Hi everyone, I'm Maiko, living in Yokohama and working in Tokyo. I've been to Edinburgh (Scotland, UK) for a year of exchange program, and took advantage of it to travel around the western Europe. I also spent 3 weeks in Utah at my host family's with whom I still keep in touch. I received a letter from my host mother with some recent pictures of her children by the way... they were small kids when I stayed with them but it was 10 years ago. I was astonished to see them grown up so much... No wonder I look older now!
Anyways, I treasure all the experience and friendship I made in Utah and Europe, but I'm stuck in Japan since I came back from the UK for almost 8 years now... Okay, I went to South Korea in May, but it was just a short visit of 3 days!! So it'd be really nice if I could make new friends from all over the world.

* I added an album with some Japanese sceneries, so if you're interested, enjoy them! Updated on '09 Aug. 11, with photos from Yokohama, Kamakura and Odawara :)
* Thank you for all the comments on my rabbit. For her fans, I created new album with more pictures of her.

First of all, thank you very much for writing to me. But please put something more than variations of "greetings"​ and try to make your message "personal"​, so that I can write back to you. Well, I still get many "greetings"​ and all of them are well received, it's just that I might not reply.

And thank you for having interests in Japanese culture and language. Although I'd be happy to help you learn them, please don't start with "tell me about Japanese culture"​ or "I want to learn Japanese language"​. I'm here to make friends, and I'm not a teacher or any kind of expert in those fields. But if you have specific questions or when you face any difficulties​ in the course of your learning, I'll do my best to answer and help!

I don't have much time for hobbies now, but I used to learn and/or enjoy
-cooking (including baking cakes and breads)
-playing piano
-Japanese / Chinese calligraphy
-drawing / painting
-swimming
-tennis
-traveling
-walking