Kyoto · Tokyo
Japan
My first country. I learned to bow before I could order coffee. Today I have my usual ryokan and a seat at a sushiya where the chef knows me.
About me
Julia. Living Asia from within.
I'm not a tour guide and I'm not an agency. I'm someone who left Europe years ago to live in Asia — and hasn't come back.
I arrived in Tokyo at twenty, with a backpack. Since then I've spent long stretches living and working across Japan, South Korea and China. I've done all kinds of jobs to make it work: language teacher, waitress in a Kyoto café, gallery assistant in Seoul, informal translator at Shanghai markets.
Every job was a door. I learned the languages — Japanese patiently, Korean energetically, Chinese stubbornly — but above all I learned the codes: when to speak and when to be quiet, when you're being invited to a table and when you're not, how to ask for something without asking.
Over the years, people close to me started asking me to help them come and visit. Then friends of friends. Then people I didn't know at all, who had been told to 'talk to Julia'. WithJulia was born from that, almost by accident.
I don't design packages. I design the trip I'd take with you if you asked me. Same bookings, same restaurants, same phone book.
Journey
Three countries, one home
Seoul
South Korea
I landed for a three-month gig and stayed nearly two years. Seoul doesn't let you go: the design, the food, the people who adopt you as their own.
Shanghai · Beijing
China
The hardest country, and the most grateful. When someone in China opens a door for you, they open it all the way. I owe a lot to many families.
I don't promise a perfect trip. I promise a trip you'll recognise as yours when you come back.
— Julia