Ken and Mio have just recently arrived in Edinburgh, having spent the winter in Mio's home town of Shirotori in Gifu prefecture, Japan. They have settled into their Edinburgh home in the New Town area of the city and are getting to know the town quite well.

Ken is of Scottish parents yet born in Wales and brought up in England. He is a storyteller, didgeridoo player, and teacher, and is presently organising visits to schools to tell the tales he has gathered in his fifteen years of international travel. Mio has accompanied him recently on trips around England and to Canada where she played her Celtic Folk Harp to delighted audiences.

Shirotori, in the Japanese Alps, is famous for having the purest spring water in Japan, and it is here that Mio has grown up surrounded by the traditional arts of Ikebana, and the Japanese Tea Ceremony (Cha-no-yu). Mio studied and trained in the art of the tea ceremony with a master Yoshiko Noda. The tea ceremony is a form of spiritual culture, a discipline that transforms itself into an 'art of life'. It encompasses an appreciation of the most ordinary items of daily life, and at its core lies a 'moral geometry' that keeps us mindful of our place in the greater scheme of the universe. Through the ceremony, Mio is ready to offer you the ceremonial aspects as well as giving voice to traditional Asian values, stories, and ideals that have been little recognised in the West. Mio seeks to convey the spirit of the tea ceremony as a crystallisation of the cultural life of the East; the living synthesis of traditional arts.

Ken and Mio are very happy to be living in the beautiful city of Edinburgh, and they hope to meet a lot of people, to make new friends, and to share a wonderful time together.