Our journey towards slow living.

We were living in Melbourne. Renting a tiny apartment in the middle of South Yarra, we loved the luxuries, the buzz and culture of the city but not the stressors that came with it. We sat down one night and realised we wanted needed to slow down. We wanted to discover a different way of living.

Andy had just finished her Ph.D and was looking at postdoctoral fellowships overseas. One rainy night in the middle of Melbourne’s winter a job came up at a state of the art university located in Okinawa, Japan – a small tropical island in the middle of the East China Sea. A few nights of research later we had discovered this little island has the longest life expectancy and is home to some of the happiness people in the world. It sounded like heaven. Beyond intrigued, we made the decision to explore this tiny slice of paradise and hopefully learn a few of the secrets to a more fulfilling life.

Two weeks later we had packed our entire apartment into boxes and were on a plane bound for Japan. The experiences over the following couple of years had a profound impact on who we are and how we now choose to live our lives. It completely redefined our values and we learned to slow down, to live in the present moment. 

Back to the present day, we’ve since returned to Australia with only a suitcase of our most treasured items, a beautiful baby girl and the knowledge of a very different way of life – this time without the stress. So that’s why we started here. to preserve this new mindset as part of our everyday living. We’re looking forward to sharing more of the story with you through the pages of this journal and if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, through our slow living space.