JAPANESE COUNTRY INNS

This is a program run twice a year by Guides for All Seasons of Calpine, California. The company owners and guides lived in Japan although they areAmericans.

They wish to provide mostly American travelers with "an authenticJapanese experience." The travelers meet with their guide at their hotel inTokyo.

All accommodations are arranged during the two week trip inJ apanese-owned lodgings. Travelers stay at a hotel in Tokyo, a small family-runryokan in the resort town of Kawaguchi-ko, at an onsen or hot springs resort inthe North Alps, a former samurai road house in Takayama, and a Buddhist templein Kyoto to give the travelers a variety of experiences in Japanese living. Atthe temple they sleep on zabuton in simple rooms divided by shoji. They walkdown to the local sento for their baths. In contrast, at Kinkikan in Takayama,the teas offered in their rooms are changed several times per day and they havenew silk covered futons every day.

Some meals are included in the tour cost, but the travelers have choicesof where they would like to eat. One morning they may eat udon at a street stall outside the Tokyo fish market. Another evening they are served kaiseki ryori andshabu shabu at Kinkikan by women in the traditional kimono. At the hot springsresort they learn about communal bathing, very different from most bathing inthe USA, sitting in steaming water, much hotter than most they have ever beenin, with their washcloth perched on their head.

The travelers take the local subway, buses, rent bicycles at Kawaguchi-koto ride around the lake, walk and take the Shinkansen. They have some free timeaway from the tour group to explore, to meet local Japanese people. One eveningat Kawaguchiko they go to a local festival, watch traditional dances, playcarnival games, eat special festival foods and observe how Japanese familiesenjoy the holiday.

They visit the Tokyo fish market early in the morning, shop at a knifeshop in Kyoto that has been run by the same family for hundreds of years and buyhand made knives and scissors that are works of art. They buy handmade papers,beautiful textiles, books about Japan. They visit temples and museums, and thecastle at Matsumoto to learn about the history of Japan. But they also talk withtheir guide about manga, how businessmen unwind after work, and visit a pachinkoparlor. They also see a place where homeless people live in cardboard boxes ina passageway connecting subway stations in Tokyo. Each person has their shoeslined up neatly outside their cardboard box and they seem dressed neatly despitetheir poverty.

The guide tries to provide the travelers with a well rounded view ofJapan, past and present, and some aspects of the culture that tourists might notnormally see.