lifestyle, and relationship with the environment.
- Global human experiences – how people do things differently around the globe.
- The absolutely beautiful gems found in the biodiversity of local ecosystems.
It is my mission to understand what sustainable habits are practiced around the world, to determine how cultural attitudes are shaped by their surroundings and vice versa!
A bit of my life story…
I grew up next to a river valley in Edmonton, then spent my adolescence living on a farm. Following this, I moved to Calgary to attend Mount Royal University – a 1.5 hour drive away from the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Considering I spent a lot of my time outdoors exploring my surroundings, it is accurate to say that I have a deep appreciation and connection with the environment around me.
I am half Japanese, and half mixed European descent, and was raised in an environment which fostered multicultural relationships.
With my family being in Japan, I have had the wonderful opportunity to go and visit. I am most grateful to Japanese culture for taking such care of traditions to respect art, architecture, food, and more. With the long, rich history of Japan, I was fortunate in being able to be exposed to ancient art forms fairly young. My great grandmother is an absolute gem of a woman who is highly skilled in so many art forms, and my mother has blessed my life by introducing me to almost everything I am interested in.
My father shares intimate knowledge about living off the land. He taught my brother and I how to go camping, fish, hunt, and take care of ourselves. My continuous yearning for a sense of freedom and exploration definitely comes from him, because his rather nomadic life inspires me to get out as much as I can.
I have a brother who is always asking big questions to accompany his big dreams, and has a brilliant mind that will beat you to any idea and can easily see through any obstacle. He is an inspired, smart wild child, and I think that’s cool.
Studying interior design has given me an awareness to how we occupy space as humans, and how the space we occupy, as well as objects we interact with has a bigger effect on us than we realize. Since graduating, I have gone back and spent my small amount of savings to take some evening photography classes. I wanted to learn how to use the intricate settings of a camera as I became frustrated with the limitations of a smartphone camera.
I am wanting to explore our relationships with our natural and built environments with you, and hope to inspire you to think a little deeper about the little details you may have otherwise missed.
This is me, on the Sea of Galilee.
I love travelling, because it is almost like stepping into an alternate reality.