Google Translate Helped Us Pick Persimmons

My first weekend in Kyoto took an unexpected twist. It started with a typical Saturday of city exploring Arasayama, the Kyoto Bamboo forest, and the changing fall colors (side note: I can’t believe this is my ‘typical’ weekend now). We wanted to end the day with a nice, traditional Japanese meal. Everyone in my program had been raving about the food in Kyoto and I had yet to experience a truly ‘amazing’ meal.

Daire and Matt picked the place (I’ll take no credit here), a quaint restaurant right in our neighborhood. We slipped off our shoes and walked up the bamboo stairs to be seated and greeted by the friendliest woman in a beautiful Kimono. She spoke no English and had no English menu, but instead pointed to the four items that she thought we should order. Great. We’ll take one of each!

The meal proceeded to blow each of us away. Dishes imitating art more than food poured onto our table as we shared the delicious and new flavors. Daire and Matt became those types of people that take photos of each dish, even though they reassured me this was outside their norm (okay, guys, sure…).

Our waitress continued to check on us as though we were the only ones in the restaurant (we weren’t), using her Google Translate to ask us how we were enjoying Kyoto, what brought us there, and what the remainder of our plans were for the weekend. We took her recommendation to visit her hometown – Miyama – the next day. This was a small cultural village a train ride outside of Kyoto known for its’ historic thatched roof houses. This sounded like a perfect day for us, so we began to ask her more information about the best way to get there. Through our translated conversation, Kimiko, invited us to meet her in Miyama the next day for an afternoon of exploring with her personally. We were to meet her at the bus stop in the village at 1:00pm.

We were giddy as we left the restaurant and tried to get to sleep early for our big day, still wondering if this scenario of meeting our Japanese waitress at a bus stop a couple hours outside Kyoto the following afternoon, could be realistic. But, we were about to find out!

... A bike ride to the train station, a train transfer to another station, an hour-long wait for the bus and a bus ride into town, led us on a four hour adventure to Miyama!

... Waiting for our bus ride to Miyama. When we arrived into a desolate train station with just a couple houses and saw nearly 10 people gathering outside of one, we went over to check it out. It ended up being the local hardware store hosting their seasonal sale, but also providing a food stand to customers!

...The locals shared sweet potatoes from their grill with us and we purchased homemade sushi, to enjoy on our bus stop bench.

... We made it to Miyama! Miyama was a beautiful village - an example here of the thatched roofs - and the fall colors were even more gorgeous. We spent some time walking around, soaking in autumn, drinking coffees and taking photos, before it was time to meet Kimiko.

... And as we continued to wonder whether or not this adventure would prove too good to be true, we went to the predetermined location to meet Kimiko at 1PM, and sure enough, there she was (this time without the Kimono), waiting for us with a huge smile.

... Here we are entering Kimiko's home district - Obama District, Japan (no joke!)

Kimiko was prepared with a translated message welcoming us to her Japanese district, as well as the full itinerary she had for our afternoon visit! ​

• Our first stop: The neighborhood fall festival, hosted by the elementary school that her children had attended. Everyone was so excited to meet and interact with us, three tourists that they had never seen come to their village before. We tried to catch fish with the children, which they were gathering to take home and have tempura-style for dinner. It was harder than it looked!

• Our second stop: The local art exhibit designed by a Japanese woman and a Danish man, that was temporarily on display in the neighborhood temple. The pieces that impressed me most (like this one), were made out of paper and constructed by the woman who greeted us to the exhibit.

• Our final stop: Kimiko was going to conclude the day by taking us to her house in the countryside to meet her family and pick Persimmons from the trees in their yard. None of us had picked (or eaten) a persimmon before, so we were really looking forward to this!

Kimikos husband helped teach us how to pick the persimmons off the trees, which we did successfully, after dropping just a few into the river. We each got to try our first persimmons directly off of the trees and enjoyed them! We were sent home with a bag full of them to share with our friends later in the month.

... At this point, we're still communicating simply through Google Translate as Kimiko and her family, don't speak English.

After picking all of the persimmons that we could, we went inside to warm up and enjoy some tea that Kimiko had prepared. While the tea heated, Kimiko insisted that each of us sing karaoke (individually, I must add), while we wait. Kimiko even sang her own song and beat us all - yes, these individual karaoke songs were scored.

As the day concluded and Kimiko drove us back to the train station (an hour out of her way), we continued to learn about her childhood, her family and her culture by translating our conversations.

It was such an incredible day that I may never quite find the words to describe. The immense kindness that the Japanese culture taught me will stick with me for a lifetime.

Our day with Kimiko touched our hearts so much that we had to visit her restaurant one more time, on our last night before leaving Kyoto. She and her husband remembered us well and we enjoyed a delicious persimmon dessert at the end of our meal. We plan to stay in touch with Kimiko and her family via social media - and so far have been - still using google translate to decipher each word!