This post features student writing by Anastasia A. and Evita S.

It’s our second week in Tokyo. It’s still hot and humid. With our Japanese Cuisine class we had a cooking lesson in a rented fancy kitchen of a famous Japanese actress: Mariko, a very nice and funny Japanese lady who helped us in cooking and getting all the ingredients at a local grocery shop. We had a chance to learn how to make gyoza, okonomiyaki (savory pancakes), and miso soup.

To our surprise, we did a pretty good job. Teamwork and amazing leaders made everything so much more fun and interesting.

We also learned that gyoza can be a desert, which in our case was with chocolate and bananas and served as the best dish to finish off our culinary experience.

For our afternoon activity we went to a very fancy yet traditional tearoom to taste different Japanese teas. Tea plays a significant role in Japanese culture and it was fascinating to learn about different variations of it. We had a chance to try sencha and matcha, which were all very unusual and rich in taste.

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant called Papera, which we highly recommend. It has a nice and homey atmosphere. The food there is amazing, especially the cheese naan and mango lassi. One of the reasons we went there was actually because a Japanese duo was performing. They even played a song by Michael Jackson for us.

In the evening, we went to a karaoke place, which was amazing. It was so much fun to sing our favorite songs and also discover Japanese music.

Overall, it’s been one of the best days of the program so far!

— Anastasia & Evita