Tokyo Things To Do
Cooking course, language lessons and culinary internship in Japan If you are a fan of Japanese cuisine and want to get to know it first hand and in depth, this program is just right for you! You will spend the first month in Tokyo, taking part in a cooking course and in Japanese language lessons. You can decide whether you prefer to stay with a Japanese host family or, more affordably and independently, in a sharehouse (self-catering). The basic Japanese language skills that you acquire through the participation in the language course is required for the second part of your stay in Japan - the restaurant internship on rural Sado Island. You will then spend the second and third month on Sado Island on the west coast of central Japan in Niigata Prefecture. Sado is a picturesque island with a strong local culture and is also particularly known for local seafood specialties (shrimp, crabs, squid, fish, oysters, abaolone and turban shellfish) as well as seaweed such as wakame, mozuku and iwanori, shiitake mushrooms, traditionally grown rice and persimmons. Sado has several producers of sake, igoneri (seaweed jelly), meat products and other local specialties. Many domestic Japanese tourists travel to Sado for culinary experiences. You will do an internship in a typical Japanese restaurant that specializes in yakitori, ramen, sushi, gyoza or other Japanese or local specialities. There are also two culinary day visits included in the program. You will live in an apartment or in a temple's guesthouse, depending on the location of your internship restaurant. START DATES 2024: November 1 and November 29 2025: January 3, January 31, March 1, March 29, May 2, May 30, June 27, August 1, August 29, October 3, October 31 and November 28 BOOK NOW! ITINERARY Day 1 - 3 Arrival in Japan, accompanied pick-up from Narita or Haneda airport by public transport and escort to your accommodation (you can choose between a Japanese host family including breakfast and dinner, accommodation in a single room) or a sharehouse (accommodation in a 4-8-share dorm room together with other foreign interns). Saturday and Sunday at leisure. Day 4 - 28 Monday to Friday you will join our intensive language lessons from 9:10 to 12:40 (a total of 20 lessons x 50 minutes/week). You can join the course as a beginner, but also at other levels if you already know some Japanese. You need to do a proficiency test if you want to start the course at a higher level than beginner (available up to upper intermediate). Additionally, you will get 2x45 minutes of lessons per week in "Culinary Japanese", including cuisine-related vocabulary and useful expressions for your internship at a Japanese restaurant kitchen. The cooking classes are held 8 times. The English-speaking cooking teacher is a professional chef. Class 1: Japanese food basics The 5 taste concepts (sweetness, saltiness, acidity, bitterness, umami). The 5 colours: red, green, yellow, white, black The 5 methods: bake, simmer, fry, steam, raw Chopstick manners and basics of serving meals Cooking: Grilled fish, steamed egg custard, Japanese mustard spinach with sesame sauce, pork miso soup, white rice Class 2: Easy Japanese dining table setup with rice pot cooking Oyakodon, mizuna and jako salad, instant radish pickles, tofu and shiitake mushroom miso soup. Class 3: Colorful bento with five colors Fried chicken, boiled hijiki, tamagoyaki, boiled spinach, kinpira burdock root, white rice bento Class 4: The concept of "Sashisuseso" Nabe-daki rice, mackerel simmered in miso, meat and potatoes, vinegared seaweed, ginger and cucumber, miso soup Class 5: The role of seasonings in Japanese food and how to make dashi Mixed rice or sekihan, boiled in Chikuzen, horse mackerel pickled in Nanban, clear soup Class 6: Japanese sweets 1 Mizuyokan Class 7: Japanese Sweets 2 Kingyoku and Nerikiri Class 8: Other Japanese dishes Cutlet curry rice and Japanese potato salad or Dumplings and Hiyashi Chuka (Cold Ramen) Accommodation is with your host family (including breakfast and dinner during weekdays and including 3 meals on Saturday and Sunday) or in a sharehouse (shared, self-catering accommodation). The host families mostly live in Saitama, Chiba, Yokohama or in the west of Tokyo. The sharehouse is located in Koto-Ku near Kiba Station. Not included in the price: Commuter ticket for local public transport in Tokyo (between your accommodation and the language school and cooking school; approx. 6500-10,000 JPY for the entire duration). Day 29 & 30 Travel from Tokyo to Sado Island by Shinkansen bullet train and ferry (total travel time approx. 5 hours). You pay for the train and ferry costs yourself, around 14,000 JPY. We will pick you up from the Sado Ferry Terminal (Ryotsu) and drive you to your accommodation on Sado. Accommodation is chosen depending on the location of the restaurant where you would do your internship. In case of the central Sado and Ryotsu area, you will stay at a self-catering rental apartment, single room. The apartment are two-room apartments where you will share kitchen, toilet and bathroom with another participant of the program. In case of a restaurant in the Ogi area of Sado, you will stay at the guesthouse of Chokokuji Temple at a single bedroom, sharing sanitary installations and kitchen with other participants. In case your accommodation and restaurant is in the central Sado or Ryotsu area, you can reach your restaurant by walk, bus (communiting costs at your own expense) or bicycle (provided to you free of charge if needed). In case of the Ogi area, you reach your internship restaurant by bicycle (provided free of charge). Days 31 - 89 You will do your restaurant internship. You will be in the restaurant 4-5 days a week for 4-8 hours each as an assistant to the local chefs. Japanese restaurants typically only prepare one type of food, so the restaurant where you will do your internship will most likely specialize in one certain type of food only such as Yakitori, Ramen, Sushi or Gyozo. Once a month there is a full day trip (included in the price). The date will be decided depending on the availability of all internship participants. First month: Natural herbs collection in the forest and visit to/workshop in a herbal tea factory Second month: Traditional rice cultivation / harvest (depending on season) Accommodation at your apartment room or at Koninji Temple. Day 90 Transfer to the Ryotsu Ferry Port in Sado and return travel to Tokyo (at your own expense) for your outbound flight (visa validity for most nationalities is 90 days, so please make sure to book your return flight accordingly) You can do this program on a Temporary Visitor Status or Tourist Visa (or other long-term visas for Japan that you might arrange on your own). If you are unsure about possible visa options for your nationality, please consult with WORLD UNITE! before booking the program. RATES For 1 person: 3080 USD For 2 persons: 2980 USD for each Host family accommodation (for 30 days): +769 USD Do you want to join this Culinary Internship? Contact us now!
In Tokyo, you can join a 1-3 months course combining MANGA DRAWING and JAPANESE LANGUAGE LESSONS! " order_by="sortorder" order_direction="ASC" returns="included" maximum_entity_count="500"]The course is an exclusive cooperation between Mangajuku, the number one Manga School of Japan, located at Jimbocho in central Tokyo, which has brought fourth many professional manga artists, and a well-established Japanese language school. For this course, a professional manga artist joins force with a bilingual (Japanese + English) coordinator, so you can join this course without having any Japanese language skills. While studying Japanese language in the mornings (20 hours per week), you learn how to draw manga characters, to develop storylines, draw backgrounds, from analog to digital. The manga drawing classes are in the afternoons (the 4 weeks course includes a total of 5 manga lessons; 8 weeks 10 manga lessons; 12 weeks 16 manga lessons x 120 minutes). The course is available for everyone from the age of 15, both for complete beginners in drawing, as for those who are experts at drawing but would like to broaden their expertise in Japan. Also, the language lessons exist for different levels, from beginner to upper intermediate. The rates for the course (Japanese + Manga) are: 4 weeks: 162,000 Yen 8 weeks: 284,000 Yen 12 weeks: 416,000 Yen The next start dates are: January 14, April 7, July 7 and October 6, 2025 NOW BOOK THIS COURSE! Details about the course: 1. Orientation to the course and outlook of Japanese Manga Self-introduction of the participants and orientation to the course. Exercises. Drawing with a dip pen, filling in procedure, whitening out with liquid and screentones. 2. Character faces How to draw the face. Deformation theory and expressive techniques to show human feeling such as joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure. 3. Drawing the character as a whole Positioning technique of the whole character. Head and body and their proportions. Deformation and attractive poses. 4. Character design 1 Methodology of characterization through fashion, body shape and hair style. 5. Character design 2 Drawing the character in different thema of Japanese Manga. The 4 weeks course finishes here. If you continue, you will learn the following contents: 6. Character motion Practice in drawing running characters. Practice in creating the side composition, or composing from a previous composition. 7. Professional Character Design Actual hands-on experience with a professional manga artist. Lecture about the typical work of a professional manga artist. 8. How to draw the background The basic methodology of background art (clouds and skies trees and leaves, seas and waves. Shaving technique using screentone. 9. Scene allotment Basic description of the panel layout. Trial production of 1 page scene allotment based on an existing story. 10. Digital production (monochrome) Drawing Manga using "CLIP STUDIO PAINT", a piece of computer software. The 8 weeks course finishes here. If you continue, you will learn the following contents: 11. Graduation project 1- monochrome (Draft) Making a cover page of the manga in your debut as a professional manga artist. Drafting with a pencil. 12. Graduation project 2 (Pen lining) Making a cover page of the manga in your debut as a professional manga artist. Pen lining, putting in title (in case of handwritten) 13. Graduation project 3(Digital color)1 Coloring of the project work by a computer. Coloring of the cover page. 14. Graduation project 3(Digital color)2 Completion of the digitally colored graduation project. 15. Field trip Observation trip regarding manga history and viewing of videos for drawing manga. 16. Final comment and graduation ceremony Review and comment on each graduation project. Presentation of the completion certificate for the course. Do you want to join this Manga Course? Contact us now!
If you want to learn how to prepare Japanese dishes such as Sushi, Tempura, Ramen, Udon, Bento, Soba, Wagashi (Desserts) or even learn the art of the Japanese tea ceremony, we recommend airKitchen, a website where local private hosts, but also restaurants with master chefs, offer cooking lesson to foreigners. The costs start usually from around 3000 JPY for a 1.5 to 2 hours course including the ingredients, but there are even cheaper listings. Lessons can however also reach 24,000 JPY or more for a 2 hours class taught by a master sushi chef. Lessons on airKitchen are listed in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sapporo and many other cities in Japan. https://airkitchen.me
Many people are into second hand clothes shopping: It's cheap, it's original, and it is often something you do not see everyone else wearing! Especially as a Working Holiday participant, you might want to spend money on travelling instead of expensive clothes, so we found a place where this is possible. Hipster of Tokyo If you like affordable clothes, then why not try out second hand shopping? In Tokyo, the neighbourhood Shimokitazawa is known for it's many second hand shops, cafés, and young hipster people. It is also known for live music and theater. So on a sunny Saturday, my roommate and I decided to find this place. The way there is very easy: A walk from the World Unite! share house to Kiba station, then 2 different trains, and we had arrived to Shimokitazawa station. Then we basically just walked out of the station, and were met by several second hand shops, good smells of sweets and coffee shops, and a great deal of people. We chose a random street, and then we started looking around. There was a mix of second hand shops and "normal" shops, cafes, restaurants, convenient stores etc. We went into different shops, and could see the originality of the clothes, and also how different it was to what is usually seen in the streets of - for example Kiba, where most people only wear black, white and grey. So far we could already tell that the place is perfect for people who like fashion! Colours, colours, and more colours We went past so many shops, and found a dress shop that we decided to check out. The amount of different colours were outstanding! I was wondering how people could possibly wear such flowered and coloured dresses, but it actually looks really good on many people here. In the streets we also saw people wearing original outfits, but most of the people walking in the streets did not look specifically hipster. After walking a lot, we decided to take a break at a crepe cafe. Everything was baby pink inside the cafe. A friendly male cashier greeted us when we came in, we ordered our chocolate crepes, and then we realised that all the customers were female. It was like a little girlie spot, with a beautiful lamp, small pretty details, and best of all - the smell of freshly made crepes. The place was so cozy and people looked to enjoy a lot. New York Joe Exchange One "Must-Visit" second hand shop is the New York Joe Exchange. We went there, and the place was packed! People were standing in line to look at all the colourful hipster clothes, and the line to the fitting room was long! Also, there was loud rap music and people seemed so excited to shop there. That is a place that no one who visits Shimokitazawa should miss! Sadly, we did not find anything we wanted to buy, but it will probably be a better idea to visit the shop on a weekday, and not on a busy Sunday. But it was nice to see, and we were happy that we went there. That was the last stop at our little day trip to Shimokitazawa, and we went home with yet another experience. About the Author Christina is 26 years old, originally Kenyan/Danish and she is currently interning for World Unite! in the Japan Tokyo Office. She is helping participants who do a Working Holiday in Japan through World Unite!, and when she is in the office she helps out with administrative work and social media marketing. Title picture: Guwashi99; creative commons.
Isabel (19) from Germany: "What I find so great about karaoke is that you don't have to be a great singer to have fun with it. You always go with friends as a group and it is particularly fun if you cannot sing, because everyone will join singing and bawling out, especially in case of songs everyone knows such as famous anime openings. It's always super fun. My favourite songs are the songs of Nishino Kana. The Karaoke shops always have some of her songs. Sometimes they also have some Western songs that you can sing in English. I also enjoy to sing Anime openings. There are plenty of Karaoke shops all over Tokyo. Just around the corner of our share house in Kiba there is a Karaoke place. In Shinjuku and Shibuya you find at least one Karaoke shop at every corner. Many of them belong to a chain of Karaoke shops. Choosing them you'll be on the safe side to have a fun time. However, there might also be cheaper non-chained places that are also good. Often you will find karaoke + a drink, or "All you can drink + karaoke", which is always the option that is most fun!" " order_by="sortorder" order_direction="ASC" returns="included" maximum_entity_count="500"]