Welcome

December 24, 2019

Hello there! My name is Hannah, and The Haruna Home is a site for sharing about our international family, what it’s like to live overseas as an immigrant, and country life in rural Japan.

I also enjoy writing about topics such as interior design, decor, faith, food and gardening, so I will be sharing about these, too.

Whether you want to know what it’s like to live overseas, are seeking multicultural families that share your experiences, or are interested in the “slow life” and country living, we hope there will be something to interest you in the days ahead.

We also welcome your feedback and comments, and love to hear from our readers.

Welcome to our home!

Our Story

I am from the United States, and my husband Masashi is native Japanese.

We have been married for three years, and both have experience living overseas, and struggling with learning a foreign language. Our home is multicultural, multigenerational, and bilingual!

In late 2017, I started a blog about our family. However, my motivation to write was abruptly interrupted when I experienced some serious health issues. The following year my husband and I moved from Yokohama city to the countryside of Hyogo, and I kept blogging, though infrequently.

After moving, we took time off as a “belated honeymoon” to rest and refocus, and returned to our new home in the countryside refreshed and full of ideas.

My health also recovered, and I grew to love the countryside and the “slow life”.

A new chapter of our lives began! We plunged into becoming entrepreneurs, and opened the Creative Expression Academy. Despite many challenges, we achieved our goal of supporting ourselves through our family business, and finally the opportunity came to turn my attention back to blogging.

Thus this completely redesigned, refocused blog was born!

One of the reasons that I wanted to start a blog is that we feel passionately about the need for home.

We live in a country that is work-focused, and where family and faith are afterthoughts. The Haruna Home is a place for sharing about what home means for us, and our journey of creating a space and atmosphere of home that reflects our values.

Although we are still learning how to combine different cultures, languages, and backgrounds under one roof, we hope that our blog can be a voice of love, purpose, and joy on the topic of home – as well as sharing practical tips, and insight into our daily lives.

If you would like to follow along with us, please consider subscribing to future posts using the box at the bottom of this post! Also, we look forward to learning more about you. We would love to hear what part of the world you’re from and how you found our blog in the comments section below. ↓ ↓