Day 1: Tokyo & Kyoto
Arrive at Narita International Airport where you’ll meet your guide and transfer to the station for the bullet train to Kyoto. Upon arrival, check into your hotel and head out for dinner. The rest of the evening is free to rest or begin exploring the city.

Day 2: Kyoto
Begin your introduction to Kyoto, former capital of Japan and longtime center of traditional arts and religious life. Explore the historic districts of Higashiyama and Gion, where temples, teahouses, family businesses, and traditional homes remain woven into the life of the city. Along the way, consider how a community decides what is worth preserving and how traditions remain meaningful when they are part of daily life rather than simply displayed for visitors. Continue to a temple or cultural site that reveals the influence of Buddhism on Japanese architecture and design before enjoying dinner and returning to your hotel.

Day 3: Kyoto
Spend the day exploring the meaning found in simple and deliberate acts. Take part in a traditional tea ceremony, where the preparation and presentation of a single bowl of tea reflect generations of practice, hospitality, and respect. Then, participate in a kintsugi-style repair workshop, where broken ceramics are restored rather than discarded. In this tradition, damage is not hidden. The repaired object may be viewed as more meaningful and more valuable because its history has become part of its appearance. Later, meet with local elders or community members to discuss the traditions they have preserved and why ordinary practices continue to matter in a rapidly changing world.

Day 4: Kyoto
Continue exploring how cultural knowledge is preserved through practice and passed between generations. Visit a traditional craft studio focused on an art such as textile dyeing, weaving, paper printing, or ceramics. Learn how materials are selected, techniques are taught, and standards are maintained over time. Then, spend time in a nearby neighborhood of workshops and small shops where students can see how handmade goods continue to shape daily life. The rest of the evening is free to spend at your leisure.

Day 5: Kyoto & Uji
Drive south to the town of Uji, where you’ll learn about one of Japan’s most treasured cultural products: green tea. Visit a plantation to see how the leaves are grown, harvested, and processed before sampling a variety of teas. This experience offers a look at how ritual, agriculture, regional identity, and daily life come together in Japanese culture. Return to Kyoto for the evening.

Day 6: Kyoto & Osaka
Travel to Osaka, a city known for its entrepreneurial spirit, urban energy, and commercial history. Upon arrival, begin exploring an area such as Namba or Shinsaibashi, where dense retail streets, signage, and daily commerce offer a very different picture of Japanese life from the one encountered in Kyoto. This is a useful transition day for considering how values are shaped not only by religion and tradition, but also by trade, convenience, and the pace of urban life. Enjoy dinner and an evening at leisure.

Day 7: Osaka
Spend the day examining how products move from design to desire to disposal. Begin with a visit related to consumer electronics, appliance manufacturing, or product development, where students can explore the pressures of constant innovation and product turnover. Continue with a meeting or site visit focused on design, branding, or consumer expectations to consider how demand is created and sustained. Then, balance those conversations with a visit connected to recycling, reuse, repair, or circular economy, offering a chance to consider what happens after convenience becomes waste.

Day 8: Osaka
Explore another side of Osaka through its market and food culture. Visit a local market to learn about the ingredients that shape everyday cooking, then take part in a hands-on preparation experience focused on foundational Japanese techniques such as dashi or other staple elements of the kitchen. The rest of the day is free to explore the city’s neighborhoods and culinary specialties.

Day 9: Osaka, Tokyo, Kawagoe
Return to Tokyo by bullet train, then continue to Kawagoe, a preserved merchant town often called “Little Edo.” Stroll through the historic warehouse district, stop by the famous Bell Tower, and explore Candy Alley’s nostalgic row of traditional sweet shops. Then, enjoy a hands-on chopstick-making workshop at a local woodworking studio. Creating an everyday object by hand offers a chance to reflect on why we are often less willing to discard something once we have invested our own effort in making it. Return to Tokyo for the evening.

Day 10: Tokyo
Begin your introduction to one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world, where convenience, infrastructure, and design shape the rhythms of everyday life. Spend time in Ginza, Tokyo’s polished luxury district, where flagship stores, refined architecture, and carefully curated retail spaces reveal how status, aspiration, and consumer desire are expressed in modern urban life. Here, students can consider how branding and presentation influence what people value and why certain goods become objects of prestige.

Continue to Omotesando, a district known for design-forward storefronts, trend-conscious shopping, and architecture that often functions as part of a brand’s identity. In contrast to Ginza’s emphasis on luxury and prestige, Omotesando highlights the role of style, image, and lifestyle marketing in shaping contemporary taste. Together, these districts offer two different perspectives on how consumer culture is constructed and how design can shape not only what people buy, but how they imagine themselves. The balance of the day is free for independent exploration.

Day 11: Tokyo
Continue exploring Tokyo through the lens of youth culture, media, retail, and rapid change. Spend time in Shibuya, where students can examine how trends spread, how identity is shaped through brands and visibility, and how quickly the “new best thing” becomes old. Then, meet with Japanese students for a conversation about how their generation experiences the pull between tradition and technology in everyday life. Together, consider how young people balance novelty and convenience with social responsibility, whether older values still shape daily choices, and what it means to participate in consumer culture without being defined by it. The evening is free to spend at your leisure.

Day 12: Tokyo
Conclude the journey with a visit to the DAWN Avatar Robot Café, where remotely operated robots create new opportunities for social participation and employment. As a final experience, this visit offers a surprising example of technology used not simply for novelty or convenience, but to expand accessibility, dignity, and human connection. Transfer to the airport for your return flight home.