2011 Temari Tour to Japan
Glenna Kipp is organizing a trip to Japan where temari will be the main area of interest. To get on the list of interested participants, please fill out the following form. It will be sent directly to Glenna.
Here is the latest tour news from Glenna:
2.16.09 - My contact with the travel company is on a tour right now. But I can not wait any longer to make contact with all of you. My curiosity is killing me to get started ! So, here goes!
In the most recent Westways magazine put out by AAA there was an article about “escorted” tours. I had never heard the term, but it sounded like just what the doctor ordered.
I have been talking to people since the 2007 NY Stitch-In about the possibility of taking a group tour to Japan. Most everyone I spoke with was concerned about the language challenge. According to the AAA article “escorted” tours have an interpreter assigned to the group. It is usually someone who lives in the area to be toured and who has experience in the theme of the tour.
On January 3rd I was doing a temari demonstration and one of the ladies who stopped at my table asked if I had ever been to Japan. In our discussion I mentioned the AAA article. She volunteered that she had been on several “escorted” tours including a couple to Japan. Diane emailed me the company information and I made the contact.
Barbara with Traveling Together and I had a nice phone conversation and follow up email. She had never heard of temari, so I suggested that she visit the Temari Kai and Japanese Temari websites. She was amazed.
Because temari is a new theme for Traveling Together Barbara is concerned about how to advertise this tour. Temari has no regular publications to help spread the word. If we can all talk it up on the groups and among our fellow stitchers, we may generate enough interest to fill the tour. Those of you who teach temari might present the idea to your students. This tour is NOT limited to members of any online group. Barbara has not given me minimum numbers yet, but I’m guessing that we need at least 15 people to make this a go. That’s one van load.
After talking with Barbara and Diane and looking through the Traveling Together website, they are not kidding that everything in the tour package is included except lunch, air fare, and shopping. If you have questions, please ask. If you are curious, so is someone else. I’ll gather all of your questions, send them on to Barbara and get back to you.
My original thought was to aim for attendance of the JTA Annual Meeting on the last Sunday in June. It would be very cool for any tour members who passed exams that year to receive their certificate in person! I have been told that the JTA museum is very small and that we might overwhelm it. My reaction was that we are members as well. If JTA knows well in advance of our plans, there is probably a way to accommodate everyone. So, at this point I am not going to worry about it.
At this point in time I have not contacted JTA about a possible tour. I thought I would hold off on that until we are farther along in the process and have actually confirmed a tour. However, I did contact Ai (my sensei through the JTA exams) to ask if she thought I should make a contact now with JTA. I will do so if she thinks that is more appropriate.
Ai suggested that there are temari festivals at different times during the year which we might wish to attend. That might be an alternative to the June target date. As I get more information I will share it.
I have also asked Ai to suggest any other places to visit or activities that we should consider. I referred her to the Traveling Together (TT) website to look at the information on the quilt tour to Japan. That way she will see the tourist activities TT is already promoting.
If you have any specific places or activities to suggest to Barbara, please give her information like dates, location, contact information, etc. The more details we can provide to her, the less costly the research to pull the tour together.
Because of the difficulty with ground transportation in Japan Barbara suggested a group of 15-22 people. She said tour buses are a real problem. Many of the streets are narrow and crowded, so small vehicles are the way to go. Long distances will be covered by train. And yes, I think the bullet train is one of the possibilities.
Barbara also explained that the accommodations are usually 4 Star or very budget and not much in between. She prefers the former so that there are no nasty surprises. In the Japan Quilt tour there is one night in a traditional Japanese inn with shared group rooms. Be sure to read about that on the TT website and make your preferences known.
Each person is responsible for their own airline reservations to and from Japan. Barbara will give us airport information and target dates.