Thank you for your joining our tour today.We welcomed 8 guests from many foreign countries, such as CANADA, COLUMBIA, BELGIUM, MALAYSIA. Today in Tokyo the weather was moderate, so 8 guests could enjoy this walking tour. Here in the Meiji shrine seasonal special events such as 7.5.3 event, chrysanthemum show, flower arrangement show, ancient martial arts events, finished. Now in the Meiji shrine quiet atmosphere returned． By the way I want to review autumn events this year. In this autumn events I want to focus on ‘yabusame.’ I introduce you yabusame, an archery on horseback performance. This is a courageous performance. A player on horseback aims at 3 targets lined in a row by shooting the bow and arrows from a horse running at the top speed. The target is square wooden board, size is 50 cms. Targets are placed on the left hand side of running direction. “Wow! A horse is running so fast. An archer hit the target. Great! I was so impressed with the combination of the high skill between an archer and a horse.” Yabusame started in Heian period and it became popular in Kamakura period as samurai worriers’ military exercise. This culture has […]
Thanks to all the guests for walking and talking with us on 30th November! We welcomed 12 guests from US, Philippine, Israel, German, and Sweden. The Imperial East Garden area is crowed with people visiting this area to look the Daijokyu ceremonial building, but guests enjoyed walking and learned about Japanese history. In today’s report, I’d like to introduce the illumination spots of this year in Tokyo that I couldn’t answer well to the tour guest a few weeks before. (1) Shibuya Park Street to Yoyogi Keyaki Street: Motif of this illumination spot is Blue Color. The trees on the street are decorated with 600,000 blue LEDs. JR Shibuya or Harajuku station is best to come. (2) Ebisu Garden Place: Main object of this spot is the Baccarat Chandelier illumination, which height is 5m and width is 3m. JR Ebisu station is best. (3) Roppongi Mid Town: Theme of this spot is Cosmic Space. Wide lawn area beside the Roppongi Mid Town building is decorated with illumination. Roppongi Metro station is best. (4) Marunouchi Naka Street : Trees beside the Naka Street are decorated with “Champagne Gold Color” LEDs. This was my answer to the guest, because this illumination spot […]
Many thanks to 3 guests joining our weekday tour. It was a cold and drizzling day, but 2 guests from Germany and 1 from Canada came to Tokyo Station. Thank you so much. We enjoyed walking and talking during the 2-hour tour. My daughter, who is also one of the guides in Tokyo Free Walking Tour, has started working in the southeast of Osaka. She lives near Horyu-ji Temple, the very first World Heritage in Japan registered in 1993. My daughter and I visited the temple last week and were strongly impressed by the solemnity of the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world. I go to see my daughter at least once a month, do cleaning and cooking for her, and chat with her, which make myself soothed. However, visiting Osaka once a month has affected my family budgets! Then, last week, I tried a highway bus from Tokyo to Osaka. There are various types of buses, and what I chose was this: Only three lines of seats in one coach – each seat is independent with its own plug for electric equipment, and curtains protect one’s privacy. It takes 7 hours from Tokyo to Osaka, but […]
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)
Thank you for joining our tour visiting the East Garden of the Imperial Palace on November 23rd. We welcomed as many as 15 people from U.S.A., Malaysia, Spain, UK, and Canada. Being a little bit late, leaves of Tokyo area begin to color to yellow and red. Although we had rain which is rare in this season, scenery of these colored trees matches modern buildings and remains of old Edo castle (stone wall and moat etc) very well. The circumference of Edo castle is said to be 6 kilometers and all surrounded by stone walls and moats, and these remains of the huge castle can be seen in many places near Imperial Palace. We could enjoy these harmonized scenery from the beginning to the end of our tour. Every time it is a great pleasure for us to welcome foreign guests, and guide this tour. We were very happy having been with our guests. With Tokyo Olimpic games 2020 in next year, all Japanese country are making strong efforts to welcome foreign guests. We appreciate again, and hope all of our guests will have wonderful memories. (posted by Shino.) For more information about our tour, please visit our […]
Many many thanks to our guests joining our weekday tour this day. It was a chilly, windy morning but we were so delighted to welcome 10 guests from U.S.A, U.K, Germany, Ireland, Holland and Australia. We could explore the East Garden with newly dressy autumn colored trees in bright yellow. slighty red, and time just flew with a lot of talks with our amazing guests. I guess this day was the last day we could enjoy the garden in a “peaceful atmosphere”for a while…since from the next day(Nov.21-Dec.8), the “Daijyo-kyu” located on the upper area of the East Garden was to be opened to the public and lots and lots of people may be visiting the East Garden for 18 days. If you would like to know more about this Daijyo-Sai, or if you are to go to see this special building at the East Garden of the Imperial House, I recommend you to go to the exhibition held at Kokugakuin-University Museum in Shibuya. The name of the special exhibition is exactly “Daijosai”and is open till Dec.15. They try to offer Japanese/English explanation for this special exhibition which may help you to understand a liitle bit more about this top […]
On behalf of our guides I just wanted to send a quick report to say thank you for coming along to our tour to Meiji Shrine and Harajuku on November 17. We welcomed 13 people from America, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland, Israel and Australia. I hope all of you enjoyed yourselves in the absolutely wonderful weather. We were fascinated by the cute children in pretty dresses of Shichi-Go-San celebration at the ages of three-and seven-year-old girls and five-year-old boys. The display of the beautiful chrysanthemum flowers was to celebrate the autumn festival of the shrine.Those flowers were dedicaded by the chrysanthemum groups. Luckily, we could see the processions of wedding ceremonies. Now it’s the peak of the wedding season and 17 couples got married at Meiji Shrine on that day. A new couple married every half an hour! I really appreciate everyone who joined our tour and shared with us an interesting conversation. Please tell your family and friends about us and if you come back to Tokyo, by any chance, come to another one of our tours! Once again thank you very much. (Posted by Yoshi)
Thank you for joining our tour of The East Garden of the Imperial Palace on Nov.16th. We had 24 guests. They were from Argentine (1), Australia (2), Brazil (2), Colombia (3), Indonesia (1), Philippine (1), Singapore (3), Taiwan (2) and U.S.A. (10) . It was a sunny and warm day. Our guests enjoyed walking and taking pictures of historic sites in the autumnal garden. From Nov.14th evening to 15th dawn, the Great Thanksgiving festival called “Daijo-sai” was taken place at the Honmaru site in The East Garden of the Imperial Palace. This was a ritual of the first offering of rice by the newly-enthrone Emperor. The ceremony is performed once in his reign based on the traditional form of the imperial family since late 7th century. The ritual was exclusively performed by the Emperor with few maidens at the newly built shrine in the garden. The Emperor offered rice and foods to his ancestors, and also prayed for the peace of the nation and thanked Gods for the rich harvest. The Imperial Household Agency is announcing that this shrine will be opened to the public from Nov.21st to Dec. 8th . Why not coming to The East Garden of the […]
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 […]
Thank you for joining our tour to the East garden of the Imperial Palace on Nov 9th. The weather was just perfect for a walking tour with typical fall blue sky and clean air in Japan, 17℃/63℉, no wind. We welcomed 27 guests from Argentina, Luxembourg, Lithuania, U.K., Columbia, Germany, Singapore, U.S.A., Netherlands and Romania. The tour was run by 3 groups with a few guides. This day, our tour course was forced a bit irregular because of National Festival to celebrate the throne of the new Emperor in addition to the fact that a part of The East Garden of the Imperial Palace was as banned in preparation for Grand Ceremony by new Emperor on Nov 14th and 15th. Even so, we had a lot of conversations with our guests while visiting the historical buildings of modern Japan and the ruins of Edo Castle, watching the deeper autumn gardens and flowers. One guest found a cherry blossom blooming at this season and told us. I believe all our guests enjoyed the tour, too. There is Wadakura Bridge over a mort in the middle of our tour. The east side of the moat on the south side from this bridge […]
