CURRENT MISSION

Getting used to living in Tokyo after 3 years in the deep inaka South of Mount Aso, and two trips around the world (thank you peace boat!)

ABOUT ME

Churned 34 recently (butter be a good year!)

Been living in Japan for 6 years (on and off), now working for an international NGO🛳️

Spend most of my awake time at a desk thinking about climate action and how many coffees is too many coffees.

🤸 Back from a trip to Colombia. Still can't tell one coffee from another 🤸

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting when I can and/or grabbing a cup of coffee/sake and sharing my modest knowledge of Japanese culture. I try to show the visiting friend or the CSer a side of Japan they wouldn't necessarily see as plain tourists. My use of gestures and body language often makes up for my dull looks (sorry Mamma I never meant to hurt yoooou).

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Before I knew of Couchsurfing, I had slept at random people's places a few times.

In 2007, I was an exchange student in Poland. My tutor and I had planned on going to Northern Poland (Sopotz) to see a concert. We decided on meeting directly in Sopotz at 11 pm and then go to a youth hostel there.

On that cold night of winter 2007, I arrived at the train station at the agreed time and my friend wasn't there. I tried to call her for like an hour but it was impossible to reach her. I knew her answering machine message by heart by 12am. Realizing that I was in a desperate situation, with nowhere to stay at, no money in my pockets (had my credit card but no cash on me and the station was in the middle of nowhere), I started to talk to random people around the station, trying to explain the best I could the situation with gestures (I got a master's in mime) and it worked ! One very nice guy invited me to stay at his place. I guess he thought I was nice since the following day we went walking around his city, having lunch with a bunch of his friends. One of the best random encounters of my short life.

That was really really cool.

And for the record, she said someone had stolen her bag before she could get on the train so she couldn't call me. And no we haven't been living happily ever since.

Interests

- Swimming. I finished first in a one-person race and therefore competed at a regional level in a swimming competition (熊本県大会).

- Making costumes out of very little

- American (good) TV

- Big breakfasts

- Uniqlo tight-fitting pants

- Poorly executed photoshop montages

- Hilarious (to me) multilingual puns

- Youtube

- Avocados

- Not kanji

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

- Getting fired on my first day in a fancy wine bar because I was pouring waaaay too generously (in my defence the glasses were abnormally big and it was hard to tell)

- Worked (more like volunteered considering how little we were paid) as an extra in the 2013 Japanese blockbuster Rurouni Kenshin 2.

- Interpreted in Tahiti for survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing. That was very emotional (no sarcasm there).

Teach, Learn, Share

Some things I'll share :

- My very French joie de vivre and my passion for bons mots

- Stories of my travels (and I got looooads of them ranging from mildly interesting to overly boring)

- My views on human relationships among which friendship, family, love.

ｰNOT MY TOOTHBRUSH!! (Ok, maybe my toothbrush)

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, French Polynesia, Gibraltar, Greece, Guam, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Peru, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Ireland, Japan, Poland

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