Meet Your Hosts

Our Story

A long time ago, in a land far, far away... No really.. when Shino was in her early 20s she did a work holiday for a year in Paris, France. She stayed with a "host mother" in her home and that host mother helped her in so many unforeseen ways. It was a wonderful experience. Then one day she got a call (OK, social media DM) from a friend from Slovenia she had met years ago in Japan. She wondered if her friend, also from Slovenia, could stay with us for a couple of weeks while she found a place to stay longer term for her semester at Tokyo University in her master's program. Turns out, we got along great and offered for her to stay the entire time in our guestroom. That experience felt a lot like "paying if forward" for Shino and in general meeting people from around the world seemed fun, so we decided to do it more often, and listed ourselves on homestay.com.

So far the experience has been nothing but great, but homestay's rules have felt a little constrictive, interfering in our process. After all, we're mostly doing this to make friends. But we also wanted the process to be much easier for our guests. It's always a "negotiation" to work out payments for the guests' stay. We end up explaining house rules, how everything works, and certain "being in Japan" things that all tourists have to deal with. Not that we mind so much as we thought it was easier for all parties to just have it online as a reference where guests can read about all of that before they even come to Japan, or refer to things they forgot.

The money we charge is more or less to just try to cover the costs associated with hosting guests, not a money-maker. We tend to cook a lot and share our meals with our guests, take them out to dinner on occasion, take them to see certain sights, etc. Plus, there's the added cost to electricity, water, gas... laundry detergent... the list goes on. Hey, we're far from rich - in fact we're watching our yen (pennies). This way we don't have to worry about anything but enjoying each other's company. We hope you get something out of the site, even if it's just the ability to pay in multiple ways. ;-)