Japan Diary 26: Matcha, Kimonos and Five Stars?

Kyoto · 17 October 2026 · Evening

Sometimes expectation travels ahead and reserves the best seat for itself. This evening, mine certainly did.

I had booked a private tea ceremony with kimono and calligraphy through GetYourGuide. In my imagination: Anneliese and me, a private setting, a geisha and a graceful encounter with Japanese tradition. That was the picture in my head—not a claim that the booking had promised a geisha.

A class instead of the scene in my head

In reality, two young people in kimono welcomed us. They were friendly and taught us how to prepare matcha, very much in the style of a small class. We could put on kimonos ourselves and then practise a little calligraphy.

That morning I had smiled affectionately at tourists wearing kimonos—a little like our northern German visitors in Bavarian lederhosen. By evening, dressing up was on our own programme. Travel has a way with small punchlines.

150 euros for roughly an hour and a half. Friendly people, matcha, kimono and a brush: all of that was there. It simply was not the experience I had imagined. In my mind, a hands-on class and a ceremonial occasion are two different things.

Five stars to order?

The ending felt uncomfortable to me: I felt pressured to leave a five-star review. I would have preferred to make up my own mind. The people were likeable; I was still disappointed by the evening. Both things can be true.

So this Kyoto day ends with a small lesson that was not on the course programme: expectations travel in our luggage, too. Sometimes we need to unpack them to understand why what happened feels so different from what we had hoped for.

Our names in Japanese—and another side of the evening

An update with our photographs and clips from 17 October.

There is another side to add to my first impression of the evening: Anneliese and I sat in a 150-year-old wooden house, both wearing kimono, and learned a great deal. Preparing matcha, joining in ourselves, then practising calligraphy—it certainly was not dull.

And then there were our names on the paper, in Japanese. Written by our own hands! We were proud of that. Between the kimono, the tea bowl and the brush, there was something to take away after all—and I do not just mean the sheets of calligraphy.

There was no geisha, but there was plenty to learn. That belongs to this evening just as much as my initially disappointed expectation. Our photographs can tell the other half of the story.