What a joy ride of a year!
Over the past 12 months, I traveled to new places for new experiences and meeting new people. I spent 18 months in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo and ran the streets of Shibuya, the fashion mecca of Japan. I was able to enjoy so many events during my time there as well. There is always something to do in Tokyo!
Some would say it might have been a pretty good year; I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have received so many amazing opportunities. I still look at it all as part of my re-branding of myself and what I am focused on doing here in Japan. At the end of 2015, I accidentally changed some settings that took my website offline for about 96 hours and pushed me to get my presence back ‘online’ before the next big event (Tokyo Fashion Week). I totally redesigned my entire website to have a more visible front end for you (the user) to more easily enjoy keeping up with my activities. Have spent most of 2016 fine tuning things here in my website to make it function the best for me. For most of this year, I lived in Tokyo until July. I could cover several big car shows and events. I was able to enjoy taking amazing photos at the 2016 Red Bull Air Race, very exciting time for me. I enjoyed hanging out with friends and meeting new people during Tokyo Fashion Week. I was just a few steps away from Yoyogi Stadium where Tokyo Girls Collection typically holds most of their fashion & music events. Of course I also was able to attend several drifting events and car shows out in Odaiba. I was a regular at Hooters in Shibuya as well and ate pretty much everything on the menu… still prefer the buffalo chicken sandwich.
And at the same time, I can’t deny this year has included some of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced. Completing my contract that took me to Tokyo in the first place. Seeking freelance opportunities. Self-doubt. Cancelled trips. I started the year on one of the highest points of my life, then took a dip in the later half, but end up being one of my strongest. Seems those terrible experiences were necessary for me to reassess the things I am doing in my life and make the leap I’d been putting off for a while.
This pretty much sums up my 2016!
