Welcome and thank you so much for stopping by A Hybrid Life. Here’s a quick About Me post to help you get to know me!

I was born in Kyoto, Japan to a Japanese mother and an American father. Six months later we relocated to Singapore for my dad’s job and lived there for a year and half. We then moved back to Japan, this time to Tokyo, where we stayed for another year and a half. After Tokyo, we moved to a small city called Besançon in eastern France and there we stayed for 5 years. From France we moved to Massachusetts, 6 miles from Boston, where I spent the rest of my childhood, until I went off to do a 4-year university degree in Western Massachusetts. During those 4 years, I spent a semester in London to be closer to one of my sisters that lived there at the time. I returned from London, completed my degree in Psychology, then settled back into my parent’s house working as a nanny and thinking about what to do next in life.  

During that year back at my parents’, I went for a quick visit to Morocco and Western Sahara and stayed with a local family. This trip turned out to be a pivotal moment in my life. Something about the trip convinced me there was a calling for me outside the country! I got back from the trip and immediately started looking for opportunities, something that would get me abroad with little effort. That’s when I landed an au-pair position in Bilbao, Spain! I had not even heard of Bilbao in my life but accepted the offer without giving much thought to it and started picking up more hours nannying and dog walking to save up for the move. 

I spent two years in Bilbao – the first year as an au-pair and the second as an English teacher. At the start of the second year I moved in with an Argentinian guy I had begun to date in my first year and at the end of the second year I got to go on a month-long trip to visit his family in Argentina! After that trip, we moved together to Madrid because I had decided to enroll in a year-long Master’s course in International Business. We split up a few months into our move, he moved away, and I stayed in Madrid to finish up my degree. It was an emotionally charged couple years of my life but the relationship left an enormous imprint that will last a lifetime. I completed the Master’s and started a 6-month internship at Warner Bros Consumer Products in the Madrid office (which had its own little movie theater!!!). 

Gosh, what an amazing 3 and a half years I spent in Spain. I traveled so much, I met so many wonderful people from all over the world, I was so free, and I learned so much about the world and about myself. It was very tough at times but what I would give to relive those day!  

Anyway, on to my next move. My parents and brother had recently moved to the Bay Area in California so I payed them a visit from Madrid to see if that would be a point of interest. They promised that I’d love it, which I absolutely did. During the visit, I landed a job at a Japanese company based in San Francisco and made my move after wrapping up my internship. Leaving Spain was painful but I knew it had to happen if I wanted any chance of growing my career. But more importantly, something inside me was pulling me back toward my family, particularly my mom.

This really took me by surprise but being in the Bay Area really just lifted a huge load off my shoulders. It was the first time I felt like there was a home for me as an Asian American – it was the first time I felt seen as BOTH Asian and American and that was just so normal. My chest felt light and I felt like I was floating! I never wanted to leave and I honestly felt so ready to settle in one place but who was I kidding?!

In the 5.5 years I lived in California, I met and married my husband who had moved to California from India to pursue his Master’s degree. We held three wedding ceremonies – the first at our home in California, our second at a wedding venue in Bangalore, and our third at a world heritage shrine in Nara, Japan.

Nine months after our Japanese wedding, in 2018, our first son was born. Ten months after he was born we quit our jobs and traveled with him to Germany, Spain, and India. We flew back to California, packed up all our belongings, and moved across the country to Massachusetts. My parents had moved back there one year prior and it made sense for our son to be raised with his grandparents nearby. We moved in the summer of 2019 and 6 months after we moved, COVID-19 hit and things began to shut down. In August 2020, we had our second son in the midst of the pandemic. In May 2023, our third son was born and right after he turned one in 2024, we packed up again and moved across the globe to Bangalore. My husband had always dreamt of coming back to India and being close to family, and I wanted to stand by the promise I had made earlier in our relationship to fulfill his dream.

So here I am in Bangalore starting my blog, 6 months into our move. It’s been an emotional roller coaster for all of us (particularly me) and I must say, moving alone versus moving with 3 little children is a VERY different life experience. Seeing things from their perspective is wonderful and enriching but boy is it hard to attend to their needs when I’m having a hard time attending to my own. But more on how I’m coping in later posts! As I’m sure you’ve noticed, traveling is a huge passion of mine and I’ll be taking advantage of my proximity to all these hidden gems in India and around Asia. Stay tuned for travel recommendations, particularly recommendations on where to go with young children. I will also be taking yoga to the next level and getting a teaching certificate from an internationally recognized school so will share my experience on that!

Thanks for reading through my little intro and I hope this gives you a high level idea of who I am to help you better understand my blog posts.