Tokyo
Well worth the time and just north of Akihabara, this was an amazing Shodo class that taught my family more than just one character. She let us make the ink we would use later to write everything with the calligraphy brush. The instructor explained the different characters used in Japanese and how one was derived from another, showing and letting us write those too. Then we got to chose a word to practice writing for the final draft on heavy duty paper. This would also include our names in Japanese, which she translated and included on the example that we followed. After many practice papers, we did the final draft, which was signed with the instructor's red stamp.
Unfortunately we were late for our appointment, but the artist understood our troubles with the train and I am very honored that she waited for us politely to arrive very late! That being said, she and her English speaking business partner were extremely informative, kind, and helped us understand everything we wanted to know.
The experience was really enjoyable. The calligrapher took really took time to explain to us the process and technique. As she could not speak English we even had a translator/guide who could walk us through the explanation. At the end, we were able to draw a character on a nice paper and the calligrapher did one calligraphy for each of us. We could ask the word we wanted.