Rikuto Sees His Great Grandmother and First Snow

In my last post, Making Mochi in the Mountains, I told you it was my first time to to make Japanese mochi. I wasn’t the only person doing something for the first time. Rikuto sees snow for the first time Our trip to the mochi ceremony took us way up into the mountains on a winding road surrounded by snow. We were all surprised snow had fallen since it was […]

Arriving in Japan

After I graduated back in 1997, I boarded a JAL flight from London to Tokyo as I set out to experience a country which would later become my home. I was 21 years old and had no idea of what to expect, in fact I wasn’t even sure that the family I hoped to stay with for the summer even knew I was coming! These were the days before the internet and […]