Thank you for choosing our tour at East garden of imperial palace on April 22. We welcomed 17 guests from 7 countries. I hope all of you enjoyed and shared interesting conversations with us during the tour. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached to remember the fun times we had. The east garden of imperial palace is full of flowers.Next to cherry and Azealia, wisteria and rhododendron etc. are in full bloom now.Ume plum trees are already bearing fruit with flesh green color.We can enjoy seasonal nature view in such a Tokyo mid-town.How wonderful it is! For more information about our tour, please visit our web site athttps://tfwt.jp/top/east-gardens-of-the-imperial-palace/ ,https://www.facebook.com/TokyoFWTor Tokyo Free Walking Tour at https://www.tripadvisor.jp/ . Posted by Yoshi
Thank you for choosing our weekday tour at the East garden of the Imperial Palace on 19th April. We welcomed 28 guests from Argentine, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Mauritius and U.S.A. I hope all of you enjoyed and shared interesting conversations with us during the tour. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached to remember the fun times we had. We were so happy to meet the New Ambassador’s coach parade for the Ceremony of credential letters to our Emperor at the Tokyo Station. The coach is so gorgeous and beautiful. You might meet it on next weekday tour. It was getting warmer and warmer on the day of our tour. This is unusual weather not only Tokyo but all over Japan. Above all cherry flowers bloomed earlier than that of past. If you missed cherry blossoms in Japan or would come to Japan enjoying cherry blossoms from now, you should go to Hokkaido northern area of Japan. Now Hakodate is in full bloom. Hidaka haven’t bloomed yet. So, you would be in time! In addition, according to the weather forecast, it is going to have snow in Hokkaido next week, because a cold front out of the season […]
Thank you for choosing our Meiji Shrine and Harajuku tour on April 16th, 2023. We welcomed 30 guests from USA, Peru, Canada, Australia, UK, France, China, Turkey, Germany, and New Zealand. I hope all of you enjoyed and shared interesting conversations with us during the tour. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached to remember the fun times we had. It was a sunny day and really comfortable for the tour. We were lucky as it rained heavily after the tour. The cherry blossom season is over, but we are very happy to welcome many guests. The new semester for students in Japan starts in April. New employees will also start working from April. Everyone is full of hope. A public holiday called Golden Week will be from April 29th to May 7th. Many Japanese are planning to travel as concerns about COVID-19 have decreased. I hope the world economy will be revitalized again. Some guests challenged omikuji, a fortune-telling paper. Unlike most shrines, the omikuji at Meiji shrine has a waka poem written by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, along with its meaning. A waka is a short poem sung in 31 syllables. One boy wrote a wish […]
The Ueno Toshogu Shrine is one of the highlights of our tour in Ueno Park. Ieyasu Tokugawa (1543-1616), the founder and the first shogun of the 265-year-long Edo period(1603-1868), is enshrined as a god. He brought the century of the civil wars to an end and built the foundation for a peaceful country and is considered as one of the most outstanding figures in history.In the beginning of the Edo period, when Ieyasu fell into a critical condition, he called on hisclose vassals to his bedside and asked them as his last will to build a place where he could rest eternally. That was the beginning of the Ueno Toshogu Shrine. Soon after the original building was constructed, it was renovated and reconstructed on a grander scale for the Edo citizens who couldn’t easily travel to the distant Nikko Toshogu Shrine. The Ueno Toshogu Shrine is as gorgeous as the shrine in Nikko and remains intact for about 370 years. The stone gate is called the torii gate which is unique to the shrine. The gate represents the boundary between the sacred zone and the secular world. At the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, many torii gates […]
Thank you for choosing our tour at Ueno Park on April 9th!! It was really a comfortable sunny day. We welcomed 13 Guests; Canada, Ireland, Israel, Australia and Argentina. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to your joining. Especially to the parties who rushed from our “Asakusa Tour”! Groupe A Group B Group C We hope all of you enjoyed our tour in Ueno and enjoyed the time with us on the day. Please recall your memories of the tour by photos posted below. (We are very sorry that we could not provide snapshots of group C. ) Until the end of March, Ueno-Park was a popular place for cherry blossom viewing. Now, the season proceeded to the next stage; with various colors, fresh green trees dotted with late-blooming cherry blossoms and other flowers like Azalea and Peony. This was also so charming. We believe Ueno Park, celebrating150th anniversary this year, is a great place for a strolling regardless of seasons. Ueno Park is hosting many Architectures and Spots having various background stories and histories. We traced then one by one during the tour. If you came to have interests in historical events occurred at […]
Thank you for choosing our tour at Asakusa in the morning and the afternoon on April 9th. We welcomed 61 guests from USA, India, Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, Australia, Spain, Israel, Argentina and Cyprus. I hope all of you enjoyed and shared interesting conversations with us during the tour. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached to remember the fun times we had. (AM, Group A) (AM, Group B) (AM, Group C) (AM, Group D) (AM, GroupE) (PM, Group A) (PM, Group B) (PM, Group C) (PM, Group D) During our tour, we encountered the traditional sacred dance called Egret Dance. The origin of the dance is in Kyoto for more than a thousand years ago to drive away the epidemic. At Senso-ji Temple, this dance was recorded in a picture scroll in the 17th century, and was restored in 1968 based on it. This day was one of the three days in one year when the dance is performed in Asakusa. By the way, one of our guests told that she found our tour on Chat GPT. I was not familiar with Chat GPT, but I went home and asked about this Egret Dance. I was so surprised […]
Thank you for choosing our tour at East Garden of Imperial Palace on 8-Apr. We welcomed 38 guests from Italy, USA, Turkey, Switzerland, Israel, Australia, Brazil, Argentine and UK. I hope all of you enjoyed and our conversations during the tour. As promised, herewith the group photos and snapshots,to remember the fun times we shared. This year, we had warmer winter and March than usual, so I found many flowers bloomed earlier than usual, not only Sakura cherry blossoms but also others. One example is azalea (please see a thumbnail or above “Group C” photo). Usually it blooms late-April/early-May, but we can enjoy beautiful azalea flowers already. By the way, I had a chance to learn ChatGPT at a seminar in the workplace. Such artificial intelligence (AI) system has been rapidly spread among us. To hear the perfect guide, I personally think the AI tour guide might be better than the one by human, though there are some error or inappropriate quotation. However, I totally believe such AI tour guide never gives us any wonderful experience through a real communication with local people. That is one reason why we travel, don’t you think? Once again, thank you so much […]
Many thanks for joining us on our tours at Asakusa in the morning and Ueno Park in the afternoon on April 2nd, 2023. We welcomed 44 guests from USA, Singapore, Greece, Australia, India, Canada, Hongkong, Chile, Thailand and Indonesia. It was a tremendous opportunity for us to meet wonderful guests from many countries and to share interesting conversations. Also, it was really nice seeing some of you in both tours. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached so that you can remember the fun we had during the tour. Asakusa was as crowded as ever. But, our skillful guides got by easily and showed you around Asakusa thoroughly. With our guides, you won’t miss highlights even in the hestic time of year. Senso-ji temple is the oldest temple in Tokyo and Asakusa shrine is right by the side. It’s the best start to learn about Japanese religion. When you visit temples and shrines in Japan, there are certain manners to follow and we can show you how. You will be comfortable visiting temples and shrines later days in Japan. In the afternoon, Ueno park tour welcomed some guests from morning Asakusa tour and some newly joined guests. Ueno Park […]
Many thanks for joining us on our tour at the East Garden of the Imperial Palace on Apr. 1st. We welcomed 49 guests (!!) from USA, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan, Canada, Italy, Mexico and Chile with beautiful weather. It was a tremendous opportunity for us to meet wonderful people from all over the world and exchange the cultural information. We really appreciate all guest for sharing precious time and inspiring us with interesting conversations. As promised, group photos and snapshots are attached so that you can remember the fun we had during the tour. I hope you enjoyed out tour as we did very much. (Group A) (Group B) (Group C) (Group D) In Japan, many schools start the school year on April 1st. Cherry blossoms are in full bloom from the graduation ceremony in March to the entrance ceremony in April. The cherry blossoms bloom for about 10 days to 2 weeks, and the flowers soon begin to fall. We love cherry blossoms in full bloom, but at the same time, we are also sentimental about falling cherry blossoms. But this day, we enjoyed Full boom cherry blossom as well as various kinds of flowers in […]
Today’s tours were featured by a constant rain fall in the morning and afternoon. We were not greeted by Tokyo Skytree being invisible in the thick clouds. Yet we were able to host several groups of avid visitors who were eager to know more about Asakusa and Ueno Park. We were glad that nobody got lost in the umbrella jungles. Thank you for your attentiveness and patience. We’d like to say this rainy day was not very bad with a rain-soaked cherry blossom showing different beauty of transition, but we honestly hope that we’ll see you again under the fairer weather next time. Till then. I hope our guides were able to help you spend a better rainy day. Recall you memory in the photos below: For more information about our tour, please visit our website at https://tfwt.jp/top/asakusa/, https://tfwt.jp/top/ueno/, https://www.facebook.com/TokyoFWT or Tokyo Free Walking Tour at at https://www.tripadvisor.jp/.
