In 2017, Triffie Axworthy travelled to Japan with the help of the Traverse Trust Travel Award. During this time she went to Nabano no sato (a huge winter lights illumination in Nagashima), discovered Kabuki and went to a Noh theatre performance.

Triffie discovered Kabuki theatre, attending a performance in which the actors performed an ancient play about two men who make a pilgrimage from Edo (old Tokyo) to Ise. The costumes were traditional Japanese dress, and each man had black lines drawn from their eyes to elongate them.  She found the performance to be incredibly expressive and at times, hilarious. They also included the audience into their play too, as part of the final battle scene, they played a mini dodge-ball style game, and they encouraged them to throw ohineri (small white tissue paper tokens) during the show to demonstrate support and enjoyment.

She then went to a Noh theatre performance and visited some shrines, including Atsuta, one of the largest in Japan. That morning she was also woken up by a procession of monks from the nearby temple at Endoji. The Monk's son became a monk himself on that day so they were celebrating the occasion. Attending part of the ceremony, she watched as cold water was splashed over the young man's head as a rite of initiation into monk-hood.

“We started talking, her in fragmented English, and I in even more broken Mandarin. As usual the people surrounding us, those in the seats behind us or stood in the aisle, jostled and craned to get a look at this laowai.“