My CIP this semester was attending a crochet/knitting workshop at Yokoso Cafe. Once a week, I meet with a bunch of other women, and we’d work on our own individual projects with the guidance of a teacher.

It was an absolutely phenomenal experience; all the other women were so kind and warm and eager to talk to me. I definitely believe that my discussion and conversation skills improved, and I’m very grateful that they were so open to help me out or teach me new things in Japanese.

My main advice would be have in mind what you want to accomplish during you CIP and try to choose an activity where you can accomplish that. This semester I wanted to practice my speaking skills, so by choosing an activity where I’d be able to practice it a lot, it definitely felt more rewarding in the end.

For my CIP activity, I participated in a crochet workshop at a local yarn store called ‘Itokobako’ and created this horse amigurumi. You would bring your own project and the staff members would help you with it; there were all sorts of different projects such as knitting, weaving, sewing, etc.

I had a really great time at my CIP, and while it was a little intimidating to talk to some of the other participants as they tended to be older women, I had a lot of fun conversations with them. I also learned a lot of vocab for knitting/crochet and got some practice reading the patterns (and figuring out which kanji meant what), so it was a very enriching experience.

For choosing a CIP, like many others have said, I’d suggest focusing on things you’re interested in, because it was fun for me to learn crochet terms as it’s my hobby, but someone uninterested in the subject probably wouldn’t care, so it’ll be much more enjoyable and fulfilling to pursue your interest. Additionally, I think it’s worthwhile to think about the types of people that are going to be at your CIP, so taking mine for example, I know it’s easier for some people to talk to other college students (there’s just more topics to talk about), so keep that in mind when picking a place.