Thank you for joining our tour at the Imperial Palace East Gardens on Wednesday 29th January 2020. We welcomed 8 guests from the UK, USA and Australia. I hope all of you enjoyed the tour in the warm sunshine, as it had been cold and wet for a few days earlier this week. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached. Your feedback is important and helpful to us. We would appreciate if you could post your review about our tours on our TripAdvisor or Facebook. Once again, thank you for choosing Tokyo Free Walking Tour during your precious time in Tokyo. Have you taken a taxi in Tokyo? Nihon Kotsu, one of the largest taxi companies in Tokyo, has announced that all 1,500 vehicles of the company have been replaced by new-type Toyota JPN TAXI. JPN TAXI, released by Toyota in 2017, is designed specifically for hackney carriages. Compared with conventional sedans, it has more space for passengers in the rear seats. According to a survey by Nihon Kotsu, 86% of passengers who tried JPN TAXI was satisfied with the larger cabin. Taxi drivers in Japan need a Class II (high-class) driving licence. Compared to […]
The most popular season chosen by inbound visitors was “spring”, however we are not literally talking about their favorite season here. This is the result of a Japanese Kanji character survey designed and conducted by a volunteer tourism organization in Tokyo Japan, Tokyo Free Walking Tour (hereafter TFWT). Here is the survey: Have a look at these 4 Japanese Kanji characters. “春“ ”夏“ ”秋“ ”冬“ Which of the 4 catch your attention, and why? This survey was conducted in a face to face style between October 14, 2018 and March 9, 2019 towards TFWT tour guests who were new to Japanese Kanji characters. As a result, most guests pointed out “春” (43%) as the eye-catching character, followed by “秋“(25%), “冬“(18%), and “夏” (13%). To many of foreign visitors, “春 (HARU = spring)” seemed eye-catching because, “it looks like a house” or “it is symmetrical”. Next popular Kanji character was “秋 (AKI =autumn)” as it “looks like lovers cuddling. Some chose “冬 (FUYU = winter)” because of “its clean-cut and simple shape”, while others chose “夏 (NATSU = summer)” because “of its unique shape”. Here are more interesting responses: “夏 looks like a lantern” (by a guest from Australia). “冬 looks like a fish” […]
Dreams come true. Tokyo Free Walking Tour(TFWT) won a lottery to take part in the Imperial voluntary workforce from October 23 to 26. Finally, 18 guides of us could participate in this volunteer service. This workforce is run by the Imperial Household Agency and citizen aged from 15 to 75 years old are able to apply by groups. (only by groups, not by individuals) It has a high reputation for mostly two reasons and countless groups come from all over our Japan to take part in this workforce. (1) Their Majesties the Imperor and Impress sincerely makes time to meet people as far as they are available.(Even Their Magesties are quite busy, they continue their greetings.) (2) During the workforce term, to complete the work, you may be allowed to enter some restricted area which are usually not open to public. So as other groups, TFWT eagered to take part in the volunteer. The volunteer first started at 1947 by young volunteers to help cleaning up the devastated area burnt down by World War II in 1947. Since then, Emperor Hirohito(current Emperor Akihito’s father) and his consort, Empress Koujun started meeting people and the custom been taken until today. For this […]
