She fell in love with traditional Japanese homes during a high school trip. At 24, she bought one in the countryside.

• Coline Aguirre bought a traditional house in the Japanese countryside when she was 24. • She left France and moved to Japan alone to restore the property and start her own real-estate consultancy. • "It's been three years now, but it still feels like a dream," Aguirre said.

Coline Aguirre first began to imagine her future during a high school exchange program in Japan a decade ago.

Aguirre, who was born in Paris but moved around a lot as a child, spent a year studying in Kanagawa, a prefecture about 40 miles outside Tokyo.

During a visit to her host family's grandparents in the countryside, she discovered that they lived in a traditional Japanese house built in the '70s, with elegant wooden beams and beautiful tatami rooms.

"That was the first time I slept in a tatami room. Befor