Fascinating Kyoto Experience

Kyoto was really an eye opening experience that really helped me so much to learn about myself, immerse traditional Japanese culture and follow my passion for Sadou (Japanese tea ceremony). I intended to take a two months off from my studies and wanted to experience more about Japan than just do the standard traveling and language learning. When I was looking for internship opportunities, I came across Meiji and they seem to offer me exactly what I was looking for. My focus was very broad and my primary goal was to get to know the working mentality and corporate values of Japanese companies. But at the same time I did not have the necessary skills to perform very specialized tasks. So after the initial consultation we decided together on a hotel & tourism internship. They found me a really nice traditional Ryokan where I was able to serve many different foreign customers in traditional kimono wearing and also learned about the deep meaning of Omotenashi (genuine customer service). It will be too long to describe all the memorable experiences I had but Kyoto really remains a special place in my heart and I recommend it to anybody who wants to see the “real Japan”. I feel prepared for the next steps in my career and I think it was a very valuable experience.