Day Seven

To start off our first full day in Kyoto, we attend a Japanese tea ceremony. After seeing the modern side of Japan and Japanese culture in Tokyo, we were ready to experience more traditional Japan, and the tea ceremony is one of Japan's oldest and most respected events.

We were all led into a beautiful building with tatami mats on the

floor, paper walls, and Japanese art everywhere. We were brought up to the second floor and introduced to our instructor and demonstrators for the ceremony. We were told we had to enter the tea room the

traditional way, which meant getting on your knees and opening up the door with your left hand first, then switching to your right when the door gets past the middle of your chest. After the door is open, you had to scoot on your knees over the threshold of the door before closing the door the same way you opened it. Everyone did this to enter the room, and then we bowed to a banner that the original tea master made over 100 years ago.

After a bit of an introduction, two volunteers showed the rest of the group (with the help of our instructor of course) how to make the tea and then how to receive and drink it. It's a very complicated process with lots of rules and formalities, including lots of bowing. The tea was a green tea power that hot water is added to, then the mixture is stirred with a bamboo whisk. After the tea is ready, the drinker then has a set of actions to

perform before drinking the tea and bowing to the tea maker.

After we watched the demonstration with our two volunteers, we all had a chance to be the tea makers as well as the tea drinkers. It was really tough to remember everything we had to do in each situation, but the instructor and helpers were very understanding and were more than willing to remind us what the next step was. It was very cool to participate in something that's been around for so long and is so much a part of Japanese culture. After the ceremony, we all stuck around for a while and asked a ton of questions.

We were then off to visit Kinkaku-ji or the "Golden Pavilion Temple", one of the most famous sites in Kyoto. The temple was first completed in 1397 and it's top two floors are covered in gold leaf. The temple itself is located near the center of a huge garden and on the shore of a lake surrounded by trees. Despite the rain, we spent the better part of an hour just wandering around the temple grounds and taking in the sites. We went straight from the temple grounds to lunch at a ramen noodle place a few blocks over. I got some pork ramen with rice and fried chicken pieces. It was one of the best meals I had all week!

After lunch we walked to Ryoan-ji, a Zen temple with a famous rock garden built in the 1400s. The garden consists of raked gravel and fifteen moss-covered boulders, which are placed so that, when looking at the garden from any angle (other than from above) only fourteen of the boulders are visible at one time. It is traditionally said that only through attaining enlightenment would one be able to view the fifteenth boulder. After examining the rock garden, we spent some time wandering around and checking out the inside of the temple and the garden around it.

That night we walked to Gion, the district of Kyoto where Geisha come from. We did get to see one at work in a restaurant in the area, but at that point the rain was really coming down, so a few of us grabbed a sushi dinner and others headed back to the inn. We spent the rest of the evening talking and watching Japanese television.

Day Six

Day Six was mostly a travel day for us to get from Tokyo down to Kyoto, the former Imperial capitol of Japan and now considered to be the center of Japanese culture. The city is completely dotted with temples and shrines, and we had almost 3 full days to take in as much of the city as we could.

We were up early to check out of our hotel in Tokyo and head down to Tokyo station to catch a ride on the bullet train down to Nagoya. The bullet train is a high-speed commuter rail that runs throughout the country reaching top speeds of around 300 mph. We all boarded the train with our luggage and enjoyed a very pleasant ride through the Japanese countryside. We got to see rice paddies, some Japanese rural housing, and a pretty decent view of Mt. Fuji. The ride lasted about two hours, after which we hopped on a bus in Nagoya to take us over to Toyota City where we would be treated to a tour of one of the many Toyota plants there. During the bus ride we were all treated to a traditional bento box lunch, which was quite delicious.

After arriving at the Toyota plant, we were led through one of the company's assembly plants, where they put together all of the finished parts to make a whole car. We were also brought through their spot wielding plant, where dozens of robot arms sprung to life every few minutes or so in a shower of sparks, wielding certain spots on each car frame as they moved down the line. It was really mesmerizing to see it all in action, and I really could not believe how much of the car building process was actually automated. We were reminded of Toyota Production System, used to minimize needless inventory and defects, and were given a lot of great details on what its like to work for a company like Toyota in Japan.

After the tour was completed, we had another three hour bus ride to Kyoto and finally checked into our hotel. Our hotel was actually a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan. There were tatami matts on the floor, and we were required to take our shoes off before stepping into the inn, and if you wanted to sit on the matts, you had to sit on the floor. We slept on bed rolls that were quite comfortable, and green tea and breakfast was provided. It was almost like a Japanese bed and breakfast in that respect. The inn was run by a very nice little old Japanese woman and her family. The room was certainly something straight out of old Japanese culture, and an interesting clash when compared to the rooms we had in Tokyo.

After we settled into our rooms, we ventures out for dinner and

found this great noodle place right around the corner from the inn. They also had tatami matts there, and we had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor. While it did make for an interesting dinner, it did get uncomfortable quickly! (Haha) I had some hot soba noodles and shrimp tempora that was excellent. After dinner we all headed back to the inn to get some sleep after a long day of traveling.

Tomorrow we would be taking part in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony first thing in the morning!