My Partner and I are planning on travelling japan in 2023 at end of March/ beggining of April for 3 weeks. I will be putting on a rough itinary closer to the time for some advice.
I have always wanted to partake in a tea ceremony (possibly with dinner) to meet a Geisha/Maiko.
I tried looking back on here to see if many people have done it and I couldn’t seem to find anything.
Just curious if anyone could give me tips or previous experiences how to go about it ? Etc.
Found this website but wasn’t sure how legit it is and if they are true/proper Geishas/Maiko.
[Tea Ceremony ] (https://mai-ko.com/)
I am quite aware that it is expensive so we don’t particularly have a budget for this experience as for me it will be once in a lifetime experience.
11 comments
As far as i know, usually, a Tea ceremony and a dinner with a Geiko/Maiko is 2 different experiences.
Tea ceremony usually takes around 4 hours and is strict as you cant really interact with the hostess as you like.
The dinner with a Geisha usually starts from half an hour and you can enjoy her dance/sing/play instruments and chat/play with you.
I believe that, if it exists, tea ceremony with a Geisha is very expensive and pointless (as you cant really enjoy her performances)
As an alternative, since you will be visiting in spring, it might be worth looking at the spring dances (odori), e.g. the Miyako Odori ? They are performed by legit maiko and geiko, and depending on how good your seats are you can get pretty close. Often you can pay a small additional fee to have a “tea ceremony” where one of the maiko usually will prepare some tea in front of you (again depending on where you are sat, it can be quite close).
The only caveat is that due to coronavirus, they were not offering the tea ceremonies last year and it may be the same this year. You also don’t get to meet the performers, however if you hang around the theatre for a while before it starts you can sometimes catch a glimpse of them arriving.
It’s a much more affordable option to have some sort of experience with true geisha and the dances are usually very enjoyable too.
Just looking at photos on TripAdvisor, they are legit maiko and geiko! They look to be from the small Gion Higashi district, although there are only a few photos so I don’t know if they have contacts with only that district or others, as well.
Have you looked at the Nezu museum? It has a small venue where you can participate in a Tea ceremony. On top of that, the place is incredible.
https://www.nezu-muse.or.jp/sp/
We used a travel agent. We had guides on 3 separate occasions ( Tokyo, Kyoto, and a dinner experience with a helped find and book the tea ceremony and a dinner with Geisha). Getting a local’s perspective was incredible. I would have never heard about the school system and how culture is changing in Japan, otherwise.
The tea ceremony was cool. Mellow and beautiful to experience. But it was just my husband and I with the person demonstrating the tea ceremony. so I don’t know I guess I was expecting more but it was great still. The tea was fantastic.
The Dinner was amazing!! Definitely once of the highlights. It was super cool too bc we had a guide ( for this experience the travel agent joined us) so not only did we get the perspective of a local/international transplant. She also interpreted for us. So we had a really lovey discussion throughout dinner. Our travel agent/guide helped us by suggesting topics like the process of becoming a Geisha and it’s training, makeup/traditional clothes and suggested we move on to more substantive topics which then led to leaning how society, her family, and her own expectations played a role in her decision to dedicate her life to this art form. She even did a performance. It was marvelous! She was so kind and admired our relationship. Since we were on our honeymoon we shared with her some of our love energy with her which she appreciated. It was so cool to really talk to her about her craft and skills and the misconceptions the position of Geisha comes with specifically from tourists. They were both lovely people to spend time and share a meal with. 10/10 would do it again.
I recommend at at least checkin out potential travel agents/tour companies. The one we used was legit and we had legit experiences to all the places we wanted to visit but also a lot of lesser know tips and suggestions; especially with the value/cost of things. Like suggesting we shave on the hotel in Tokyo but then splurged big time when we stayed the best ryokan when we went to mt. Fuji. Obviously, everything cost money but it was well spent since we don’t speak Japanese other than phrase book sentences and we felt more comfortable after they explained how to best get around.
My husband and I booked a dinner with a Geisha/Maiko in March of 2020 and it was amazing! It was honestly one of the best things we did in Kyoto. We booked through their website Enchanted Time with Maiko and it was a sit down (on the floor) dinner with 5-6 courses and the Maiko was there doing her dances and playing drinking games with everyone and then each table had a one on one meeting with her and a translator and we could ask her whatever questions we had. She was really charming and she had such a beautiful voice even though I had no idea what she was saying. We would do it again in a heartbeat. I think it cost around $200 each.
I have a Kyoto local that works as a professional guide here that can set this up for you if you are not wanting to use the website you linked. That said I know the person that runs the website you linked and they are legitimate as well.
I booked my experience through the Concierge at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Tokyo. A full kaiseki dinner, a shamisen player, and one Geisha. Three hours long. You will pay well into four figures. Do a search on the various Concierge offerings at the Mandarin Oriental. Good luck.
Not in Kytoto but in Naritasando temple not far from Narita airport. – as of this writing this current tour is suspended by the airport due to the pandemic but the tea house may still be operational in the temple and the other one in Sankei-tei Park (another tour location)
I had a long layover over 20 hours and had to stay overnight in a capsule hotel till my flight at 5PM the next day. The Narita airport actually offered then a free tour w/ guide to the nearby temple along with other locations. I chose the temple tour which I have done 2x since TBH all the stuff you can do at the temple is more than 2 hours (FYI u can do this also solo.
Part of the program I did was either the sutra writing- which would have taken longer but I opted for the tea ceremony which took me 20 minutes since it was an educational program built for tourist. There were 6 of us in a room in a Machiai-chaya (teahouse) building and in a tatami room. 2 ladies dressed in Kimonos but not necessary maikos were our instructors…in fact I was also dressed in full kimono gear as part of the tour – 12$ at a local kimono rental shop .
It was really a quick tea ceremony tour, we were shown how to sit in the tatami room, the types of dessert served, observed the ‘okami’ did the whisk brush for matcha and it is served to us while we did the traditional bow followed complimentary sweets called wagashi.
After that there was a photo op with the tea ceremony team. After that i did the rest of my tour and some souvenir shopping- all in all the whole thing was around 3 hours ish and I had time to spare to shower and hop in to my flight.
I have I video of how me and my friends did it so Ill DM you how it looked
Geisha/Maiko and Tea Ceremonies are two different things. Geisha/Maiko are for booze and Teas are done by tea masters.
1) The Geisha/Maiko experiences are to have dinner and drinks with them. It usually takes many hours into the late hours and not really for kids.
2) Tea Ceremony is something you experience as well, but real matcha used in ceremonies is bitter and kids won’t enjoy it.
If you just want to experience and see something from the classic periods with children, I recommend you to check Toei Studio Park in Kyoto, which is an actual movie studio that offers theme-park-like entertainment. You can rent kimono for kids and yourself to walk around, and watch samurai shows on streets similar to gunman shows in American ghost towns. Or maybe take an extra day trip to go to the Iga Castle, where you can see Ninja kinds of stuff. Plenty of Matcha related offerings around the regions.
[https://www.toei-eigamura.com/global/en/](https://www.toei-eigamura.com/global/en/)
[https://www.iganinja.jp/?page_id=837](https://www.iganinja.jp/?page_id=837)
[https://www.byfood.com/blog/kyoto/best-kyoto-tea-ceremony](https://www.byfood.com/blog/kyoto/best-kyoto-tea-ceremony)
I personally know Maikoya and it is the only place in Kyoto that provides geisha tea ceremony services everyday in an ancient Kyoto townhouse. The venue is a few minute walk from Nishiki Market, Samurai & Ninja Museum, Kamo River, Pontocho.