Kameoka - Destination One - Kansai Weekend Tour

Last Thursday I took off on the shink to Kyoto station, where I met up with a group of 30 other JETs from around Japan, and 10 Japanese people from the Kyoto/Osaka area. Four JETs from Kameoka (small town near Kyoto) had organised a non-profit tour of the area as a way for JETs to not only check out all there is to see and do, but also to promote friendships between local people and foreigners.
It was my first time travelling without Dan, it was fun to be out and about on my own and a fun challenge, no one to argue with about what train platform we were supposed to be on. I just had to figure it out.
The first afternoon was spent picking tomatoes in a greenhouse and making soba noodles (out of buckwheat flour). That night we stayed at a state-of-the-art ryokan (Japanese style hotel)http://www.ryokan.or.jp/index_en.html which would normally have cost 30,000 yen (roughly NZ$420, US$300). The dinner was a meal of about 20 tiny courses, all of us dressed in yukata (light robes) and drinking sake from the region. The mayor of Kameoka and other VIPs were there along with newspaper photographers. Everyone wanted a piece of the foreigner action! The highlight of course was the arrival of the geiko-san and maiko-san. Normally a geiko is known as a geisha, but we were told not to call her that as it has sex-worker connotations. A maiko-san is an apprentice geiko, between the ages of 15 to 20. Ours was 17 and was so cute, she kept smiling and breaking into giggles. I would try and describe this amazing event but my words cannot do the experience justice, I will post a photo here asap. Many Japanese have never seen a geiko performance so I was full of gratitude for this.
That night before dinner I went to not one but two onsens, the first was a very luxurious communal bathing area, and the second was a rotenburo, a small intimate outdoor mountain affair. http://www2.gol.com/users/jolsen/onsen/shikanoyu.html Needless to say that night (the sake giving a helping hand) I slept like a log. With the tour guides organising everything it felt like a real holiday, my brain was out to lunch. The cherry blossoms were out, my room was next to a beautiful mountain stream, it was my perfect Zen Japanese moment. I know I will probably never have another ryokan experience like it.