Lorena Jang
Coming from a small town in northern British Columbia, Canada “where anyone who was someone knew everyone.” From the minute I could gather the funds to travel, I left to tour Europe. It was 2006 put in a year-adds a time frame and longevity, I was young and impressionable, and many of the lessons I learnt that summer have stayed with me to present day.
Fast-forward over three decades and I have a husband and a teenage daughter. My daughter, from the very start, wanted to learn as many languages as she could and try as many different foods as our world could offer. As she grew into a young woman, she became my inspiration to start travelling the world again. Better late than never, I thought. And what better way to travel than with a companion, my best friend.
About traveling: I have travelled to many places in the last five years: from Japan, to Dubai, to Switzerland, and onwards. I believe that travelling is something that everyone should at least experience once in their lifetime. The excitement of traveling is like not being able to put down a good book or wait to get to the end of the book to see what happens.
For the same reason that Newspapers must hire journalists to travel around the globe chasing their scoops. The way to experience something is to be there, to be able to take in every sight, taste, and texture with our own five senses. Through mutual experience, people are able to form stronger, longer-lasting relationships, and most importantly, our views and opinions widen to incorporate the opinions of many others outside the sphere of our upbringing which I must insist, makes for a better, more grounded individual. To sum it up, I believe travelling contributes to both our interpersonal and intrapersonal health.
Doing what I love: My passion for travelling and my gift for connecting with greatest people have culminated into what I can now present to you as J. Lor & Company. I would like to share my passion with you and invite you to explore Italy at its greatest authentic and tangible, to create experiences and memories to last a life time with friends and family.
It is my pleasure, working with each of the companies we have picked, to be your host and live, learn, eat and drink as Italians do.
Fabrizio Belardetti
www.fabriziobelardetti.com
Photography found Fabrizio in 1993, on a rural road in bologna, middle Italy. His dad has just gotten his camera stolen, and Fabrizio was sent out to find a replacement.
On his way back, with the new camera in hand, he noticed the world was looking different. he started clicking away. Twenty one years later and he has never looked back.
Fabrizio’s gift is his capacity to freeze a moment of real life: tears of joy in the eyes of a bride, the far away look in the eyes of a hermit, and the water drop as it slowly finds its way down a palm leaf.
He loves to capture the emotions of the moment. Fabrizio yearns to capture the aliveness of a moment so that we can go back to it, years later, and still feel exactly the way we felt on that day when the picture was taken.
It is not the camera or the act of photography that inspires Fabrizio.
It is the capacity to capture the essence of the moment.
Rie Kanzawa
Rie, who is from Japan has an educational background in architectural design and has been doing art since she was young. In Japan, she worked as a wedding floral designer and has continued to expand her creative talents and English ability working as a florist in Vancouver. She is passionate about travel, fashion and design. Together with Jimmy, she has been working on the design and artistic side of their company, Arawhiti Studios. They have recently finished their first book, Take it Easy Teaching, which is a book of teaching activities for language teachers.
Jimmy Jisaka
Jimmy is an ESL teacher from New Zealand, with a BA in Japanese and Development Studies, and an MA in Applied Linguistics. He has spent four and a half years living in Japan, and has studied Japanese for 15 years. As part of Arawhiti Studios he runs the blog, website, Youtube channel and other odd and ends. He has traveled extensively and likes to play music with his band Muley in his free time.