Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms Internship

Well, it's been a while since my last update.  I finally finished my thesis project on kitchen knife safety and graduated college!  (That being said, you'll have to forgive my lackluster vocabulary in this blog post.  Living in a foreign country has taken its toll on my writing skills).

I've since had quite a change of situation.  Two months after graduation, I embarked on my second adventure in Japan!  (Curious about my first adventure?)  Shortly before graduating, I found an internship opportunity in a small tea farming town in Kyoto Prefecture where I would get to do some real design work at a Japanese company. 

---

In the last five months I've been doing a mix of a lot of different things with my time.  The internship is largely self-managed, which means I get to basically do whatever work interests me.  That includes everything from graphic design, to Japanese-English translation, to photography and beyond.  

This has been a great opportunity to improve my practical Japanese conversational and business language skills, and it's also been amazing to get to see my designs actually get printed and be put to use.  Last but not least, the internship is at a green tea company, which means I've gotten an inside view on an immensely important component of Japanese culture - tea.  After an average of five cups of green tea a day, I don't know how I'll ever go back! 

It's fascinating to start to see all the different aspects of Japanese culture come together.  What started as little tidbits of knowledge here and there about language, everyday culture, and design aesthetics are beginning to fit together in the infinite puzzle that is Japan.  

I hope to continue my journey of discovery here in the foreseeable future.