Who we are

Hi Everyone,

We are Mine and Erhan, a couple who spent 2 months in Japan from July to September 2018. We wished to tell our story sooner but life happened and we had to postpone it. Still, today we are writing this blog  since late is better than never, and there are still good memories and stories to pull from our adventure.

This blog is all about our experience in JAPAN.

I like to start telling our journey by introducing myself and my husband Erhan. If you don’t care about it, please go to the next post (bookings) or jump right into our adventure (Day 1, Tokyo) because the story might take a bit long.

First of all, even though it is a couple’s journey, I (Mine) will tell the story and Erhan will make some extra notes for you.

Erhan’s note: Mine’s name means mountaintop in Japanese. My name means nothing whatsoever and is quite difficult to japanify.

I (Mine) studied Chemistry in University, I even earned a Masters degree in Science. After graduation, I realized that I wasn’t into laboratory stuff so I found a job in the patent industry, became a Turkish patent agent and passed the exams for being a European Patent Attorney except the last one. I worked for 11 years as a patent attorney. I was happy about it except all the exam fuss but was it my dream job? I was always interested in photography, I started to make money and got a DSLR but didn’t make time to learn it too much until 2013. I was traveling for business and for leisure so I started to take photos more and more and it became a passion to me. Around 2017 I realized what was my dream job: being a photographer!

Japan was always a country that I wanted to explore, especially in terms of photography and I came to realize working full time, this wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to go there for a week or two only to leave with a brief experience much like the package deals tourists get. Together with some other factors this strengthened my resolve. So, I decided to quit my job and pursue my dreams.

Erhan studied Computer Science in the USA, then went to the Netherlands for Masters but ended up starting his own company with his brother there: Gray Lake Studios (http://graylakestudios.com/). He is an indie game developer and they have an app for TTRPG’s http://prodnd.blogspot.com/. We were lucky since he is able to work remotely. He is an amateur photographer too. You can say that he was always enthusiastic about Japan by looking at his collection of Manga and his Youtube history of Begin Japanology of Peter Barakan ( btw, if you haven’t watched them, I highly recommend it, it is informative and really really relaxing!).

We were high school friends who spent many years without each other after graduation but always kept in touch. We got married after dating for 6 months at the age 35 🙂 It’s a long story which may become a post in future.

Japan was a dream to both of us, so after quitting my job, we started to make our big plan.

All the photos in this blog are taken either by me or by Erhan. Erhan’s speciality is architectural photos, while I’m into street photography. We both used during the trip Fuji X-H1 as the camera, and as phones me an Iphone 8plus and Erhan a Samsung 8.

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