#10 - Becoming a Tea Ceremony Master in Japan

- with Tyas Sosen

Tyas Sosen is a Belgium Tea Ceremony Master from Kyoto. He trained in an impressive number of traditional arts like calligraphy, kendo or flower arrangement before eventually joining a famous lineage of tea masters. During the next hour, we'll discuss tea, of course, but also Buddhism, Taoism, mindfulness, martial arts and the underlying principles of the tea ceremony.

#09 - Recreating Kyoto in VR

- with Alessandro de Bellegarde

Alessandro is an American videographer living in Kyoto. After working as a chef and directing his first movie, he created his own production company with a key mission: to archive Kyoto's cultural landmarks through virtual reality and high definition 3D videos. He has since been able to cover events such as the Gion Matsuri and be an ambassador for Kyoto at the Grammy Awards ceremony. In this interview, Alessandro discusses his love for Kyoto, his challenges working with the most traditional institutions and the responsibility of being a foreign resident in a city impacted by mass tourism.

#08 - Photographer @ AGK42 & UX designer

- with Alex Knight

Alex is more famously known online as AGK42. His unique style of photography attracted a strong following on Instagram. When he is not working as a UX designer at bitcoin.com, Alex spends his nights exploring and capturing Tokyo's hidden spots. He recently launched a great campaign allocating all the profits coming from his online shop directly to help the animals impacted by the terrible fires that devastated Australia. We discussed photography, fintech and nothing less than the meaning of life (spoiler, it's 42!)

#07 - Head of Design at Kyoto Journal

- with Hirisha Mehta

Hirisha Mehta is the Head of Design at Kyoto Journal, an award-winning magazine sharing artistic and cultural insights all across Asia. Hirisha's background includes experiences designing at Universal Studios and creating her own Japanese typeface. In this very rich episode, we discuss typography, scripts, Japanese design, Kyoto as a creative hub, architecture and local dialects.

#06 - Running a design & marketing agency in Tokyo

- with Nathan Hoernig

Nathan is the founder of Humble Bunny, a design and marketing agency now collaborating with famous international companies. Expatriate since 2007, Nathan explains how failing the JET program exams and creating a simple logo for a music band kickstarted his entrepreneurial adventure. He also shares his views on the marketing field in Japan and how valuable networking is.

3 hidden tricks to radically improve your Japanese skills

- Blog -

Learning Japanese is tough but the process can be significantly improved by a few mind tricks. After exchanging with Tao on this topic in a recent podcast episode, discover our battle-tested tricks to boost your Japanese level.

#04 - On bootstrapping a startup, selling it and rescuing Japan's primary sector

- with Tao Romera Martinez

In this episode, we discussed startups, acquisition VS venture money, identifying your strength and passion as well as strategies to radically improve in Japanese. Tao has been living in Japan for 15 years and transitioned from a corporate job to selling his startup and now saving Japan's agricultural economy.

#03 - Working in the Anime & Gaming industry

- with Adrian Leon Morris

Adrian currently works at Tokyo Otaku Mode, an e-commerce and news platform dedicated to the Japanese Pop culture (anime, manga, games...). He is also the co-host of the Unknown Games Podcast, a show covering video games. He discusses with us the job opportunities laying in the Japanese gaming industry.

#02 - Business English Coach & Glorified Freelancer

- with Lina Boudier

Lina shares with us her memories on her first few years in Japan, the challenges in creating a business here and in teaching English while being non-native. She also explains her conception of a "glorified freelancer" and how to move past this stage!

#01 - On creating Japan Life Stories

- with Paul Gaumer

Welcome to Japan Life Stories! As this episode is the very first of our series, I'd like to use this opportunity to introduce myself and share more on the origin of the podcast. How we got started, who is behind it and our plans for the show.