Japanese Hospitality and Generosity

You probably noticed that I didn’t have any new postings on this blog for a couple of days. This is due to the enormous generosity and hospitality that we encounter when we visit the different gardens, factories, and places. Our group is drawing quite a bit of attention, with local media reporting about us on the news, on the radio and in the paper. The employees of the factories that we visited are tremendously helpful. They seem to bend over backwards to make us happy and to answer any questions we may have. We have been overwhelmed by everyone’s friendliness and were at times simply speechless. Their hospitality often resulted in longer stays than anticipated and we ended up at our hotel very late in the day – by then I was hardly awake to write this blog.

Just to name an example – after our visit at the tea garden of Mr. Maejima, we were invited to the local Kindergarten. There, we were treated to a cup of Gyokuro, prepared by the Gyokuro guru himself, a bamboo tea treat (Matcha jelly in a fresh bamboo), storytelling in traditional costume used for picking tea, folklore presented by the masters best friend, and last but not least dancing with the kids from Kindergarten. And once again, the local radio station was present for interviews of our group. It almost felt as if the whole village was participating in our tour.