In the fall of 2016, I, and ten other woman, traveled from Los Angeles to Fujino, a suburb outside of Tokyo to study indigo textiles with Bryan Whitehead. Most of our two weeks was spent seeing Japan through the textile arts. Days were spent waking up, coming down for our morning craft or history lesson, enjoying a communal lunch and then trying a new technique. We pleated and folded, twisting old fabrics around ropes and cutting stencils from handmade mulberry paper. We studied the art of Japanese Stencils Katazome under the watchful eye of a third generation Kimono master. By making rather than just touring, we learned to see the real Japan.