Blog

So who are the Nagomi Visit guests?

2013-09-28

Hopefully this will give you an idea of what types of people participate in Nagomi Visit. This is a summary of our first two years.

Basically what all this means is that we have 5 times more participants than last year! Woo-hoo!

There is also more diversity with guest from 19 more countries than last year, where a large number are from the United States, Australia, Singapore, Spain, Canada, UK, and Italy. Though most are travelers, we love that more expats in Japan are using our program to help explore outside of their communities.

What is not included in the infographic is we now have more hosts who are vegetarian or vegan or can arrange these meals. There are also many who can make meals without pork, beef, or handle various allergies such as shellfish which has also helped us to welcome a more diverse group of guests!

Although the Kanto and Kansai area are the most popular with Tokyo at the top, then Osaka and Kyoto, we are glad to see more in other parts of Japan including Nagoya!

We thank all of you who have made this possible!

Happy 2nd year anniversary Nagomi Visit!

2013-09-08

Arigato to all of you since you made this happen! Woo-hoo!

We started as Nagomi Kitchen back in November 2011. There were three hosts who were part of our home visit program who were friends of ours. Founder Megumi was the only cooking instructor we had for our cooking classes. We actually didn’t even have a proper website back then.

During the early years we were literally doing everything from finding hosts from our personal network to teaching the cooking classes.

Many things happened since then. After much thought we renamed our organization to Nagomi Visit International and became a registered nonprofit organization. Our first step outside of the greater Tokyo area was to expand our activities into the Kansai region.

The amazing power of the internet, word-of-mouth, the media, and our growing number of supporters helped the Nagomi Visit community of hosts and instructors to expand, eventually making it normal for Nagomi Visit activities to happen everyday simultaneously all across Japan. Now we have close to 100 hosts all over Japan.

We gotta be honest. It was a lot of work and will continue to be but if it wasn't for all of you we still wouldn't be here two years later so arigato so much! Oh, and don't forget to keep in touch :)

Nagomi Visit Facebook teasers

2013-06-28

The show we are going to be on today has been posting various teasers on their Facebook page about the episode we are going to be featured on. This is very exciting. Here is one of the main ones translated into English.

On this week’s Table of Dreams

This kyaraben (character bento box) was actually made by a Japanese anime loving French couple.

Right now short homestay programs called home visits are becoming popular among travelers who want to learn more about real Japanese food. This is a kyaraben that was made in one of these home visits.

Food can play a crucial role in fostering meaningful conversation between people of various backgrounds.

This week’s “Table of Dreams” may make the world a better place. The dining table becomes the center stage where people come together to connect with the world.

June 29th (Saturday) from 22:30, rerun on July 6th (Saturday) 9:30 on BS Fuji

Nagomi Visit being on television is only part of the story

2013-06-24

So if you have been following Nagomi Visit for awhile you probably already know that our program is going be featured on television this weekend June 29th 22:30-23:00 on BS Fuji.

Now this is BIG NEWS because it is not just a measly few minutes of screen time but a full thirty minute documentary (if you want to be exact probably 29 minutes minus a one minute long Kirin commercial) about what Nagomi Visit is about and what we are trying to accomplish as an organization. It's just us and only us for the full episode. Amazing!

When we were first contacted by the producers it was sure a dream come true but at the same time a bit hard to believe since we had been contacted before with similar offers. Even after meeting the crew and all the filming, it still felt like a dream.

Finally it is slowly starting to feel real with a photo and description about our program on the show's website and only a few days away until the episode airs.

Hopefully we will be able to do a recap for those who are not able to see the show live but before that, here is a rough translation of what it says on the website.

"Know what a home visit is? It's a program where locals welcome travelers from all over the world to come to their home to eat lunch or dinner.

When you're traveling, it is often difficult to find a chance to really interact with locals and get to see what it is like to live in the place. However, with a home visit travelers can get a glimpse by going to a local home and sharing a meal.

Megumi Kusunoki who founded and operates this home visit program believes that there are many cultural boundaries that can be broken just by sharing a home-cooked meal. Not everyone has to be a native speaker in each other's language because food will help to cultivate good conversation.

The program is becoming popular around the world because the experience is similar to a long-term homestay program but can be done in just two or three hours.

There are currently over 60 hosts (note: there are actually 70 as of now), and over 220 groups who have visited these various households from 35 countries.

In this episode we will be following a French couple making a Japanese character lunch box, a solo traveler from the United States among others. You will also see Nagomi Visit host Eri Taniguchi as she prepares to meet five travelers from Italy. The five of them who are artists and designers are visiting Japan in hopes to see the country they first came to know through animation and its culture. Eri prepares various dishes for the day including inarizushi fried tofu pouches filled with sushi rice, miso glazed dengaku, braised pork belly kakuni, fermented squid shiokara, and salted umeboshi plums.

Will the guests like the Japanese dishes they tried for the first time?

Let us explore this Home Visit: a new kind of cultural exchange that begins at the dining table. It is where people first come to connect as travelers and locals, but eventually cultivate real friendships."

This thirty minute show was a result of four days of filming spending many amazing hours with various hosts, guests, Yuko one of our Cooking Visit instructors, myself Alisa Sanada the Chief Operating Officer, and of course our founder Megumi Kusunoki.

A big huge arigato to all those who were with us during the filming including friends and family cheering us on in the sidelines. Yes, because of your support Nagomi Visit will be making its first major television appearance but that is not the only point I'd like to make here.

All those days of filming and waiting for the show to air have all been an important journey.

Hearing stories directly from hosts and guests, it reassured that they are not just participants but are people who strongly believe in our program's goals of true cultural exchange. We were also grateful to really see that there is a growing solid Nagomi Visit community and it is not just a scatter of ties between individual hosts and guests. Lastly, for the Nagomi Visit team, this will be a big opportunity to share with more people what really motivates us as individuals to run the program we love so much.

So thank you all not just for the screen time but the whole experience!

Lets see what happens on June 29th 22:30-23:00 on BS Fuji!

So who exactly are the Nagomi Visit hosts?

2013-06-19

We’ve probably already told you somewhere that they are real people just like you. Many are in their 20s to 60s, who live alone or with friends and family in apartments and homes all across Japan including Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sendai, Fukuoka, Niigata, Hakuba/Matsumoto, and Iga Ueno.

But now we have a video so you can see for yourself!

Make sure to turn on the English captions (subtitles) if they aren't already on :)

So what is Nagomi Visit all about?

2013-05-29

We have been getting a lot of media attention lately and are noticing a pattern in the questions we are being asked so decided to do a rundown of the basics.

This sudden surge in interest motivated us to really self reflect and update our About Us page so we are very grateful of this opportunity in addition to the obvious well needed exposure.

Nagomi Visit International is a non-profit organization promoting cultural understanding through home cooking. We provide a forum for cultural and culinary exchange by inviting locals to open their homes for travelers over lunch or dinner.

We know meal sharing is not a new phenomenon but Nagomi Visit is here to make it easier to connect travelers and locals with the help of a little technology and a real life support team. Being an organization that started in Tokyo, we currently already have a strong fan and user base in Japan. However what makes us more special is that our programs are setup so that it is clear that all our participants are in it to make meaningful connections with travelers and locals alike as oppose to for monetary reasons. Safety is also a trait since the Nagomi Visit team takes time to communicate with all hosts and guests to create a community.

In 2009, Nagomi Visit’s founder Megumi visited Denmark for the first time and was invited to a local home for dinner. The foods, the people, everything she saw was new to her but the warmth she felt was just like anything she would experience with friends and family back home in Japan. The new bond she made by sitting at the same table “breaking bread together” or “eating rice out of the same pot,” was the inspiration for founding Nagomi Visit on September 2011.

We want to encourage locals and travelers to humanize each other by “breaking bread” during their travels.

While there are many ways to exchange cultures, there is an important reason as to why we literally took the Japanese idiom “onaji kama no meshi o kuu” and made it into a program where people of all cultures come together to “eat rice out of the same pot.” Visiting a local home for lunch or dinner is the closest you can get to sharing each other’s everyday lives, which is the best way to start seeing a country for it’s people and not just as another place.

Basically real people just like you. Many are in their 20s to 60s, live alone or with friends and family in apartments and homes all across Japan including Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sendai, Fukuoka, Niigata, Hakuba/Matsumoto, and Iga Ueno. There are many who are hosting because they themselves have been welcomed to a local home and being a part of Nagomi Visit is their way of giving back.

All our participants from 35 countries have so far been couples, families with children, friends, solo travelers, basically everyone who is an independent-minded traveler wanting to know more about Japan or interested in meeting new people. Though most of our participants have been between the ages of 20 to 60, we have had requests from very active 70 year olds which is very humbling.

We also have large groups of professors, instructors, and students participate as part of their school program, and even expats who have lived in Japan for awhile but would like to become more immersed into the local community.

We hope that the more you put into it the more you get out of it. Generally it’s the first time a traveler meets a local in their own home so that already is in itself a rewarding experience. Most participants come into the program ready to eat a good meal of course but are surprised by the variety of dishes they have never seen before in their local Japanese restaurant back home. Even those who have eaten the dishes, notice that not everyone cooks it like their restaurant does. Some also notice that they started liking ingredients they thought they didn't care for before like seaweed, seafood, tofu and the like because of freshness or differences in preparation among other reasons. Then of course is the time you spend with the host. Both the verbal and nonverbal exchanges have led to some great friendships. Even if not all conversations lead to everlasting relationships, don’t hesitate to ask hard hitting questions as this is your opportunity to learn.

We are always expanding the number of hosting areas but we also have a few more Nagomi Cooking Visit instructors who will be able to teach Japanese cooking in other parts of Japan besides in Tokyo.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us!

Nagomi Visit is now a nonprofit organization!

2013-01-24

It's official! Nagomi Visit is now a nonprofit organization! Check out our press release.

Being a nonprofit is hard. We are required by law to be very transparent and well monitored. The paperwork necessary to maintain our nonprofit status is cumbersome. But Nagomi Visit is an organization built by people for people. We know for sure that we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for all of you wonderful people so earning everyone’s trust as a transparent nonprofit organization was a very important decision.

Being a nonprofit will allow us to just focus on making Nagomi Visit a sustainable program for years to come. As an organization focused on self-sufficiency, all the money you are paying as a guest will go straight to making our program available for the next new guest and host and for no other purpose. Every single yen will strictly go towards making the Nagomi Visit vision come true.

The goal of any successful nonprofit organization is to bring good into this world. With Nagomi Visit, we simply want to give people the opportunity to not just learn about Japan but break boundaries over good conversation and of course very good food. Yum!

Finally,

Rather than just the two of us on the About Us page dictating how things work at Nagomi Visit, being a nonprofit will allow us to run our organization with the help of many who are part of the Nagomi community. An organization built on communication could not be built by us alone.

We started Nagomi Visit because we knew that travelers coming to Japan were looking for a way to meet locals and try real homemade Japanese food. We also knew that locals in Japan wanted a way to connect with the global community. However, it wasn’t until close to 30 hosts and 200 guests later that we realized we needed to take the next step to keep Nagomi Visit going.

So becoming a nonprofit organization is our first step into a big year as Nagomi Visit International!

Nagomi Kitchen is now Nagomi Visit!

2012-10-17

It's an exciting time at Nagomi Visit right now.

First, we changed our name from Nagomi Kitchen to Nagomi Visit.

How is that exciting you say? Providing a platform for people to discover real home cooked Japanese food is still very important to us but we wanted to put a bit more of a spotlight on the people that are sharing their yummy food with you when you join a Nagomi Visit because they are the backbone of our program. Good food with good people in the comfort of your "home" in Japan is what we want to provide so changing the name to Nagomi Visit was a no-brainer.

Second, we did a complete overhaul of both our Japanese and English websites.

This is exciting news because we wouldn't have done this unless we were sure that people were interested in our program. We have been humbled by the response we have gotten from both guests participating in our program and the hosts who are welcoming our guests. We just started last year as a program but we are already reaching 150 participants and are very glad to say that interest from both sides is growing!

So we wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you who have supported us through our first year and glad we are able to welcome more people to our Nagomi family!

Nagomi Kitchen is now in Tokyo and Osaka!

2012-07-14

We are glad to announce that Nagomi Kitchen is expanding into the Kansai region! This means you will be able to visit a host family while you visit any of the major Kansai cities including Kyoto, Nara, or Osaka.

Our first Kansai region host family will be welcoming you to their home in Osaka.

Since we first started Nagomi Kitchen in 2011, we were surprised at the number of people participating in more than one home visits even when we still only had host families in the greater Tokyo area. Now with the Kansai addition, I am hoping people will find that there is even more reason to visit multiple families. Thank you to all our host families. We wouldn't be here without you!

New kyaraben class teacher!

2012-07-12

Two fantastic things happened this Monday. First, we had a very cheery guest from Chile participate in our kyaraben character bento class. With her skilled hands she sure made a yummy bento box bursting with cuteness. I am very serious. Just look at the pictures!

Second, we now have our friend Yuko as our very cool English and un poquito Spanish speaking kyaraben teacher! A professional of the culinary arts and teaching so we are in very good hands.

So next time you come and participate in the Nagomi Kitchen kyaraben class we hope you will be excited like these tofu meatballs to meet Yuko and of course learn some Japanese home cooking!

Note: we no longer conduct Nagomi Kitchen cooking classes but feel free to look for Nagomi Visit hosts who are interested in cooking with you by checking their profile pages. Nagomi Visits are not cooking classes but it will be an enjoyable experience like cooking with a friend.