CET Japan: My Top 5 Excursions & Escapes (So Far!)

Written by Ilana Goldman (William and Mary), Student Correspondent for CET Japan, Summer 2025

CET certainly doesn’t mess around when it comes to the workload, but they also graciously keep us sane with numerous field trips and cultural opportunities. You may at times feel swamped with homework and quizzes and the like, yet find comfort in the promise of a rescue cat café visit, a day interacting with the local high school students, or a tour of historic Osaka led by the program director. CET Japan offers many such experiences, and below is my not-yet-exhaustive list of the top five thus far.

5. Lunch at the Umeda Sky Building

Rather than another delicious convenience store lunch, our teacher took us to the Umeda Sky Building in Shin Umeda City. Here, we split off into groups based on meal preferences and met back up afterwards to make wishes on colorful slips of paper for Tanabata, a Japanese summer festival.

People walking under the many tanabata decorations hanging up in the Umeda Sky Building in Japan — Just a small snapshot of the many tanabata decorations hanging up in the Sky Building! It was neat to be able to read some of the wishes on slips of paper left before us, and stare quizzically at the unrecognizable kanji on others.

4. Shodo Workshop

Next on the list is from one of our first field trips as a class. Our professors arranged for us to skip fourth period and head to ibaraki for a workshop on Japanese calligraphy, also known as shodo. It was even more difficult and humbling than it looked, but still a lot of fun!

Japanese characters, kanji, written on paper at a shodo workshop with black ink and paintbrushes on top of newspaper — The ink for the shodo workshop wasn’t nearly as messy as I feared, largely due to the preparation of our lesson instructors. I enjoyed trying to pick out and paint some of my favorite kanji, including “rain” and “write,” as pictured here.

3. Sado Workshop

In addition to in-class excursions, there are additionally many activities available to sign up for outside of academic time. Third from the top of my list is a sado workshop, where we learned how to receive tea and wagashi in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. We also had the chance to mix our own matcha, to the excitement of many.

A tea ceremony room with a large window of shrubs and plants — It’s hard to believe that this beautiful tea ceremony room was hidden right in the lobby of the international building where we had class every day! Miraculously, no tea was spilled in the making of this matcha.

2. Saori Weaving

Another activity taking place outside of class that I adored was a muffler/scarf weaving workshop at Saori no Mori. Here, we learned about the saori style of weaving, which emphasizes individuality and expressiveness through a free-form method originating in Japan. Our instructors encouraged us that mistakes only embodied the essence of the art itself, advice I took extremely liberally.

A group of CET Japan students wearing their creations from a saori weaving workshop while standing in front of a wall of different colored threads — A group photo of us wearing our final products! The whole process was an extremely therapeutic few hours of color and thread; absolutely would recommend.

Honorable Mention: Kyoto Day Trip

Had I not already written about this one, it would have been a top contender! You can check out my previous article about our class trip to Kyoto for an obanzai cooking experience and visit to Fushimi Inari-taisha.

1. Mt. Koya Day Trip

The undeniable favorite of the program so far is the summer day trip to Koyasan, a sacred site of Shingon Buddhism. Included on this journey were all of the professors, program students, and even our OGU roommates who wanted to attend. Of the 117 different temples gathered on its terrain, we had the opportunity to visit Kongōbu-ji, the historic head.

After our exploring, we tried shoujin ryōri, an ascetic Buddhist cuisine excluding meat, fish, dairy, eggs, and any pungent vegetables. This transitioned us into our last destination of Okunoin Cemetery. The path was lined with over 200,000 tombstones in a centuries-old cedar grove. The final sacred area felt like something out of a Miyazaki film, an illustration of Japan’s beauty absolutely teeming with quiet wonder.

Two boxes of an array of an ascetic Buddhist cuisine excluding meat, fish, dairy, eggs, and vegetables — Shoujin ryōri! While the ingredients may have been slightly flavorless, the experience itself certainly wasn’t.

The exterior of the Kongōbu-ji temple in Japan — Shoujin ryōri! While the ingredients may have been slightly flavorless, the experience itself certainly wasn’t.

Whether you’re drawn to cultural tradition, artistic expression, or just a well-earned break from the classroom grind, CET’s excursions offer something memorable for everyone. These top five (plus a little extra) only scratch the surface of what’s possible here in Japan—but they’ve already made this adventure unforgettable!