As informed on our website, with a great pleasure we are restarting our tours in Tokyo. We have been looking forward to this moment for two and a half years. While COVID-19 hasn’t fully calmed down yet, we would like to resume our tours by practicing preventive measures against the coronavirus. Three tours are planned on September 24 and 25: the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace on September 24, Asakusa and Ueno Park on September 25. The tour to Meiji Shrine and Harajuku will follow shortly. Please read the terms and conditions and book your tour from the calendar on our website. The Ueno Park tour is scheduled on September 25 at 1:30 p.m. Duration will be about two hours. The meeting point is right in front of the Park Exit of the JR Ueno Station. The Park is located in central Tokyo and was the site of the Kaneiji Temple, the family temple of the ruling Tokugawa dynasty during the 265-year Edo period. When the civil war took place at what is now Ueno Park in the late 1800s, most of the temple grounds were burned to ashes. After the civil war, the park was established as one […]
Thank you for joining our Tokyo Free Walking Tour in Asakusa and Ueno. On that day, February 23, we welcomed 18 guests on our walking tour. These people came from different corners of the world, including Australia, Canada India, Spain and U.K. Amazingly, Ume, or plum trees have started blooming in Tokyo. Ume, or Japanese Apricot trees, are flower-bearing trees in Japan that bloom nationwide from late February until the end of March. The blossoming period of Ume trees serves as a precursor of the sakura season, which normally start blooming in late March through the middle of April. In Japan, this flowering transition are associated with the relic like ” Ume wa saitaka sakuraｗa madakina“. It roughly means “Ume now in full bloom, but Sakura not yet”. Under this seasonal atmosphere, in Asakusa, we met fourteen people at Kaminarimon Gate and started our 90-minute tour. Going by the name as Thunder Gate, or Kaminarimon Gate, this Buddhist gate have been an instrument in symbolizing Asakusa. Actually, the image is used on the cover of Japanese guidebook or souvenir’s package designs. Built in 10 centuries, this religious building accompanying with two statues, A God of Thunder and A God of […]
Thank you for choosing our tours at Asakusa & Ueno on 26th Jan. 2020. We welcomed 9 guests from UK, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and Brazil. I hope all of you enjoyed our tour and shared with us an interesting conversation of history and culture for a few hours. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached. Your feedback is important and helpful to us. If you enjoyed our tour, could you consider reviewing our tours? We would appreciate to see your comment about our tours on our Facebook/TripAdvisor etc. Once again, thank you for choosing Tokyo Free Walking Tour during your precious time in Tokyo. In case you happen to be back in Tokyo please try another one of our tours. https://tfwt.jp/
Many thanks to 6 guests who joined today’s tours in Asakusa and Ueno Park. In the morning, we welcomed 5 guests from USA, South Africa, Hong Kong and South Korea at Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, and then in the afternoon we welcomed 1 guest from USA in Ueno Park. That day was actually the first tour day of the sites in 2020. So Happy New Year for the guests! It was cloudy, and sometimes slightly rainy and cold in the afternoon. But we could enjoy the tours and the atmosphere was very cheerful since it was in still a new year holiday mood so the places we walked on were crowded with people enjoying some festivities. We usually tell guests impressive stories about the tour sites and hope the stories inspire their life. In Ueno Park tour, when we pass National Museum of Science and Nature. We talk about the legendary dogs exhibited there. One of the dogs is HACHI, whose specie is Akitainu. Hachi was taken care by a man named Ueno in Tokyo, 1920’s. When Ueno used the Shibuya Station for the commute, Hachi went along with him and when he came back home, Hachi waited for the […]
Thank you for choosing our tours at Asakusa and Ueno Park in Tokyo on December 22. We welcomed 16 visitors from UK, Canada, America, Singapore, India, Australia and New Zealand. It was cloudy and cold. Nevertheless, I hope all of you enjoyed our tours and shared with us an interesting conversation of history and culture for a few hours. As promised, the group photos and snapshots are herewith attached. Your feedback is important to us. If you enjoyed our tour, could you consider reviewing our tours? We would appreciate to see your comment about our tours on google/facebook/tripAdvisor etc. If you’ve already done it, that’s great. Once again, thank you so much for joining us on our tours and I hope to see you again in another one of our tours should you come back to Tokyo. BEST WISHES IN THE NEW YEAR! Yoshi
Thank you so much for joining the tours in Asakusa and Ueno Park on Dec 8. We welcomed 5 guests from Malaysia, Australia and Israel. This day was a day of refreshing and fresh air like this season in Japan. We really appreciate all guest for sharing precious time and inspiring us with interesting communications each other. I hope they enjoyed out tour as we did very much. December 8th is a day of Celebration of Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, so called “Jodo-e” in Japanese. There was a special Buddhism service in Sensoji Temple. The picture of Buddha under the linden tree was put inside the main building of the temple. The season is moving into winter in Japan. Nakamise shipping street in Asakusa has already started to prepare Year End and New Year. In Ueno Park, Nishikigoi (Colored Carp) Fair and Auction was held as usual. Please come and find Japanese winter with us. For more information about our tour, please visit our Asakusa tour, Ueno tour, Facebook, and TripAdvisor page! (Posted by Toyo)
Thank you so much for choosing our tours in Asakusa and Ueno Park on November 24. We had 26 visitors from Sweden, UK, Ireland, Italy, Canada, America, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. I hope you enjoyed walking with us and particularly appreciate the fact that some of you consecutively joined our tours for two days. You might have seen a big gate in front of the Sensoji Temple Main Hall. Hozomon Gate is larger and more spectacular than the famous Kaminarimon Gate at the entrance. The upper level houses the complete Buddhist scriptures and on the lower level a pair of wooden statues of guardian deities of Buddha opening and closing each mouth symbolizes the beginning and end of all things in Buddhism. On the back of the gate is a pair of ‘waraji’, massive sandals made of rice straw ropes. As waraji reflects the power of the guardian deities in front, evils quickly run away knowing that the wearer of the sandals protects the temple. I really appreciate your participation in our tours and hopefully look forward to seeing you at another one of our tours in case you come back to Tokyo. . (posted by Yoshi)
We Tokyo-Free-Walking-Tour welcomed cumulative total number of 17 guests from UK(6), Canada(2), Spain(2), Argentine(2), Singapore(2), Columbia(1), Germany(1) and India(1) to Asakusa morning / afternoon tour & Ueno Park tour held on Nov. 10th Sunday. We appreciate a lot for all of the guests joining our tours and would like to express special thanks to the guests who joined plural tours of us. And also, we hope everyone enjoyed our tours! The day was full of bright sunlight and comfortable temperature. It was lucky for us that we could encounter some family with boys and girls wearing cute “Kimono” in Asakusa area. Middle of November is the timing of “Shichi-go-san” which celebrate the growth of children. Boys aged five and girls aged three and seven are the ages celebrating “Shichi-go-san” or “Seven-Five-Three” ceremony. Especially, the day was the very best day to hold celebration called “Tai-an-kichi-jitsu”,which is one of the six special days in the Japanese lunisolar calendar, very auspicious day for all types of occasions. There is an additional heart warming topic I really want to mention when talking about this day. That is, the parade of newly enthroned Emperor and Empress starting from […]
Tokyo Free Walking Tour appreciate your participation in our tours in Asakusa and Ueno Park on October 27. 25 guests kindly joined from Lithuania, Ireland, Israel, Canada, America, Columbia, Argentina, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia and Pakistan. Weather was perfect conditions in the light of deepening autumn. We saw a number of the rugby fans and beautiful chrysanthemum display at Asakusa Sensoji Temple and the breathtaking performing arts at Ueno Park. I hope all of you enjoyed walking with us. Shitamachi( literally downtown) Museum is located on the shores of Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park and dedicated to the traditional culture of the old environments and buildings. The museum reproduces the lifestyle of the common people in Tokyo in the Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods in 1900s. This museum was established about 40 years ago to pass down the culture of the good old days to the next generations. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and WWⅡ devastated many towns in Tokyo and changed behavior of the people. However, postwar reconstruction process brought modernization and growth. On the other hand, good old culture of the town disappeared as time passed. 1st Floor re-creates the townscape in the 1910s to 1920s. The large […]
We were delighted to welcome 35 guests from Bangladesh, Indonesia, USA, Pakistan, Germany and Australia in 3 tours of that day. 30 guests in Asakusa AM and PM tours and 5 guests in Ueno Park tour. The weather of the day was very fine in the morning but it started to rain in the afternoon. Usually Sunday tours get fewer number of guests than this. This time is different due to Rugby World Cup Japan. Asakusa AM and PM tours Ueno Park Tour Japan hosts Rugby World Cup this autumn and will host Olympics next year. More than a century ago no one could imagine how Japan would become so international that it would host such big international events . The man who was the model of the statue in Ueno Park which is the last spot of the tour, could not, either. That is the statue of SAIGO Takamori, who was a samurai in Satsuma domain (currently Kagoshima prefecture) and later became a military official in late 19th century. SAIGO was a model character for a samurai named Katsumoto in Hollywood film”The Last Samurai” (2003) in which Tom Cruise starred. As depicted in the film he was regarded as once contributor […]
