Ota Sensei was my wagashi instructor. His unique ability to create works of art out of sugar and sweet beans has earned him fame nation wide, as well as the ability to spend many years traveling the world and learning about the history and diversity of sweets. To celebrate the conclusion of our semester together in Ritsumeikan's cultural exchange program, Ota Sensei invited everyone in his class to visit his home and participate in a private demonstration of Sado, or traditional Japanese tea ceremony. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my time as a student in Japan.

As soon as our regular courses ended, a few friends and I set out on bike for Karasuma Imadegawa where we quickly boarded the subway to Ohara, a small mountain suburb just outside of Kyoto. It wasn't long before we found ourselves emerging from the typical concrete dungeon subway station and into an expanse of rolling hills, miles of greenery, and gorgeous nature as far as the eye could see. Had we really traveled that far? After spending half a year in cities composed of wall-to-wall concrete, it's easy to forget that such beauty still exists just a few minutes' trainride away. We spent some time taking snapshots and waiting for the local bus that would carry us the rest of the distance to Ota Sensei's house.

Although the small winding road was barely wide enough for a car, the pro Japanese bus driver skillfully maneuvered his huge vehicle like it was nothing. As the time flew by it became obvious how far we'd actually come from civilization: on one side, wild monkeys watched curiously from thickly forested hills as we zoomed by with our camera flashes raging; on the other, wide-opened rice fields and traditional sloping thatched-roof houses uniquely identified our surroundings as Japan. By this time everyone was already satisfied with the day, but we all knew that the real experience had yet to begin.

Because we'd traveled so high into the mountains, there were no longer any specific "bus stops." We almost missed the red tarp draped over a parked car that we were told would indicate we'd arrived at our destination. But one of us managed to quickly notify the driver and he pulled over to the side of the road to let us out.

The instant we entered Sensei's property of our jaws immediately dropped. In the foreground, a traditional Japanese garden - bamboo fences, stone lanterns, giant porcelain vases, raked stone paths, all of the usual - was accompanied by a tremendous variety of flowers, many of which I'd never seen before, and a tree with leaves so fiery red that they were almost difficult to look at. Occasionally a bright green frog would hop out of the bushes and cross the stone path in front of us. To the left and to the right were the two main buildings - a traditional Japanese house, and a guest house consisting of a single large tatami-matted meeting room separated from the outside only by sliding paper shoji doors. In the background, the faint sound of a creek and chirping birds assured us that we actually were far from the city and not in some small park constructed only to create the illusion of nature. Finally, the enormous tree-covered rolling hills in the distance finished the task of completely isolating us in the small world that immediately surrounded us.

Then came Ota sensei along with his assistant, a woman fully clad in a kimono and woven straw slippers. After a brief discussion in his meeting room, the ceremony promptly began. First, the woman in the kimono led us by candlelight through the garden and to a small stone fountain where we were to wash our hands, first left then right, and our faces. We then continued to a tiny door, large enough only to crawl through, into the raised tea room. We were instructed to kneel in a circle on the tatami. Through another small opening a faint candlelight enabled us to witness an assistant in the next room preparing the tea.

This was perhaps the most amazing part of the night. Just watching how incredibly refined every single motion was, from how she poured the hot water into the bowls to how she set down the ladle, was truly astonishing. It sounds a bit odd to say, but I really can understand now how it's possible to have such grace and elegance at something as simple as pouring water into a bowl and mixing it to a cup of tea. Even the act of placing sweets on a serving tray took her nearly five minutes to complete, a perfection of harmony that would be destroyed in under five seconds once it was served.

Likewise, after the small tray of food was brought to us we were told about how everything, from the way the tray was handed over, to the positioning of the different foods on the tray, to the depth of the bow, to the direction the host must turn when leaving the guest, must be highly refined and performed flawlessly. The guests too have a specific way that they must receive each item, eat or drink it, and signal that they've finished to the attendants waiting patiently outside the sliding paper doors. The sound of the chopsticks being placed back on the tray was the signal that the snack had been finished and the tea should be brought in.

He continued to tell us about the various tools that had been used in the ceremony. The box that the sweets were brought in, he told us, was over six hundred years old, one of only two like it in the entire world. The scoop for the tea itself cost over $10,000, a very cheap product for a true tea ceremony. To me it looked like nothing more than a single painted chopstick with a slightly flattened end to pick up the bright green powder. He said that a good quality scoop would cost upwards of $60,000.

After the ceremony, we were escorted back into the main meeting room to find that a feast had been laid out for us on the huge wooden table. Out of everything there, the only thing I was able to fully recognize was edamame - but suffice to say that it was quite a feast, and a wonderful way to wrap up the day.

We sat there for about an hour telling stories and attempting to force cans of beer into our already full bellies until the taxis arrived to take us back down the mountain and into the heart of Kyoto. Just one more unique experience to add to the list of hundreds that made my year as a student in Japan one of the most memorable years of my life.