***Please do not send me a couch request if you have zero reference so far. I am only accepting people with couch surfing experiences. Also, as a general rule, please send me a request after reading through my profile :) If we have more things in common, please state that. The percentage of getting accepted will be increased***

Hi there! I'm Rio and I'm a journalist/reporter at the Japanese online news media. As all the other journalists are, I'm always desperately looking for something exciting, interesting and inspirational. So in exchange of offering the stay I require you one thing - to bring me the breaking news all over the world! Especially, if you are an expert of "token economy" of blockchain technology or knowing the startup situation of US/EU, you will be more than my guest. Other than that, I stated my field of interests below; so please appeal what you can offer to me.

[Disclaimer]
I'm quite outgoing and have no trouble talking with new people (my MBTI is ENTP). BUT truely in my heart I feel more confortable hanging out with introverts. So if you enjoy silent companies, please state that. I see you more interesting :)

PHILOSOPHY

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
―Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy."
― Richard Stallman, Free software & copyleft activist

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
― Buckminster Fuller

“All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world.”
“Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life and it’d lose even its imperfection.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputonik Sweetheart

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

As mentioned above, I see the couchsurfing great tool to get in touch with the world. Generally speaking Japan is culturally an isolated country from other part of the world. My job is to report what is happening outside of Japan, and to know it, nothing is better than talking with people coming from outside of Japan. This is the reason I do couchsurfing.

Interests

A little about my personal history:

I was born and raised in Japan, and I studied politics in Sweden and the Netherlands for in total 4.5 years.

When I was in Europe, my personal goal was to fix politics to fit the digital society. I'm obsessed with copyright reform, free software movement and white hacker/whistle-blower protection legislation... After studying the EU politics for 3 years/working at the European institution in Brussels, however, I thought that politics can never change before the society changes.

So basically I quit to pursue politics as my career. Instead, I decided to work in the field of digital technology x arts, which I thought very interesting too. Thus, I went back to Tokyo to work for the company that creates digital art.

After a year of doing PR of that company, I again switched my career to a journalist that covers digital society. I indeed couldn't give up politics for my career, so started approaching it from the different way.

So this is the quick run-down of my career path for these years. From my experiences, my field of expertise as a journalist ranges from art, culture, history, entertainment, media, journalism to politics, economics and the future that will be realized by the technology. Yes, this is a lot - and I'm even not satisfied with it. I'm an information addict (and Sapiosexual too XD), so if you can add to my list of interested topics, you will certainly be more than my guest.

• arts
• culture
• books
• contemporary art
• music festivals
• dining
• coffee
• politics
• technology
• anime
• traveling
• music
• electronic music
• christian
• muslim
• jewish
• economics
• history
• journalism
• political science
• religion
• science
• software
• food
• watching movies
• digital art
• craft beer
• innovation
• edm
• future
• europe
• media
• scandinavia
• startups
• sharing economy
• cafe
• artificial intelligence
• freesoftware
• democracy
• european union
• good beer
• european politics
• specialty coffee
• open minded people
• opensourcesoftware

Music, Movies, and Books

Books with philosophical implication...
George Orwell, Haruki Murakami, Arnest Hemingway, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Children books/picture books!...
Astrid Lindgren (from Sweden, 'Pippi Långstrump' 'Emil i Lönneberga')
Erich Kästner (from Germany, 'Emil und die Detektive' 'Das doppelte Lottchen')
E. L. Konigsburg (from US, 'From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler')

From my childhood, Bon Jovi and Sheryl Crow have been always my favorite.
Also I am a big fan of Swedish pops i.e. Roxette, Meja, Cardigans, Hello Saferide...

And lots of comics/Mangas :)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

To be born in this world; live now here; expand the world

What I Can Share with Hosts

JAPANESE FOOD! Believe me, its not only about sushi;)

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Viet Nam